The Role Of Greed In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Being a high ranking member of the church, he teach’s a tale of greed to gain indulgences. The irony in this is the fact that he fuels his own with a lesson on the dangers of greed, “I only preach to satisfy my greed.”(433). In addition, the pardoner’s admittance to his hypocrisy and greed is a form of verbal irony within itself, “Yes, I myself can preach against the vice/ Of avarice that is my own device:/ for though I’m guilty of that very sin”(427-429). Both examples of irony present the pardoner’s knowledge of his wrong doings. However, he still cast a willful blindness to his sins.

“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.

One of the men leaves to provide them with wine and food while they wait for nightfall. When arriving back into town, he buys poison and adds it to the wine. Meanwhile, the other two that stayed behind to watch the gold, decided to kill him and they would end up sharing the gold. The irony in the story comes down to all three of them dying. Therefore, the Pardoner’s moral of the story is that money is the root of all evil.

They are never happy about what they have. Greed is wanting what others have and the book hamlet is centered around just that, murder, sacrifice, and mischief. Claudius is a perfect example of greed. He killed the king in order to obtain the throne. As it said in the book ¨murder most foul, as in the best it is, but this most foul, strange, and unnatural.¨ Claudius was greedy and wanted what his brother had.

Emerson tends to use diction with more aggressive connotation to get the same idea across. “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. . .”(Emerson 370) . Emerson uses such diction as ‘ignorance’ and ‘suicide’ to give a true representation of what conforming to society is.

The most immoral character in The Canterbury Tales is the Friar. Why he is the most immoral is he breaks all of the four vows. The four vows are obedience, chastity, poverty, and stability. In the vow of obedience it says, “Therefore instead of weeping and of prayer one should give silver for a poor friars care (Chaucer 235).” This states that they should pay him instead of him giving the word and love of god. The vow of obedience states a person listens to people more than self, and listens for the word of god in all things.

Greed is the most talked about moral in “The Pardoner’s Tale” and seems to be one of the most problematic and relatable moral. In “The Pardoner’s Tale” Three rioters end up begging killed for being so greedy. As the rioters were out on their quest to find death, they find some gold. The youngest goes back to get a few things to help collect the gold and the other two plot to kill him,and the young rioter had poison. Because they all planned to kill each other because they wanted the gold, they found death and death killed them before they could kill him.

Greed was the main force of corruption in Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo; it has corrupted men throughout the novel. Damasio “El Tilcuate”, who was in charge of guarding the town from revolutionaries, has been corrupted. Fulgor Sedano, the right-hand of the Paramos, had dedicated his life to carry out the ‘dirty deeds’ of the rich: he has been corrupted. Father Rentería, the town’s priest, was a hypocrite, he hated the Paramos and the rich, though he accepted bribes from them, granted them absolution and neglected the poor since they couldn’t pay him: he has been corrupted. The main character, Pedro Páramo turned out to be the most immoral man in the novel.

The Not So Righteous Friar In “The Canterbury Tales”, the Friar is the most immoral character. The Friar, Henry, breaks all four of the vows. Poverty, Obedience, Chastity, and Stability. “He was an easy man in penance-giving where he could make a decent living.” (Chaucer 227-228). From this quote you can clearly see that the Friar is breaking the vow of poverty.

After the gold is found, the failed murder results in the killing of the stranger. This situation proves the world's love of people and the world. People out for themselves with the passion of more greed soon fail. The power of money motivates people to do the unthinkable. London uses his past experience to give a straight how a wandering man out for themselves and the world brings on