At the beginning of the General Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the narrator makes clear how his fellow pilgrims are to be presented: "I think it conforms to reosoun / To tell you al condicioun / Of each edge, as it seemed to me, / And what they were, and of what degree, / And in what order they were internal" (37-41). In this proclamation, the narrator blurs the distinction between observing the pilgrims' superficial appearance and evaluating their personal character, a strategy of ambiguity used throughout the portraits. The exploration of this strategy is particularly illuminating when applied to the narrator's portrait of the clerk, whose emaciated appearance appears to be emblematic of his sacrificial and academic lifestyle, but whose true character turns out to be not so noble. By combining the physical and internal aspects of the clerk, the narrator is able to convey a criticism of the clerk and the scholarship itself that is thinly disguised in what on the surface appears to be a compliment. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First, the narrator implies that the employee's chosen lifestyle of poverty is not as honorable as it may outwardly appear. The narrator writes, "But all he could of his freendes hente, / On books and learning he spent, / And bisily gan for the souls prayed / Of hem that the yaf of which scoleye" (301-4). Although sacrificing all of one's money in the pursuit of knowledge may at first seem like a perfectly honorable lifestyle, the reader will remember that it is not only the employee who is affected by his decision. During the general prologue, the characters are examined through their relationships with their animal companions, and the employee's behavior is shown to be insensitive because it results in a neglect of his horse's well-being: "As lene was his horse, as a rake is,” the portrait began (289). Furthermore, the clerk himself is described as physically suffering: "And he was not fat at all, I swear, / But he looked holwe, and so sober" (290-1). Clearly, the Chancellor's academic life is not as honorable as it might seem at first glance. The narrator also shows that the Chancellor's obsession with scholarship has even become an obstacle to the practice of scholarship itself. Midway through the portrait, the narrator observes, "But though he was a philosopher / Yit hadde he but little gold in cofre" (299-300). This statement surprises the reader a bit, especially since at this point we already know that the Chancellor is a philosophy student, and we already know that he is poor. However, the statement is worded in a way that forces the reader to understand that the Chancellor's lack of monetary savings is inconsistent with his feat as a philosopher. This inconsistency can be resolved by recognizing that the narrator is invoking the title "philosopher" in reference to the clerk's supposed mastery of "logik" (288). Therefore, the narrator is implying that the clerk is so obsessed with his study of philosophy that he has lost the common sense to accumulate savings for his own well-being. Indeed, the narrator presents the Chancellor's academic life more as a barrier to future achievement than as a worthy aspiration. “Full thredbare was his excessive courtesy, / For it had brought him no benefit, / Nor was he so worldly to have an office,” the narrator writes (292-4). In this statement, the narrator implies that the employee could aspire to a positive paying position if he had the requisite worldly experience, and that such a position would offer the employee a., 2000. 215-35.