How would you characterize the personality of the narrator, based on the General Prologue? Use evidence from the text to support your response.

The narrator in The Canterbury Tales is the lens through which we see every other character, and consequently he is at pains in the General Prologue to portray himself as a truthful person whose descriptions can be relied upon. Accordingly, he states, "whoso shal telle a tale after a man / He moot reherce as ny as evere he can / Everich a word" (whoever tells a story that repeats another person's tale, he must repeat every word as exactly as he can). Part of the reasoning behind the narrator's making this point, however, goes beyond a simple wish to be considered truthful and reliable: the narrator is also keen that any "vilynye," or vulgarity, in the stories he tells be ascribed to his devotion to truth rather than his personality. (See ll. 725-745). Far from being a vulgar person, indeed, the narrator tells us that he is a pious man who respects piety in others. However, one cannot help but infer from the satirical tone of the prologue that, in fact, the narrator protests too much—in distancing himself from any vulgarity in the stories he is about to tell, under the guise of adherence to truth, he has given himself free reign to tell things "so rudeliche and large" as he might wish.

He justifies this sentiment further by referencing, within three lines, both "Crist" and "Plato" to back himself up: "Crist spak hymself ful brode in hooly writ / And wel ye woot no vileynye is it. Eek Plato seith, whoso that kan hym rede, The wordes moote be cosyn to the dede." That is, Christ himself could be vulgar in his speech sometimes, as we see in the bible, and Plato says that words must accurately reflect truth. The narrator, then, while declaring himself only a speaker of truth and a humble, pious man, has also effectively compared himself to Christ and to Plato—and then gone on to declare, ironically, "my wit is short, ye may wel understonde." Chaucer's narrator may declare himself humble and dedicated to truth, but the satire in the prologue indicates to the reader that all may not be as it seems and that the narrator may set considerably more store by his own reputation than he says.

Early in the prologue, this irony is not as evident when the narrator is describing his "devout corage" (devout or pious heart and intentions) and his desire to seek blessed pilgrimage. But because of the way the narrator goes on to describe the present company, the reader is assured, by the end of the prologue, that the narrator is a character slightly ridiculous, if well-meaning, who is willing to think well of everyone and very happy to indulge in repeating "villainy" or bawdy content. A knight is described as courteous, which seems fair enough, but the narrator then goes on to describe his son, "a lovyre and a lusty bacheler," as being "fressh as is the month of May." The nun is "coy" and "dainty," and the monk's desire to leave his cell is glibly explained away by the narrator—"what sholde he studie and make hymselven wood, / Upon a book in cloystre alwey to poure . . . ?" The narrator, seemingly, does not want the reader to feel he is associating with vulgar or impious people, even when his actual descriptions of the company's behavior is in conflict with what he says about their character.

The tone of the General Prologue sets that of what will follow: the narrator declares that he will tell the truth, though it may not be found in what he says directly but in what the reader can infer from the further detail.