William 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.

Throughout history greed has corrupted and destroyed many people plunging them farther into the need for more; in contemporary times this has only strengthened. In 1387, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote “The Canterbury Tales” within this consist of “The Pardoners Tale”. This tale consists of a greedy pardoner preaching sermons only to benefit himself. An English poet, William Blake believes that “The characters of Chaucer’s Pilgrims are the characters which compose all ages and nations…” As Blake states Chaucer’s pilgrims, can be considered a universal theme throughout all ages. The Pardoners greed is universal because of his sermons, his use of relics, and can be related to modern day Ponzi schemes.

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 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

In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, both the Wife of Bath's story and the Pardoner's story are stories that present us with a decent exceptional message. The good in The Wife of Bath's story is that genuine excellence can not be judged from simply taking a gander at the external appearance, and in the Pardoner's story it is that abundance of anything, is terrible.

Loyalty, trust, and respect are key parts in people’s lives. The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer, are two tales both from the medieval literature, the stories, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Pardoner's Tale” are both stories based upon on loyalty, trust, and respect. “The Wife of Bath” is primarily about the wants of women and if you treat them right then you will be happy as a man. While as “The Pardoner’s Tale” is about three rioters that set out on a journey, while on this journey they find an elderly man which gives them access to plentiful riches. These men get full of greed and the loyalty and trust of the men is tested and broken, in the end, they are all punished for their greed and they find what they were searching for, which is Death. In The Pardoner's Tale the rioters are basically looking for death and which they succeed to get it. Two stories, “The Pardoner’s Tale” tells a story about the greed and men and how greed is the source

The Pardoner’s Tale tells about the Host's desire to hear something positive after that depressing tale. The Pardoner Initiates his Prologue—briefly accounting his methods of conning people—and then proceeds to tell a moral tale.

Chaucer described “Pardoner had hair as yellow as wax, …… Thinly they fell, like rat-tails, one by one”(L694-L697 The Canterbury Tales). As the reader keeps going down the line, Pardoner’s personality shows vividly that he is a untrustworthy, selfish man. In the Prologue, Pardoner is riding in the back and selling people fake pardons that pardons people from their sins.

The Pardoner 's Tale is a package in book form. It has it all—greed, gluttony, drunkenness, murder, bad guys getting what 's coming to them. What 's not to like? And we don 't even need a pardon after reading it, because in the end, it 's a morality lesson (Do you get it?)

The Pardoner always tells the travelers what he is thinking. He told them that he wanted to sell them pardons so that he can get money. He never lies to the travelers about his intentions. The Pardoner tells his story about how avarice can be someone's downfall, but he shows no shame and even brags

After reading The Canterbury Tales I learned a little about each of the characters in the Prologue. There was one character that stood out to me than any of the others was the pardoner. He work for the church. Pardoner performs his church duties for the purpose of making money; he wasn’t a nice man. Unlike Parson, who helped the church because he cared and wanted to, Pardoner would do everything for his own good. The parson uses his position in the church to provide help to the poor, the sick, and the grieving. If Pardoner would tell a story, in the beginning he would try to show the reader that he is better than anyone else and does things to help people. This is not true at all. Throughout the story the reader would learn who the Pardoner

In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the life of the nobility compared to that of the poor proves to be a much harder life to live because of the many obligations and responsibilities. Chaucer ironically portrays this notion in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, contrasting the easy life of the widow, who is poor, with Chanticleer, a rich rooster. The widow’s life is much easier because she does not have to worry about keeping up with the societal expectations of the rich. Whereas, Chanticleer, the rooster, role and responsibilities in life, which he is very proud of, make his life much more difficult. Because of the way the rich live their lives, Chaucer, in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, ironically implies that living the life of the poor is much easier than living the life of the rich, who have many obligations and responsibilities.

“The Canterbury Tales” offers a wide selection of tales told by various types of people. “The Canterbury Tales” was written in 1392 and this novel was written by Geoffrey Chaucer and he wrote this novel in Middle English. The people in “The Canterbury Tales” range from different sections of the social class and all meet together at an inn known as the Tabard inn. One of the tales within this novel is the Pardoners tale which is told by the pardoner who throughout this journey remains at the back of the group. The Pardoner is noted to not be a reliable person as in the prologue of “The Canterbury Tales” the narrator mentions that he offers indulgences and also takes money donated to the church.

In contrast the tale itself is relatively plainly told and we can safely assume that the Pardoner is well practiced in the art of telling this specific tale and even inserts some of his sermon into it. His sermon is based on several medieval conventions, such as that of the mysterious old man, whom Dr. McIntyre identifies as a “representation of the immanence and inescapability of death,” something which would have struck a chord with a medieval audience suffering from the onslaught of the Black Death. The tale is an example of a very well defined genre with its own conventions and devices; nevertheless the pardoner makes it his own through his own use of rhetorical flourishes and poetic detail. He

“I think that people are most comfortable when the world is orderly. I think there's the sense that when you begin questioning basic distinctions, such as the distinction between being male and being female, it represents a threat to the social order.”- Andrew Solomon. When it comes to order Geoffrey Chaucer has an interesting way of portraying the essence of order throughout The Canterbury Tales. His characters seem to follow the social order at first glance, but as we look further into the tales we see just how out of line these characters are. Even the character that is Chaucer is blind to the twistedness of his fellow passengers. Chaucer only sees the good in his travel companions, not the hidden upheaval of the social order that was so strictly in place.