Examples Of Greed In The Pardoner's Tale

Sherika Jiang
Dr. S-R
Foundations of Literature
23 January 2023
Pardoner’s Greed In “The Pardoner’s Tale” from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400), the pardoner’s greedy methods of money-making by manipulating people's emotions often leads to the customer falling for his scam revealing the social problem of people's greed for money can cause society to not function correctly when everyone is only looking out for themselves. As a salesman, the pardoner uses fake relics to sell to his Christian customers. He tells them that these items are a must need to purchase because they will save their sole and bring them to God. By using emotional manipulation, the pardoner is able to persuade his customers who are Christian by telling them the fact that it will save their souls and wash away their sins. The pardoner

/ They tore our blessed Lord's body to pieces - / They thought the Jews had not torn him enough -” (Chaucer 72.186-189). By using the Lord to persuade the Christian customer, the pardoner can convince his customers to buy these fake relics. He makes them seem as if they are terrible people who sin if they don’t buy from him which forcefully causes them to buy from the greedy pardoner. The pardoner further lies about how he had relics that belonged to saints and even swears that they are real. The pardoner says, “And swear it is a saint's relic, / Even though it was stained by your own fundament. / But by the Holy Cross that St. Helen found, / I wish I had your testicles in my hand / Instead of relics or a receptacle for relics.” (Chaucer 102. 663-667). By saying these relics belonged to saints, the pardoner makes his relics seem very valuable and hard to come by. By saying this, the pardoner is able to make the customers buy his relics because the customers don’t want to give up this opportunity they to buy this relics that only comes around once in a lifetime. When