Gender, Class and Conscience

Eaton, R. D. "Gender, Class And Conscience In Chaucer." English Studies 84.3 (2003): 205. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

I'm not sure what I think about this article... I didn't find a bunch of stuff that I thought would be especially helpful for my paper, despite the fact that it was supposed to focus on class. However, I thought it offered an interesting analysis of the idea of Conscience in Chaucer (using mainly the example of the Second Nun's Tale). The one problem that I had with this article was that it never really gave a definition of conscience - while I understand that the article is discussing what conscience means in terms of Chaucer, it doesn't state whether it is talking about conscience in terms of the little voice in the back of your head or consciousness in terms of class consciousness. I didn't find this paper particularly helpful, but I since it offers a discussion of conscience in terms of virginity, it might be helpful for anyone looking at virginity in their papers. It also offered a more theological approach to looking at Canterbury Tales, so anyone taking a more theological perspective in their papers might also find this helpful. 

-What does “conscience” mean in Chaucer? It’s not as radical as most editors suggest, and the diversity in the nature of conscience from context to context conforms to a pattern whose most important parameters are gender and class.

-Word conscience appears at moments of unusual emotional intensity like in the Second Nun’s Tale which has its roots in the New Testament, where conscience has an active role in maintaining moral purity and was sometimes paired with faith.

-Conscience, as a divine, precious gift can tolerate no compromise (since compromise can damage and thus weaken and corrupt). Virginity is an obvious example here.

-The differences between male and female conscience in Chaucer; when male conscience is referred to, the man in question is usually not doing what his conscience tells him to. Chaucer also maintains a silence when it comes to questions about conscience in aristocratic men specifically.

-Another thread of conscience present in Chaucer’s work is conscience as a nemesis which has deeper historical roots as the conscience as virginity theme of before. Society has a central role in the proper functioning of the conscience here (although the proper function is diversely conceived and vaguely expressed).

-Roles defined by gender and class are generated by normative forces operative in society, something that Chaucer shows by means of conscience. The upper class exerts almost proprietary rights over conscience while everyone else has to regard sensitivity to conscience as an aristocratic privilege. Thus class determines the paths of moral decision making.

-Chaucer represents the conscience as gendered space of the mind, a moral landscape in and out of which men could move without stigmatization but within which women were required to remain inside.