Allegory In The Pardoner's Tale

In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, there are many entertaining values and moral lessons. In Geoffrey Chaucer's, The Canterbury tales, a group of pilgrims are journeying to the holy site of Canterbury. Due to the long journey, the host plans to start a contest between the pilgrims. Each pilgrim has to tell an entertaining story and the pilgrim with the most entertaining story wins a free dinner. After reviewing the two tales “ The Pardoner's Tale” and “ The Wife of Bath's Tale” told by Chaucer, one tale effects me the most. Out of the two tales, I believe “The Pardoner's Tale” has better moral values and is more entertaining than, “The Wife of Bath”.

“Radix malorum est cupiditas.” A quote that sets the tone for the entire story greed is the root of all evil. Geoffrey Chaucer so perfectly illustrates verbal irony in the prologue making it easy for you to place yourself in his mind. As the Pardoner being a priest for him to stand in the pulpit and look down upon the congregation referring to them as yokels and turn around and lie to the people whose souls you are there to save is irony as clear as it gets. The prologue gives us insight on who the Pardoner is as he blatantly states that he preaches for nothing but for the greed of gain he shows how corrupt he is. Ironically and unfortunately while the Pardoner is preaching that the love of money is the root of all evil, he lives with the same

Throughout the journey two tales were told. They held very few similarities, and quite a few differences. These two tales were told by men from two completely different walks of life. One was a noble knight who won battles, put others before himself, and took great pride in his two most impressive horses. The other was a pardoner, who did not believe most of what he taught, conned people for their money, and knew how to put on a show to make the all the poor peasants believe every word he said. Both of their tales were quite interesting, but the knight did in fact tell a better story. The knights story captivated its readers by attaching them to its characters, making every failure, emotion, and success affect the reader personally, and by the end of the tale the reader was able to take away a lesson they would never forget.

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s character, The Pardoner, is a church official who altered the peoples mind by cheating the people into believing any nonsense. “Then I show forth my long glass cases, crammed full of clothes and bones: all the people believe that they are holly relics” (The Pardoner’s Tale, 1). The Pardoner’s avarice and ability to deliver

“Radix malorum est cupiditas” translated from Latin into “Greed is the root of all evil.” (Chaucer 125) Throughout the Pardoner’s Tale, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, this is the story of three men that treat people lower than them and they end up finding a whole pile of gold, but they end up killing each other to get the gold to themselves. The entirety of the three men end up dead and not even one gets the gold. There are many topics involving greed, this essay will involve what it is about, the dangers, and the benefits of controlling the desire to gain.

This is ironic as the pardoner tries to get the group to give him money after telling them how it was all a scam, “My holy pardon saves you from all this:/ If you will offer nobles, sterlings, rings,/ Soome brooches, spoons or other silver things,”(906-908). While he knows that they know his faulsities he deliberately ignores this in order to try and proceed with his con. Another layer of irony in this is that he promises pureness while he himself is not pure, “If you will give. You’ll be as clean and pure/ As when first born.--And, sirs, that’s how I preach.”(914-915).

The presence of greed utilized by Chaucer in the Pardoner’s tale presents satire as his character is meant to be honorable, yet, behind the scenes is actually the most unethical one. The first example the audience is shown of this fraud is as the pardoner explains his motives, when he states, “Of avarice and of swich cursednesse/ Is al my prechyng, for to make hem free/ To yeven hir pens; and namely, unto me!/ For myn entente is nat but for to wynne,/ And no thyng for correccioun of synne” (114 – 118). The Pardoner is extremely upfront regarding his greedy motives as seen in the quote “For myn entente is nat but for to wynne,” (117). The sole reason he is in this game is no other reason than to make money. The revelation of this goal results in an ironic situation as his job consists of preaching against greed, while the only reason of his employment is driven by his own greed. “To yeven hir pens; and namely, unto me” is also written as “With offered pence, the which pence come to me” (116). Through this line, the audience can see that the character of the Pardoner, himself, does not see his situation as particularly ironic, instead, to him, is what he has to do in order to support his lifestyle. As one moves through the prologue, one is continuously shown abundant examples of this mistruth, for example as the Pardoner says, “For I wol preche and begge in sondry landes,/ I wol nat do no labour with myne handes,/ Ne make baskettes, and lyve therby,/ By cause I wol nat beggen

Albert Baugh, an online critic, stated that “The Pardoner’s Tale is a reminder that death is inevitable. Death is personified as a thief who pierces the heart of his victims.” This quote portrays how death is impossible to escape and how everything is set to be in life. Anyhow, the old man travels around the city waiting for Death to take him. The man is not very patient and will do anything to be taken by God. He begs God to take him and blames his ugliness and paleness as to why God wont take him. The three men hear him talk about Death, and begin to ask where they could find him. The old man then gives the three men advice on how to find Death. The old mans advice was that they will find Death under the oak tree. “If you're so anxious to find Death, turn up this crooked path; for in that grove I left him, by my faith, under a tree and there he’ll stay.” (Chaucer 283). The advice is not very practical, yet the three men still listen to him. The author lets the audience know that the three men who are on this journey are not very bright, as seen with their

In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer utilizes the immoral character of the Pardoner to tell the utmost moral tale through satirical devices, presenting the true greed and hypocrisy that runs throughout the Church, regardless of it attempt to cover it. Chaucer introduces the hypocrisy within the Church through the characterization of the Pardoner, as he is explained to be a man with, “flattery and equal japes./He made the parson and the rest his apes” (“General Prologue” 607-608). “Japes” are tricks, alluding to the Pardoner’s relics, as they are fake; yet, the Pardoner still sells these relics to the Church members as genuine treasures. This creates dramatic irony, because the character of the Church body is unaware of the situation bestowed

While one rioter goes to town for food and drink, the other two stay behind. Of the remaining two, one tells the other that the gold should “be parted by only us two” (486). This sin is used in order to solidify the theme of pride and greed leading to demise in this tale. Not only were the two men plotting against the rioter who went to town, but the lone rioter was planning the same. During this time period, greed was common; anything was done in order to better one’s own self. By utilizing greed, Chaucer illustrates the development of the rioters from brothers to the two men turning on the other and vise

In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the many characters, the Pardoner, takes advantage of people’s vices and ignorance, preaching against avarice, a sin which he does not feel guilty of committing.

Allegory is a poem or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. So to say allegory is a story that is telling something actually happen. Basically representing a something and telling it in a story form.

The poor pays to the church but little they know Pardoner takes the money for himself. He preaches like a normal pastor would, like Pardoner preaches about greedy people an how you shouldn’t be greedy but he himself steals from the poor for himself. Greed is excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions. By him forgiving the poor like he is God but they have to pay is greedy, cause those sins aren’t really forgiven so the poor are just losing their money.

When people are greedy, they are often only think about themselves. They should learn how to be a better person by at least being thankful to others or trying to give back in return. In the stories, “The Fisherman and His Wife”and The Great Gatsby, characters like Alice and Daisy are unappreciative which made them lose everything.

“The Pardoner’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer, the three rioters originally planned to travel to kill Death. After traveling less than half a mile, The three rioters met a poor, old man; the old man told them where they could find Death. The three rioters followed his directions and found not Death but a pot of gold coins under a tree. After, discovering the gold coins, they secretly plotted to kill each other, hoping to keep the treasure to only himself. Because of this, the role of the gold coins acted as the source and main cause of their death.