The theme of the Prologue is to reveal a realistic life
panorama. And Langland focuses on describing differentkinds of life styles, and
humanities as well. Long Will in the poem actually represents William Langland
himself. Thegeneral context in the Prologue is about Long Will's dream. In
fact, it's not a dream but a reflection of the time ofmedieval British society.
William Langland also expresses his own opinions and feelings through the eye of LongWill.
William Langland has set up a moral standard for the public long
ago. What he believes is that only working orlaboring is the best way of
living. And farming is considered as the most moral and sacred work among
working. Inconclusion, working and farming are the themes in the Piers Plowman.
From line 1-10, the dream starts. Long Will sits by the riverside
at Malvern Hills, and falls asleep. From line 11-19,Long Will sees a field, a field
full of folk, all sorts of men. And there's a tower of hilltop, where the church
is. Thenit's a gulf, which represents corruption and hell. From line 20-30,
Langland criticizes that the rich shouldn't waste what the ordinary people gain from
working. They work very hard from day and night, but what they gain and earn is all
wasted by the rich people who do nothing. Langland also blames those people who wear
luxurious cloths wandering on the streets and doing nothing. In this paragraph,
Piers Plowman shows a serious criticism of the society. And the point Langland
stands is from a poor man's economic point of view. Long Will, as a farmer, should
be conomical and work hard. And from this point of view, Langland, again, fights
against the city people of wasting, wandering around and doing nothing, and being
lazy. These are all what Langland hates the most.
From line 31-39, it is obviously shown that only hard-working farming
life style is the best way of living and the best work of all. Those businessmen who
gain money from tricks, those poets who earn their living by singing, or those
entertainers who support their lives by telling jokes are all looked down and being
attacked by Langland. But there's a contradiction showing that although Langland
deeply believes in farming as the best way of living, he is not a farmer himself.
Instead, he is a priest. This is more like all ordinary people who say one thing but
do another.
Line 40-45, beggars and tramps are the lowest level of the society who
should be sympathized by the public. Yet in Langland's opinion, beggars and tramps
are the waste and corruption of life because they don't work or contribute anything.
They sacrifice human dignity to ask for food when they're hungry and sleep when they're
full. Sleep and sloth are their purposes of life, which is disgusted by Langland,
who is deeply convinced of working and farming.
Furthermore, Langland even exposes the cover of people who waste their
time doing nothing under the name of religion. For example, line 46-52, pilgrims and
palmers shouldn't be criticized because they are searching for salvation. But
Langland believes that working is more important than searching salvation from God.
The only thing that Langland believes in is working and farming. Only working can
give people salvation. So pilgrims and palmers are the wasters.
From line 53-86, Langland talks about how he hates friars, hermits,
pardoners, parsons and priests. These ecclesiastical people fool the public
around. They play tricks on the public in the name of religion and gain money from
the faithful principals. Here there's a sense that Langland is criticizing himself
as well. Langland is a priest himself. Maybe he's indicating himself doing
something like that too. It's a self-mockery here. Because Langland chooses to
be a priest instead of a farmer, that makes the contradiction even more clear.
Because of Langland's strong sense of social justice that he blames himself.
In Passus V, there is a Confession of the Seven Deadly Sins. They
are Pride, Lust, Envy, Anger, Covetousness, Gluttony, and Sloth. In Pasus VI, Envy
and Gluttony will be discussed in details.
In Passus V and VI, Envy and Gluttony are personalized as two
men. Langland makes his ideas concrete and vivid. He describes Envy from his
appearance to what he does in his life. Langland tries to tell us if you are always
jealous of others, your personality would change and it would make you look badly.
The author portrays the characteristics of Envy in details as he is just like a person who
is around us in our daily life. Even Langland points out the facial expressions of
Envy. It is very interesting for us to read and we can easily feel how the author
loathes Envy.
Then, he writes a lot about Gluttony and that we think it should
be the most attractive plot in Piers Plowman. First, he notes that Gluttony is on
the way to church for confessing himself. However, his will is too weak so he
changes his mind easily when he hears about what the alewife said. It's amusing to
see his immediate change. We think that Langland wants to tell us that everyone has a will
of being better, but it just so difficulty to fight against temptation.Therefore, people
make the same mistakes again and again. Also, it causes a dramatic effect to
readers. Then, the author shows us what does Gluttony see. Langland depicts
every kind of people in this paragraph. All of them get together for drinking.
Superficially, the author seems to give us a happy image here. Nevertheless, in
fact, he indicates that they are not only waste foods but also waste precious time.
The long description also presents us the people and society at that time in
England. In the following paragraphs, Langland recites what happen after Gluttony
gets drunk and his confession for his own evil. This part is very realistic.
In Piers Plowman, Langland just briefly sketches other sins. Differently, he
describes Gluttony in details. We can notice that he gives metal description of
Gluttony such as his confession and repentance. Besides, he mentions about other
people in the society and actually they are all manifestations of the sin of
gluttony. In this way, Langland wants to underscore how gluttony prevails in the
society. From a labor's points of view, their sin is inexpiable. That's why
Langland uses many animal images, it probably implies that people like Gluttony is worse
than animals. In conclusion, the main point of Langland's seven sins, is according
to his farmer's philosophy or labor's point of view, people should cherish what they have
because it's not easy to get.
Then, in the end of Passus V, Langland directly reveals the
ignorance of pilgrims. They travel everywhere but don't know where is the truth.
