Pardoner In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

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.

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.

In Canterbury Tales, the pardoner vouches for the pardoning of those who come to the church to confess their sins. Specifically in the Pardoner’s Tale, we see how he preaches to the church to repent for their greedy sin. This

The Pardoner and Summoner appear together in “The Prologue.” They further illustrate an example of Chaucer’s awareness of a defiled Church. Chaucer provides humor to his description of the Summoner in that “he’d allow – just for a quart of wine - /Any good lad to keep a concubine” (Chaucer 20.) This means that a person who disobeys the Church without seeking repentance can easily bribe the Summoner, in that he will overlook the situation. Chaucer writes about the Pardoner that “by his flatteries and prevarication/ Made monkey of the priest and congregation” (Chaucer 22.) This is another direct insult to the Church at the time.

The prologue of the pardoner presumably reveals the pardoner is a pastor or preacher. The Pardoner is a very greedy man that does not live by the word of God and is driven by his desires to obtain wealth. Although the pardoner is dealing with his own sins, he teaches others how they can repent and eliminate their sinful desires. The pardoner preaches on his passions for wealth, possessions, and gives examples of how he wrestles with his aspiration for riches. His main intentions for teaching is to receive money from his spectators.

During the medieval times corruption in the Catholic Church was prevalent. As corruption was prevalent during Chaucer’s time so was a Pardoner’s practice of selling indulgences, becoming one of deception and greed. Similar to the upper class focusing their time on becoming the richest and most powerful. In many of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer would use satire to criticize different social classes. For example, the middle class, those people who worked for their possessions. He satirizes religious hypocrisy in such tales as the Pardoner, in which a middle class man, showing the corruption of the Pardoner’s job. Through his description of the Pardoner as being a man who is disitful, greedy, and hypocritical, Chaucer uses

The Canterbury Tales was written in the Middle Ages, therefore, it was written to the lower class. The tales can teach lessons to every generation. In today’s society the Pardoner could be compared to the homeless people that are begging for help when they really don’t need it. Begging for money is there job. Some homeless people you see on the side of the road aren’t homeless

is suggested, by Chaucer, that he might have an ongoing affair with the Summoner. The

Chaucer's depiction of the Pardoner in "The General Prologue" is unsparing in its effeteness; he has "heer as yelow as wax/ But smoothe it heeng as dooth a strike of flex/ By ounces heenge his lokkes that he hadde...But thinne it

Pardoner makes no attempts to hide his “ypocrise,” instead taking a perverse pleasure in the extent of his corruption. As seen in the portrait of the Monk in The General Prologue, Chaucer allows the Pardoner to condemn himself. He purposely reveals his methods of extracting money from” the povereste widwe in a village” his contempt for his usual audience of “lewed peple” and complete disregard for the doctrines of the Church. The Pardoner’s

“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