Chaucer’s The Pardoner manages to be a much debated and highly controversial character of The Canterbury Tales, criticized by Chaucer himself in the way he was described. From his ambiguous sexuality and fluid gender representation to his questionable lifestyle of abusing the name of the Church for his own purposes as well as his overall defiance of the social norms of his time, the Pardoner is one character that can be explored from various angles.
The Pardoner is first introduced to be travelling with The Summoner, a corrupt officer of the Church like The Pardoner himself. Where subtle doubts about The Summoner were underhandedly raised, The Pardoner’s ambiguous sexuality is continuously brought into question or comment by Chaucer, as well
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The uncertainties surrounding this particular aspect of the character were likely intentional on Chaucer’s part – particularly considering his comparisons to “a gelding or a mare”, the insinuation behind the two not exactly contradictory yet not compatible either – but I believe the main focus of The Pardoner was meant to be his corruption within his position, not his social …show more content…
He seems to lack any sort of belief in the legitimacy of his work and the Church as a whole, but does appear to love the work. He is a wordsmith and a fraud with his abuse of his ecclesiastic position, and he enjoys being one so much as to boast and pride himself on his skills, finding no shame in what he does. “He hadde a crois of laton, ful of stones,/And in a glas he hadde pigges bones”. The tools of The Pardoner’s trade are falsified papal pardons, fake relics and deception. He traded pigs’ bones as saints’ bones, loaded a brass cross with stones to equate its weight to that of gold, and basically failed to carry out an honest day’s work a single day of his life, if the portrait painted of him is anything to go by. He is slyly corrupt, which earns him the most criticism on Chaucer’s part. Where most all corrupt members of the Church on the pilgrimage have either justified or denied their corruption, The Pardoner relishes in his. He recognizes the hypocrisy of preaching against the very sins he practices, yet does not
“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.
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.
The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, reveals that religion does not make moral individuals. Chaucer goes on about telling how several of the characters on the pilgrimage had questionable lifestyles yet the characters were taking part in a religious journey. Religion can only influence a moral character but does not make its followers untouchable to the imperfections found on earth. 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.
In order to define the Pardoner's position in gay history and grasp Chaucer's intentions with this character, Kruger aims to understand medieval homophobia and homosexuality. Through his study of homophobic trends and the Pardoner's character and tale, Kruger does not aim to prove the Pardoner's homosexuality or necessarily "claim" him, but nonetheless views the possibility of a gay Pardoner to be
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 character of the Pardoner in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a complex one, full of contradictions and ambiguity. On one hand, he is described as a "noble ecclesiast" (Chaucer 691) and a skilled preacher, capable of moving his listeners to tears with his sermons. On the other hand, he is also a con artist, selling indulgences to people who believe that they can buy their way out of sin. This duality is central to the Pardoner's character, and it is the source of both his power and his corruption.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales have provoked controversy for nearly 500 years. Canterbury Tales used everyday characters to point out the faults in 1500’s society. Chaucer used characters from religious figures, peasants, and even royalty. To this day, Chaucer’s smart, and witty department of people and what they do remains true to real life. When asked the question of who Chaucer would use in a modern setting, the choice is very clear.
Chaucer wrote the book: The Canterbury Tales, in which a group of men going on a journey all tell a tale. Within each tale is a moral lesson as well as each tale consists of a corrupt action committed within the church and is conveyed by those kind of characters within the story. One of the tales that Chaucer tells in his book is called: The pardoner 's tale. Within this tale the pardoner (who is telling the tale) is a preacher who often gives sermons but admits that he does is solely for money and not to condemn people of their sins. (Greed)
Each tale reveals moral lessons that attempt to prevent the reader from performing the same mistakes as the character. “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale” possess similar themes, distinct differences arise in the topics presented in each passage. “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale” illustrates how greed corrupts men, how sin leads to more sin, and how revenge drives men to undertake foolish feats. The differences between Chaucer’s tales allows for a humorous yet insightful
“All they needed was a series of impressive looking letters and a confident manner in making the appeal” (Chaucer role of pardoner).The pardoner would go on to using the same tricks on everyone they saw near them. All they did was pull out the papers with the bishop's signature and use a confident manner to impress them. When the people of the villages found out about the scamming they would just ignore the pardoner's when they saw them. The pardoner’s were looked down upon the people all over the villages and all across the land. They would just simply ignore them or just keep on walking if they happened to come across a pardoner.
Geoffrey Chaucer was an author, known as the father of English poetry for his recognition in all his literary works. He wrote the Canterbury Tales, which are multiple stories composed into one to create a form of poetry. "The Pardoners Tale" is the most recognized work of art he put together out of these multiple stories. The story is told in first person, which makes use of the story to lecture against the individuals who are ignorant, and profane. In this short tale about eagerness, but also death, Chaucer uses three forms of figurative language such as irony, personification, and symbolism to tell a story of three rioters.
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
To fully appreciate the layers of irony in “The Pardoner’s Tale,” you must consider all types of irony. There are three types of irony: verbal irony is when something is said that contradicts the truth, or is the opposite of how the person speaking truly feels, situational irony is when events have an affect on a situation to make the outcome the opposite of what was expected, and dramatic irony is when the significance of actions and doings of the characters in a story are obvious but the characters within the story remain oblivious. Within “The Pardoner's Tale” in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, all types of irony are used throughout the story in order to show society uses deliberate ignorance to justify its wrong doings. Particularly,
Greed or Wrath? Greed, greed is in the air, greed greed is everywhere. Geoffrey Chaucer’s story The Canterbury Tales begins with a prologue explaining the main points of the stories that follow the prologue. The two Stories “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of bath’s Tale” are two of the stories in The Canterbury Tales.
“The Knight’s Tale” is one of the most tightly structured tales with The Canterbury Tales and the knight himself is frequently interpreted as an ideal representation of aristocracy in the late fourteenth century. Yet given Chaucer’s penchant for satire and social commentary, the knight and his tale should be regarded with a keen critical eye. If the knight isn’t the spotless ideal that he is often read as, then what is to be made of the tale that he tells? If Chaucer’s Knight is understood to be as hypocritical as the clerics within the schema of the Canterbury Tales, then how is the reader meant to read the narrative of Palamon and Arcite? Given Chaucer’s love for fairly fluid interpretive agency on the part of his audience, these questions