Piers comes up and tells that he knows where the truth is. From this point, we can
figure out that he is not only a farmer but a composite character. He refuses their
request to search the truth instantly. He asks them to plow instead. He
commands them to work at once. What he wants to say is plow is the truth they are
seeking for. Here, we can more and more understand that Piers is not only a farmer
but a leader of life and a manifestation of Christ. The central idea of Piers
Plowman is gradually clear. In addition, Langland also appeals to people not
ill-treat their tenants. It shows his deep concern for farmers. In the
following paragraphs, we see that some people works hard but some are lazy. They
make excuses for evading from work. And even some of them pretend that they are
blind or crippled. We think Langland knows humanity well. So, he builds the
plot that everyone works for they are afraid of Hunger. It is really a realistic
description and Piers finally makes his goals achieve.
Compared with the plots of other passuses, passus eighteen is
commonly accepted and knowledged as the climax of the whole allegory, Piers Plowman.
In this passus, the persona, Piers Plowman, is no more a farmer, but a knight who declares
to fight against the fiend. Many readers may consider Piers Plowman here as an
embodiment of Jesus Christ, however it will be more reasonable if we take Piers Plowman as
a knight who behaves like Jesus, who sacrifices himself to release the mortals' sins.
According to the plot, we can divide this passus into tree
parts. In the first part, Piers Plowman dressed up as a knight jousts against the
fiend for the mortal. In the second part, the King of Glory appears as light to
release the prisoners from the Hell. In the third part, the narrator, Long wills,
dreams of Christ's resurrection.
In the first part, readers tend to wonder why Langland means to
describe Piers Plowman as a Christ-like night. Before answering this question, we must
learn that Passus eighteen, Long Will's eighth dream, is organized as a part of the third
section, The life of do-better. For Lnagland, the way to lead the life of do-better
is to practice love and charity, which are revealed apparently from Christ's
scarification. That's to say the mortal can never get salvation but for Christ's
selfless love and charity. It can be inferred that Langland wants Catholics to
practice and glorify the two virtues, love and charity. In other words, Piers
Plowman functions as a good example for the ignored folks to find where the
"Truth" is.
In the second part, the King of Glory goes to the hell to release
the prisoners from the imprisonment. While reading, readers usually puzzle at two
questions. The first is who are imprisoned in the hell, and the other is why they
are "worthy" to be released. As we know the genre of "The Piers
Plowman" is dream literature; as a result, some ideas which the author intend to
convey are ambiguous and uncertain. And the "weakness" of the dream
literature is apparently illustrated here. Through inferring, we got three possible
answers for the first question--(1) pagans, (2) criminals, (3) those who are not
baptized. In the medieval age, pagans are rejected by Catholics and it is believed
by Catholics that after their death they can't get salvation from God. Catholics'
anguish toward pagans can also illuminate why there were so many religious wars in
European history. As for the criminals, Langland here presents readers with a
prototype--Adam and Eve (P.280 L.330). Adam and Eve here also implies human beings'
"original sin." That to say those who commit the original sin will be
imprisoned in the hell after their death. About the third answer, Langland means
those who died before Christ's birth; for this reason, they don't get opportunities to be
baptized by Catholicism (P.281 L.375).
Why are the prisoners in the hell worthy to be released? We
think maybe they are not worthy and that they get salvation just because of God's selfless
love and magnanimous charity. So we can realize that Lnagland means to manifest the
importance of love and charity again.
Besides, in the second part, four daughters of God are mentioned,
and they are Truce, Righteous, Mercy, and Peace. Among them, there is a controversy
about whether God would release those who are imprisoned in the hell. In this part,
Lnagland use irony to ridicule what Truce and Righteous said are "false" and
"wrong." We infer that Langland here also criticizes the contemporary
church institution. Although the church institution played an vital role for
Catholics in medieval age, it is a fact that the institution has already become corrupted
and rotten. For the Catholics at that time, the church is no more than the symbol of
"Truce" and "Righteousness," but they never noticed that what they
believe is
false and wrong
At the end of passus eighteen, Langland describes how excited Long will
was after dreaming of Christ's resurrection. It manifests that the resurrection of
Christ is a hope for Catholics to get salvation and inner comfort in the future. So
we can see that Langland describes the ending with a very harmony and pleasant atmosphere.
The genre, dream allegory, really offer Langland a lot of freedom in
writing. As we know there is nothing true and concrete in the dream, so dream
literature allow the writer to convey some ideas fantastic, abstract, or fictional to his
readers. As a result, the writer does not need to follow a traditional writhing
structure or a logical thinking process. Besides, what the author writhe in a dream
literature does not need to be consistent and cohesive, because a dream may contains many
separate images or frames. For this reason, the author doesn't have to explain
everything in detail when he transfers from one image to another one. Although
"Piers Plowman" is a dream allegory, Langland still presents readers with a
roughly structure, so that the readers will not get lost in reading.
Through "Piers Plowman," Langland mainly conveys four ideas
to readers: Labor, Economy, Love, and Charity. In "the life of do-good",
Langland points out a toilsome labor life which is the only way for the folks to find
"Truth." The reason why Lnagland emphasizes the importance of labor is he
thinks labor motivates property, economy. In the medieval age, commerce is not as
prevailing as today's business market, so that labor life is cherished by Langland.
In "the life of do-better," Langland wants Catholics to achieve the real goal
set by Catholicism. As we know Catholicism originally is established for the poor,
so we can say love and charity are the main goal for Catholics to practice. Practicing
charity and love is also the only way for Catholics to get salvation and inner comfort.