Unlike traditional estate satires, a social form that focuses on the ills of society and how they can be cured, Chaucer’s focus in the “General Prologue” is on individuals and their psychological makeup. Select one or more of his characters and explain how he reveals insight into that character or characters

One of the most interesting aspects of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is the fact that the narrator is not outside of the tale, giving an omniscient and objective perspective on those he meets. Rather, Chaucer deliberately chooses to put his narrator in the middle of the group of pilgrims, such that his descriptions of them are "so as it semed me." This framing of the story turns a particular lens on all of Chaucer's satires, as we must first decide how far we feel the narrator himself is reliable in his assessment of their "degree." We know that the narrator is heading to Canterbury with self-described "ful devout corage," so the insights he gives into the other characters must necessarily be understood from the perspective of a man who is devout, but also readily describes himself as such without humbleness.
Given this fact, it is interesting, then, that the narrator first chooses to describe the knight, "a worthy man." The narrator's description of the knight begins simply enough—we can assume that the knight has not told the narrator everything which the narrator repeats here, and that the narrator's assessment of him as a lover of "trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie" is based on observation. As the description of the knight wears on, however, we begin to question how it is that the narrator knows so much about his exploits, if he is a man so full of every knightly courtesy. The list of the knight's successes in battle goes on and on.
By the time we reach line 67, it becomes clear that the knight is, in the estimation of the narrator, such a paragon of virtue as to be a parody of the knights we read about in medieval romances, written contemporaneously with this story. He is both "worthy" and "wys" (prudent), and yet somehow everybody knows about his "soveryn prys." When the narrator declares that the knight has "nevere yet no vilynye ne sayde / in al his lyfe unto no maner wight," the satire reaches its apex. It is simply not possible that the knight has reached adulthood without ever having exchanged cross words with another person, and yet through the use of the frame narrative and unreliable narrator, Chaucer forces us to question at what point this description of the knight has become so hyperbolically virtuous. Is the irony that the knight himself, ostensibly so prudent, has in fact been telling everyone stories of his own great deeds? Or do we question the veracity of the narrator, a man who describes himself as extremely devout, and who may therefore be inclined to put a man he perceives as a virtuous knight upon a pedestal, inspired by the stereotypes to which he has been exposed?
All of Chaucer's descriptions in the General Prologue are offered through this double lens; the narrator often gives details without interpreting what we are to make of the comment, leaving it to us as the audience to interpret from tone how the narrator views the person in question. Other characters who are described in significant detail and might offer good studies for this question include the Prioress and the Frere. Both their portrayals invite us to ask questions about piety, virtue, and the presentation thereof in these tales.