• The Pardoner tells the travelers
• Whenever he preaches his theme is always
•
“That greed is the root of all evil”
• He brags openly and boldly
•
•
of his corrupt practices and manipulative
methods of getting money out of the gullible.
how little he cares for humanity.
• He also states that he enjoys the
creature comforts humanity‘s
guilt and stupidity afford him.
• The terrible man is also aware
that he preaches against what he
himself practices.
• He launches his story by
remarking that his wickedness
does not prevent him from telling
a moral story.
• Early one day, three very depraved and
evil companions are drinking together in a
tavern.
• These young men have been totally ruined
by the sins of gluttony, avarice, and sloth.
• The three hear a bell ringing for a funeral,
and a boy tells them that a friend of theirs
has been killed by a thief called Death.
• The tavern keeper says this fellow,
Death, has slain a whole village about a
mile from there.
• The three drunks pledge to find Death
and kill him before nightfall.
• They head out for the town the tavern
keeper mentioned.
• Shortly, they meet a very old man who
points them to an oak tree where he
says they will meet Death.
• Off rushes the obsessed trio, but when they
reach the oak tree, it is bushels of gold they
find there.
• All thoughts of Death leave them as they plot to
get the money back to their own village.
• The young men draw straws to see which of
them will go back to the town for food and
drink to sustain them during the day while they
guard their treasure.
• The youngest of the three draws the short
straw; he sets out for the town at once.
• As soon as he is gone, the other two
conspire to murder him when he returns,
so they can keep the wealth all for
themselves.
• In the meantime, the youngest one has
determined to kill the other two. He buys
strong poison in the town and adds it to
the wine he buys for his companions.
• As soon as the youngest
gets back with the supplies,
the two companions
pounce on him and murder
him.
• They then sit down to drink
and celebrate, but die
immediately when they
drink the poisoned wine.
• This story is followed by another sermon
against avarice and the beginning of a
sales pitch for the relics the Pardoner
carries.
• The Host interrupts. He refuses to go
along with any more of what he perceives
as the Pardoner's duplicity and sacrilege
and says so very coarsely.
• The Pardoner becomes infuriated at the
Host's insults and the Knight has to
intervene.
• He insists that the two kiss and make up,
which they do.
• The wicked practices of the Pardoner
were, unfortunately, widespread in the
medieval Catholic Church.
• However, the Pardoner is so openly and
gleefully and unashamedly wicked that he
himself serves a sermon against these
practices.
• His tale is totally in keeping with his
character.
• The form of The Pardoner's Tale, an allegory,
is one with which medieval audiences would
have been completely familiar.
• In an allegory
• the characters personify abstract qualities
• the plot is meant to teach a moral lesson.
In this case, Avarice,
Gluttony, and Sloth
meet Death at their
own hands; in other
words, these vices lead
invariably to spiritual
death.
• This particular allegory had many versions in
Eastern and in Western literature and was
frequently enacted as a morality play.
Therefore, it is not attributed to any single
source.
• Chaucer's version is the one that has survived.
It has become one of the most widely read
and best loved of The Canterbury Tales.