The Pardoner, a Symbol of Greed in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of stories by a group of pilgrims who are heading to Canterbury Cathedral. In this book, the pardoner and the reeve show antipodal characters in many ways. The pardoner is beautiful blonde hair man who is being loved by everyone. However he is very corrupted and smart and sells fake religious stuff to people saying very good compliment. On the other hand, the reeve is very serious and honest business man. He is very smart enough to know what criminals think and do. The pardoner story-tells a great example (or tale?) of seven deadly sins and reeve’s story is mocking of the miller. These very different characteristic men tell story telling that human beings are always punished for

In “The Pardoner’s Prologue”, especially in the end of the prologue, it clearly show that his teaching and church believe are all corrupted. It really show they are selfish and greediness and also in “The Pardoner’s Tales”, we can see that there are a lot of repeat word that represent the Pardoner itself and the church believe. The Pardoner say the word gluttony and greed many times, he tells that they are bad but the way he act and speech are all ironic. Here are some quote from the tale, “O gluttony, so full of cursedness! O first cause of our trial and tribulation, Origin of all our souls’ damnation till we were purchased back by blood of Christ!”(Chaucer 498 - 501). This quote, the Pardoner all blabbing about the gluttony are very bad and the cause of all bad things. It is very ironic to what he does in the story, the pardoner get drunk and eat while he teaching.The Pardoner said, “A lecherous thing is wine, and drunknness is full of striving and of wretchedness. O drunken man, disfigured is your face, sour your breath, you’re foul to the embrace! And through you drunken nose it seems the sound is “Samson, Samson” that you would expound, Though, God knows, Samson never drank of wine”(Chaucer 549 - 555). This quote really explain what the Pardoner did and how he looks like. All of his teaching are all directly reflect into the Pardoner’s inner self.

In the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Church developed a position for selling “heavenly treasury” to those who “repented and confessed” (Bowden 277). This position, known as a pardoner, made it easy to be exempt from sin with an exchange of money. The profit from selling these indulgences and relics was to be used to help with maintenance of the Church, but along with easy forgiveness came easy dishonesty. The relics and indulgences could be sold by anyone that decided to call themselves a pardoner. In addition, a legitimate pardoner could sell relics and/or indulgences while keeping the money for himself or without pardoning people in the proper way (Bowden 277). Chaucer’s Pardoner takes advantage of his

Pardoner had a dubious profession. He was paid by the Church to offer and sell

The world is full of hypocrites and in the story “The Pardoner’s Tale”, Chaucer writes about a man who is living a life of sin. The Pardoner’s tale is an epologia of a pardoner who has the power from the church to forgive others for their sins but makes a living out of lying and tricking his audience. Throughout the Pardoner’s Tale he preaches about greed, drinking, blasphemy, and gambling but in the Pardoner’s Prologue he admits to committing these sins himself. The pardoner is really just a 14th century con artist who makes a living by his own hypocrisy.

In Canterbury Tales, Chaucer reveals hypocritical qualities in the Pardoner through vivid characterization, tone, and morality. The Pardoner's total lack of respect for the Church's expectations and the congregation allows Chaucer to display flaws in society. Chaucer is able to demonstrate scams and illustrate hypocrisy in the Church, and society in general through the techniques he uses in Canterbury Tales.

The Pardoner use deceit and lies to pray on the poor and innocent, his characterization represents the churches misuse of its vast power. Chaucer fortifies this idea when he describes the Pardoner as “And thus I preach against the very vice/I make my

Most of us might know that Chaucer's version of The Canterbury Tales is an old story but his version may just be the most famous. Chaucer has this problem with how things are done and the hypocrisy. ¨The love of money is the root to all evil.¨ According to the French the people in England always smelled. They were poor in sanitation and even when talking in German their breath would stink. He wrote this story in the language of the street. The Pardoner's Tale will not only show us greed and irony but it will also show us what someone can become capable of doing just to get money, even to their own blood. Chaucer will criticize the church hypocrisy.

In “The Pardoner’s Tale” the central theme is how people become corrupt and self-centered, mostly for monetary purposes. To start off, before the pardoner tells his tale he tells the other pilgrims, “Radix malorum est cupiditas” in line 8, meaning the love of money is the root of all evil. He says before he even begins that money corrupts people, and has corrupted him; he does not care that he hurts people. This example of selfishness shows that a lust for money can corrupt someone to their very core. Later on in the tale, the three rioters find gold under a tree in their quest looking for Death.

