An Analysis Of The Pardoner's Tale

Compare and Contrast Essay Throughout history, death has been a common theme in literature that is personified. “The Pardoner’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer and “The Tale of the Three Brothers” are examples of death being personified. Both share themes about death, greed, and power. There are similarities between the two stories, but they also share their differences. In both stories there is an overarching theme about how greed can lead to death, but the contrasting factor is in which the way the men died.

Both tales exhibit this idea from different perspectives to relfect the values of their context. The Pardoners Tale reflects a religious society where sin is punished

This is how the pardoner is able to make money; he uses his sermons to convict people and convince them to buy forgiveness for their sins. The pardoner preaches his sermons around the phrase, “Radix malorum est cupiditas.” The Latin meaning of what the pardoner preaches is “The love of money is the root of all evil” this is based out of 1 Timothy 6:10 stated in The Holy Bible. He develops his sermons using this to convict people of their greed so they do not mind buying their indulgences from him. In “The Pardoners Prologue”, the pardoner states, “What! Do you think, as long as I can preach / And get silver for the things I teach / That I will live in poverty, from choice?” Rather than be poor and respectable and have moral values, the pardoner would rather be greedy and preach fallacy to become wealthy. His sermons are a main factor that enable him to accomplish this. In Richard Firth Green’s analysis of, “Jean Gobi’s Pardoners Tales” Green states an account of a pardoner caught preaching false sermons, “A corrupt pardoner is hauled up before his bishop because he has been reported to have been sowing errors… specifically to have been preaching heresies.” This can also be used to show how a pardoner is a universal character in those times. The pardoner in “The Canterbury Tales” is not the only one who uses his sermons to benefit himself. Although his sermons are a main part of feeding his greed, his relics are also a major

In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales he reveals an underlying flaw in society. Chaucer portrays the Pardoner as hypocritical in order to get his message across to readers. The Pardoner is shown to be the exact definition of a hypocrite by preaching to others to lead a spiritual life, while not living by those preaching's himself. In Canterbury Tales, Chaucer reveals hypocritical qualities in the Pardoner through vivid characterization, tone, and morality.

During the Middle Ages, The Canterbury Tales was the first major English literary work of Geoffrey Chaucer. One of Chaucer’s classic tales, “The Pardoner’s Tale,” establishes a concrete image of the Pardoner’s greed. Chaucer uses “The Pardoner’s Tale” to expose that “greed is the root of all evil” through verbal, situational and dramatic irony.

The Pardoner use deceit and lies to pray on the poor and innocent, his characterization represents the churches misuse of its vast power. Chaucer fortifies this idea when he describes the Pardoner as “And thus I preach against the very vice/I make my

The pardoner does whatever it takes to get money from is listeners, which includes lying, and tricking them into buying “relics” in bottles. He sells these bottles claiming them to be some kind of miracle cure, “Where there is a pox or scab or other sore/all animals that water at that well/are cured at once…And it’s a cure for jealousy as well…” (260). He is never going to see these people again so he says whatever it takes to get their money. “That tricks been worth a hundred marks a year/since I became a pardoner, never fear” (260), he tells the people whatever they want to hear in order for them to buy into his scheme, he has no real care for the people or his job. He refers to his life as a game, because he travels to

Both the Pardoner and the Friar are portrayed as quick-thinking charlatans. Chaucer does seem to admire the Pardoner’s skill, and skilled he is, but his actions do not befit a man of the cloth. The Pardoner is spoken of as using bogus relics to con “poor up-country parsons” out of their hard-earned cash. These small hustles netted him “more in a day than the parson in a month or two”. When choosing his occupation, I’m sure the Pardoner did not see the light of the lord but rather, dollar signs. Chaucer goes on to say that yes, the pardoner did preach rather well and his stories were quite splendid, however that might be on account that he could “win money from the crowd”.

In the story, “The Pardoner’s Tales”, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the character the Pardoner in descriptive way. He describe the Pardoner’s corruption teaching and the way the Pardoner act in the tale. The religious that the Pardoner teaching is corrupted and very selfish, greediness, and gluttony. This thing are all opposite to what the real church religious is teaching. In the story, he tricks the people to buy his fake relics and other things by using the church’s believe. The Pardoner act and his teaching are all corrupted because of the church. It shows the side of greediness, gluttony and selfishness which highly reflect into himself and his believe.

While others were not as taught as he might have been, the pardoner talked in Latin to hotshot his etymological capacity. His inability to try to do he said others should do made him a model of pietism and misdirection. The pardoner was such a bragger, to the point that he gloated of the transgressions that he had done. "I release my venom under the shade of sacredness, to appear to be heavenly and true"(page 343). The pardoner admitted to his astounding conduct and admitted to his indecency. His improper admission demonstrated that he was liable of stupidity: I lecture, as you have recently listened, and tell a hundred other falsehoods...my aim is to win cash, not in any way to cast out sins (page 343). All through his story, the pardoner makes himself to be an exemplary man, yet he doesn't take after even his own particular teachings. Indignation is found in him when the host makes a joke on him in the

A societal value is a quality that the majority of a culture agrees on. Societal values are essential to have a peaceful and coherent community. Both Chaucer and Langland use societal values to build on the stories they have written. In Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale and Langland’s piers plowman we see many societal values and many exceptions to these values.

Even though people have been dying since the start of life, we can never get use to the idea of leaving our loved ones behind. Therefore humans choose to disregard death and get pleasure from life, and consequently we tend to stray away from righteousness. Two works; Everyman by an unknown author, and The Pardoner’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer have been written to preach humans toward Christianity-the right way of living. These authors utilize plot to reveal the role of death in understanding life. This is achieve by drawing on the foolishness of mankind, their response to the inevitable death and the effect of death on protagonists which altogether helps the readers understand worldly treasures are temporary.

The irony of the Pardoner is based on his hypocritical actions. The fact that he does not care about the souls of those he has tricked, says a lot about his character. Near the end of his tale, the friends begin to reveal their true personality. All three of them turn on each other trying to steal the treasure for themselves. All of the trust, which they had promised, was a lie and no loyalty remained. The supposed faithful “friends” display their true cruelty and expose their hypocrisy in relation to the Pardoner's character.

The Pardoner consistently brings up the redemption of Christ and God throughout his tale. He polarizes original sin and Christ: "O glotonye, ful of cursednesse!/ O cause first of oure confusion!/ O original of oure dampnacioun,/ Til Christ hadde brought us with his blood again!" (210-3) He moves on to gluttony, and his nuanced technique of delivering subconscious critique becomes more apparent: "'They been enemies of Cristes crois,/ Of which the ende is deeth‹wombe is hir god!/ O wombe, O bely, O stinking cod,/ Fulfilled of dong and of corrupcioun!'" (244-7) His tale takes place while the Pilgrims (and the Pardoner) are drinking at an inn, and his further attacks on alcohol reveal his blatant hypocritical values: "A lecherous thing is win, and dronkenesse/ Is ful of striving and of wrecchednesse./ O dronke man, disfigured is thy face!/ Sour is thy breeth, foul artou to embrace!" (261-3) The Pardoner's moralistic statement condemns himself more than his audience, as he is the "dronke man" of the group; he is the lecherous drunk who "wil drinke licour of the vine/ And have a joly wenche in every town"

“The Pardoner’s Tale” suggests a profile of the Pardoner as a moral man, a man of God. The narrator is viewed as a wise, gentle, and truthful man who wants to share his story in a respectful tone. His story reveals his message, which is that greed leads to destruction and the corruption of all things good. The Pardoner