The Pardoner's Tale In The Fourteenth Century

In the late 1300s Geoffrey Chaucer began wrote The Canterbury Tales, a story which follows the religious journey of twenty-nine people, who represent many aspects of Medieval society, to the Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England. While on the pilgrimage the host of the tavern, where all the pilgrims meet, suggests that the pilgrims each tell a story for the group’s entertainment. Chaucer intended for all the voyagers to tell two stories, but he unfortunately died before he could finish the book and only got to write one story apiece. However, the goal of the storytelling contest is to tell the most moral story possible, and the one who wins receives a free meal, which the rest of the pilgrims will pay for. Although some of the other stories have good moral messages, “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” are on different ends of the moral spectrum. “The Pardoner’s Tale” focuses on a pardoner who preaches against greed. While “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” exemplifies what all women want in their relationships: power. Although both “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” demonstrate the value of the opinion of elders, the stories differ in their moral values and their storyteller’s values.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in a collection of 24 stories while on a pilgrimage to visit the relics of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. The purpose behind this pilgrimage is for the pilgrims to visit the shrine to seek forgiveness for their sins. Due to the long trip, the host made a deal with everyone to tell two stories on the way and back from Canterbury and whoever tells the best one receives a paid for meal. Each character telling their stories gives away bits of information and a visual idea of who they really are. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses detail, point of view, and descriptive language to portray the Pardoner and Summoner to be worse than the Skipper.

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

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.

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.

The Canterbury Tales, written and narrated by Geoffrey Chaucer, explores manipulation and dishonesty in the Catholic Church. The Nun in “The General Prologue” exemplifies improper qualities to which a Prioress should have. Along with the Nun, The Friar in “The General Prologue” uses false information to gain customer. In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” the Pardoner uses greedy tactics to wield other pilgrims into buying his relics.In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the Nun and the Friar in “The General Prologue” and the Pardoner in “The Pardoner’s Tale” to show the hypocrisy in the Church.

The Canterbury Tales were written by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. This masterpiece is one of the greatest classics of English Literature, it was and continues to be still very popular. Many manuscripts survived and it was the first work to be printed by William Caxton. It is a story about pilgrims travelling together, who tell stories on their journey to Canterbury, to pay tribute to Saint Thomas Becket. As it is a collection of tales, it varies in genre (there is beast fables, romances, fabliaux, saints’ lives…), subject, mood, length (some tales are 80-page long whereas some are much shorter), form (in verse –several verse-form are also found- or in prose). For this

The Pardoner is a renaissance figure that wanders the lands in hopes of bringing forgiveness to those in need. This Pardoner is a bad pardoner among the other pardoners. The tale that he tells is a moral one that is suppose to bring about the desire from people to ask for forgiveness. Instead the Pardoner uses this tale as a way of contracting money from his fellow pilgrims. The Pardoner is a person that is suppose to practice what he preaches. What that person does affects those that look up to that person. The Pardoner must be able to tell of tales that bring about hope. The way in which that might happen is through example. If the pardoner is unable to produce a tale that convinces the audience of

The pardoner’s tale depicts that the seven deadly sins inflict human with harsh punishment. The three drunken men who are looking for the death are punished by it through seven deadly sins that once committed; the possibility to go to the heaven abates. Their each sin brings another sin so they later will be end up in extensive sin which is abolished from salvation. Three guys were guilty of gluttony, indulging in wine and lost their ability to think. When they find gold, they become very envious of each other and greedy for wealth. Gluttony unconsciously leads human to murder. When it meets with envy and avarice it is the worst sins. The sins of gluttony, envy, and avarice lead them to the death that they desire to face to.

In the tale, three young rioters discover that a good friend has died and they mistakenly believe he was killed by a man named Death. They pledge that they will find Death and avenge their friend. As they embark on their quest, they pass by an old man and criticize his age. They inquire about Death, and the old man mentions that he left Death by a tree. The rioters proceed to the tree, but find a pile of gold florins rather than Death. Ultimately, the three young men kill each other in a vain attempt to increase their personal share of the gold. Thus, the young men set out to find Death and they succeeded in their search. Their greed was the cause of their demise. The Pardoner is analogous to the rioters because

Throughout “The Pardoner’s Tale”, the main character teaches about greed, gambling, desecration, and drinking, but in the beginning he admits to committing these sins himself. One of the portrayals of hypocrisy, in the

During the Middle Ages, England was a nation in social chaos. Deception of every kind was rampart throughout the lands. Many people felt that there was a great need for moral improvement in society. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales he clearly brings to light his thoughts and concerns of “ethical cleansing.” No tale more fully expresses this idea than that of “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.”

“The Canterbury Tales” shows great diversity in the way that characters in multiple tales deal with moral fiber. A character with moral fiber is one that does the right thing no matter what the consequences are. In “The Pardoner’s Tale”, the tale describes three men that seek revenge for another man that died, even though they are drunk. They see an elderly man, and he leads them to a tree that is supposed to represent Death. Underneath the tree is gold, enough so that the three of them could be rich. But, while one is at the store, two of the men plot to kill the other so they can split it between two. Also, the man at the store buys poison to try to kill the other two men so he can have the gold all for himself. So, greed takes over the group,

The Root of Evil Exposed in The Pardoner's Tale   "The root of all evil is money."   Because this phrase has been repeated so many times throughout history, one can fail to realize the truth in this timeless statement.   Whether applied to the corrupt clergy of Geoffrey Chaucer's time, selling indulgences, or the corrupt televangelists of today, auctioning off salvation to those who can afford it, this truth never seems to lose its validity.   In Chaucer's famous work The Canterbury Tales, he points out many inherent flaws of human nature, all of which still apply today.

The Canterbury Tales, a collection of tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, was written in Middle English at the end of the 14th century (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011). It is considered to be the best work of literature in English in the Middle Ages (Johnston, 1998). Chaucer uses literary devices as no one had ever done. In addition, he chose to use English instead of Latin. This masterpiece is structured in a similar way as Bocaccio's Decameron. The tales are organized within a frame narrative (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011) explained in the General Prologue by the narrator: a group of pilgrims that are going to visit St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury's Cathedral. These pilgrims are from different estates of the medieval society: nobility, the