The Pardoner consistently brings up the redemption of Christ and God throughout his tale. He polarizes original sin and Christ: "O glotonye, ful of cursednesse!/ O cause first of oure confusion!/ O original of oure dampnacioun,/ Til Christ hadde brought us with his blood again!" (210-3) He moves on to gluttony, and his nuanced technique of delivering subconscious critique becomes more apparent: "'They been enemies of Cristes crois,/ Of which the ende is deeth‹wombe is hir god!/ O wombe, O bely, O stinking cod,/ Fulfilled of dong and of corrupcioun!'" (244-7) His tale takes place while the Pilgrims (and the Pardoner) are drinking at an inn, and his further attacks on alcohol reveal his blatant hypocritical values: "A lecherous thing is win, and dronkenesse/ Is ful of striving and of wrecchednesse./ O dronke man, disfigured is thy face!/ Sour is thy breeth, foul artou to embrace!" (261-3) The Pardoner's moralistic statement condemns himself more than his audience, as he is the "dronke man" of the group; he is the lecherous drunk who "wil drinke licour of the vine/ And have a joly wenche in every town"

The Canterbury Tales, written and narrated by Geoffrey Chaucer, explores manipulation and dishonesty in the Catholic Church. The Nun in “The General Prologue” exemplifies improper qualities to which a Prioress should have. Along with the Nun, The Friar in “The General Prologue” uses false information to gain customer. In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” the Pardoner uses greedy tactics to wield other pilgrims into buying his relics.In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the Nun and the Friar in “The General Prologue” and the Pardoner in “The Pardoner’s Tale” to show the hypocrisy in the Church.

Both the Pardoner and the Friar are portrayed as quick-thinking charlatans. Chaucer does seem to admire the Pardoner’s skill, and skilled he is, but his actions do not befit a man of the cloth. The Pardoner is spoken of as using bogus relics to con “poor up-country parsons” out of their hard-earned cash. These small hustles netted him “more in a day than the parson in a month or two”. When choosing his occupation, I’m sure the Pardoner did not see the light of the lord but rather, dollar signs. Chaucer goes on to say that yes, the pardoner did preach rather well and his stories were quite splendid, however that might be on account that he could “win money from the crowd”.

By admitting to his listeners the extremity of his deceit, he immediately proves himself an unethical priest. Additionally, the pardoner does not seem to heed the emotions of his audience – foolishly, he titles gullible the people who purchase his “soul-saving” relics, but proceeds to offer the relics to his audience, implying that they, too, are ignorant. “These ignorants sit down, and right to work I go…and tell a hundred silly stories more”

In the story there are many circumstances under which the people in the middle class have been manipulated, by those with evil intent, effortlessly. Chaucer acknowledges the devious deeds of the Pardoner, “On one short day, in money down, he drew more than the parson in a month or two, and by his flatteries and prevarication made monkeys of the priest and congregation.” (Chaucer 115). The Pardoner took advantage of people and robbed them for their last dime with no remorse. Though the Pardoner was wrong for what he did there should never be a scenario when somebody is robbed of their last dime by intellectual manipulation, there should always be a point of return. Next Chaucer displays, “There was no Pardoner of equal grace for in his trunk he had a pillowcase.” (Chaucer 115). Here Chaucer is implying that this is not the

To add on to the corruption, earlier in the “General Prologue” the narrator mentioned how the Pardoner was adding to his irrelevent preaching of having relics. Such as the gobbet of Saint Peter, he goes as far as even saying he has a pillow case made of Our Lady’s veil. Indeed there were people who believed in such spiritual journeys who can be examples of the Pardoner cons, selling them holy relics and or promises of salvation which are frauds. This is more to add to the Pardoner’s deceptions, since his job was to get money from charitable enterprises to give back to those in need. “For in his trunk he had a pillowcase/ Which he asserted was Our Lady’s veil./ He said he had a gobbet of the sail/ Saint Peter had the time when he made bold/ To walk the waves…”(Chaucer 696-700). As shown the Pardoner was a skilled liar, not that the narrator believed him or many people did for that matter, but he was a compulsive liar running on greedy. One quality his tale talks about not having. After bringing attention to the inadequacies of the church workers, it is seemed that Chaucer continues to throw judgement to the Catholic Church through the tales of the characters.