The Pardoner’s Tale
An Analysis
Taylor Monfort-Eaton
LTC Ticen
British Literary Traditions
2/8/14
2/9/14
Help Received: Proofread by Cadets Boyle and Day
The Pardoner’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales, is one of the most
complex and interesting tales in the book. It’s a tale with a real moral and
message for the reader to take with them. The character of the Pardoner has
been widely discussed in the world of literary analysis, mainly due to the fact
that he is a hypocritical character. In fact, in A. Leigh DeNeef’s paper:
Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale and the Irony of Misinterpretation., DeNeef says that
the ultimate irony of the Pardoner’s tale is that through his moral message,
and then following actions, the Pardoner is purposefully trying to get the
pilgrims to reject the moral lesson that they wanted in the first place. I agree
with this, and I believe that this type of trickery is what makes the Pardoner
the most immoral and evil character in The Canterbury Tales
First, in my analysis of The Pardoner’s Tale, I mainly want to focus
on the character of the pardoner in my response, because I find him to be
quite complex. In the story, the Pardoner spends most of his time preaching
and sermonizing on the topic of greed and how bad it is while he himself is
selling fake relics to unsuspecting victims. He also professes to the pilgrims
that the only reason he preaches is to make money and not to actually help
people.
“And after that my tales I start to tell/And bulls of
popes, of cardinals as well, Of patriarchs and bishops, I
display/ A few words in the Latin tongue I say /To add a little
spice to what I preach/ And stir men to devotion as I teach” (
341-346)
Then, after The Pardoner tells the pilgrims that he is a cheat, he tries to sell
the pilgrims his fake relics. “Come forth, Sir Host, and offer first right
now/And kiss then each and every relic. How? /For just a groat! Unbuckle
now your purse." (943-945) All of this seems quite ironic to me (much like
I’m sure Chaucer intended it to), and it also teaches the reader to be careful of
those that you think are doing things for a moral purpose. I think that this is a
trap that most of us as humans tend to fall into. We assume that those in
power always have a good intention behind what they are doing. Chaucer
uses several of the characters, the nun, the pardoner, and the priest to show
the reader that in fact the opposite is true. Now, I hardly have a problem
with making money by any means, I was a Business Major here for 5
semesters, so the idea of making as much money as possible is not a base idea
to me. After all, as Gordon Gecko says in the movie Wall Street: Greed is good.
However, there is something about a man of God using greed that does not sit
well with me.
In
his
paper
Chaucer's
Pardoner's
Tale
and
the
Irony
of
Misinterpretation, A. Leigh DeNeef says that the Pardoner uses one of his
stories to show what DeNeef calls the irony of misinterpretation, which
means that through the Pardoner’s moral tale, he actually convinces the other
pilgrims to reject the moral story that they wanted. DeNeef says “By
heightening his own evil, he (the Pardoner) may, in fact, be trying to force the
pilgrims to reject the moral lesson they have demanded.”(DeNeef 87) DeNeef
says that this would be easy, because the Pardoner is the only character
“highly conscious of his power to control the respones of his
audience.”(DeNeef 87). This adds a new layer of evil to the Pardoner because
now he is not only telling his story for money, but to see how he can mess
with the minds of the other pilgrims in order to take away from their faith in
people of God before they get to the end of the pilgrimage. In fact to prove the
point further that the Pardoner is merely telling this story just to trick the
pilgrims, he uses one of his predetermined speeches, something that he freely
admits and agrees with. He jumps into his usual exhortation of sin before
going on with his story, seemingly unaware that he has already warned them
of his trickery. This is used by Chaucer to show that “The Pardoner knows his
entire speech ‘by rote’” (DeNeef 91) and that the rest of the speech is just
mechanical and is not meant as a way to help the pilgrims out by giving them
a moral, but instead to trick them into rejecting the morality presented in the
story, get them thinking about greed, and buy some of the relics that he has
for sale.
Through his ingenious selling ability and unquenchable thirst for
money, The Pardoner makes no friends on his way to the shrine of Sir
Thomas Beckett. The reader must remember, however, that there is more at
work in the character of The Pardoner than just greed. As shown in A. Leigh
DeNeef’s paper Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale and the Irony of Misinterpretation,
The Pardoner uses his ability to tell stories and preach to a far more devious
end than previously thought. In fact, it is the use of his talents for such a
dubious reward that makes the Pardoner the most evil and immoral
character in The Canterbury Tales.
Works Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey . The Canterbury Tales. 3rd. 1. New York City: Bantam Dell,
2006. Print.
DeNeef, A. L. "Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale and the Irony of Misinterpretation."
Journal of Narrative Technique 3 (1973): 85-96. ProQuest. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.