The Pardoner Of Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer consists of frame narratives were a group of pilgrims that are traveling from Southwark to the shire of St. Becker in the Canterbury Cathedral, tell each other to pass time until they arrive at their destination. During The Canterbury Tales the reader is exposed to many characters that represent all of the social classes of medieval England and the reader gets to know them from the general prologue to each individual tale. One of these characters is the Pardoner, when the Pardoners is introduced he is described as the stereotypical pardoner of the Fourteen Century. The pardoner is describe as a crafty and a corrupt individual that will do anything to sell his pardons and relics. Nevertheless one of the most important characteristics that the Pardoner exhibits is his frankness about his own hypocrisy and sins. The pardoner accuses himself of fraud, avarice, and gluttony (the very things that he preaches against). During the Pardoners prologue, but most noticeable during his tale, the pardoners preach about how “Greed is the root of all evil”, and how our sins can lead cause our dismay.

In Canterbury Tales, Chaucer reveals hypocritical qualities in the Pardoner through vivid characterization, tone, and morality. The Pardoner's total lack of respect for the Church's expectations and the congregation allows Chaucer to display flaws in society. Chaucer is able to demonstrate scams and illustrate hypocrisy in the Church, and society in general through the techniques he uses in Canterbury Tales.

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 world is full of hypocrites and in the story “The Pardoner’s Tale”, Chaucer writes about a man who is living a life of sin. The Pardoner’s tale is an epologia of a pardoner who has the power from the church to forgive others for their sins but makes a living out of lying and tricking his audience. Throughout the Pardoner’s Tale he preaches about greed, drinking, blasphemy, and gambling but in the Pardoner’s Prologue he admits to committing these sins himself. The pardoner is really just a 14th century con artist who makes a living by his own hypocrisy.

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.

Chaucer's View of the Pardoner as a Character In the Pardoner’s Tale, Chaucer presents the Pardoner in a particular light, and being a religious figure, this allows him to make a general statement about religion at the time. Chaucer’s view of the Pardoner as a character, and also as something to epitomise religion at the time, is evident from his use of vocabulary, his style, and by using strong imagery and description. In this way, Chaucer builds the character of the Pardoner as someone who is ironically deceptive and driven by his own selfish motives.

One character Chaucer uses to ridicule hypocrisy is the Pardoner. Throughout the description of the pardoner, it is shown that he is corrupt. He uses lies and

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 pardoner's tale is an ironic story narrated by a greedy church pardoner; this story is filled with subtle criticisms of the church. The pardoner claims “I make my living out of-avarice,” which means that he makes a living from his greed. The author, Geoffrey Chaucer, used this story to criticize what he saw as corruption in the church. To put it simply, this work was created on sheet of blue paper, with pencil and a limited, but tasteful color pallet.

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

Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Pardoner's Tale," a relatively straightforward satirical and anti-capitalist view of the church, contrasts motifs of sin with the salvational properties of religion to draw out the complex self-loathing of the emasculated Pardoner. In particular, Chaucer concentrates on the Pardoner's references to the evils of alcohol, gambling, blasphemy, and money, which aim not only to condemn his listeners and unbuckle their purses, but to elicit their wrath and expose his eunuchism.

The Knight, for example, is chosen to narrate the first tale. He is in the highest position from a social standpoint and displays the most admiring virtues for a medieval Christian man-at-arms: bravery, prudence, and honor. In contrast, belonging to the clergy, the Pardoner serves the author’s purpose of criticizing the church, as the character is exceptionally good at faking relics and collecting profits in his own benefit. Chaucer portrays in this tale the disagreement with the excess wealth and the spread corruption in Church at that

It tells in his tale that the Pardoner’s favorite thing to preach against is greed, but what people don’t know is that he is only the pardoner because he likes the money; he is greedy. Chaucer uses this type of satire to help illustrate that the Pardoned is a hypocrite. “Out come the pence, and specially for myself, for my exclusive purpose is to win and not at all to castigate their sin.” When the pardoned says this he is basically saying that I’m only doing this job for the money, and that he could care less about the people he is supposed to help. That is how Chaucer uses satire for the Pardoner.

In the story there are many circumstances under which the people in the middle class have been manipulated, by those with evil intent, effortlessly. Chaucer acknowledges the devious deeds of the Pardoner, “On one short day, in money down, he drew more than the parson in a month or two, and by his flatteries and prevarication made monkeys of the priest and congregation.” (Chaucer 115). The Pardoner took advantage of people and robbed them for their last dime with no remorse. Though the Pardoner was wrong for what he did there should never be a scenario when somebody is robbed of their last dime by intellectual manipulation, there should always be a point of return. Next Chaucer displays, “There was no Pardoner of equal grace for in his trunk he had a pillowcase.” (Chaucer 115). Here Chaucer is implying that this is not the