Character Analysis: The Pardoner's Tale

In The Pardoner’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer there are three rioters who are sent to kill Death. On their trip to find Death they are told, by an old man, that Death was left under a tree. When the rioters arrive at the tree they find a bag of Gold coins. The rioters are very greedy and two of them plan to kill the other but the third rioter is also planning on killing them. In the end they all die and the moral is to not be greedy but The Pardoner is guilty of this.

In The Pardoner’s Prologue he says that he will do whatever he needs to do to get what he wants. In The Pardoner’s Tale it says “ For this young man was utterly content to kill them both and never to repent” (Chaucer 130). This quote is from when the third rioter is on his way to get poison, and it shows that he did not mind killing the two other rioters, to get all the Gold for himself. The other two rioters are at the tree when one of them says “ ‘Well,’ said his friend, ‘you see that we are two, and two are twice as powerful as one. Now look; when he comes back get up in fun to have a wrestle; then, as you attack, I’ll put my dagger through his back while you and he are struggling, as in game; Then draw your dagger too and you do the same.’ ” (Chaucer 130). This shows, again, that the rioters would kill someone to get more Gold making them seem more like The Pardoner.

An example from the tale is “ There is, in Avicenna’s long relation concerning poison and its operation, trust me no ghastlier section to transcend what these two wretches suffered at their end ” (Chaucer 131). This is talking about how painful and horrible it is to die from being poisoned. This quote reinforces the moral that being greedy is very dangerous and there is