Examples Of Greed In The Pardoner's Tale

There are corrupt people all around, they hide in the world as best friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, relatives, acquaintances, preachers, and teachers. These people hide behind different personalities so they can be anyone they want to be. Corrupted souls can have many different motives, some want money, some want fame, some want sex. People who want money can deceive you into giving it to them, people who want fame do whatever they can to get noticed, and people who want sex pretend to love someone just to please themselves. They manipulate innocent people with good souls just for their own gain. In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” a story from The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer, is about a corrupt clergyman who tells a tale for his own

Chaucer writes, “And yet however guilty of that sin / Myself with others I have power to win” (lines 47-48). The Pardoner is pleased with himself. He sees the wrong in what he does and does not care how it affects other people. He takes all kinds of things from them, such as, clothes, jewelry, money, and takes them with a smile on his face. The Pardoner speaks, “I mean I have money, wool and cheese and wheat / Though it were given to me by the poorest lad / Or the poorest village widow, though she had / A string of starving children, all agape” (lines 66-69). The Pardoner knows some of the people cannot afford to give him money and have other more important things, for instance, families to feed, bills to pay. He sees them struggling, he recognizes that they are human beings and that is why he is so proud of himself for manipulating them. The people give him their last dime before they take care of themselves. Sparks says, “he freely admits to, even brags of…preaching only for money (138-40)--yet he says preaching against the love of money is his only theme (47-48, 139-40)” . Sparks comments that not only is the Pardoner proud of what he does, he brags about it too. This observation can show that the Pardoner is so proud of what he does that he wants everyone to

And the effect this tale has on the people who hear this tale, unfortunately they would believe him because they only understand what they are told and are scared. A critic says, “At various levels of the tale, the Pardoner's authorial intentions are fulfilled. As a moral sermon the tale conditions the audience to repent of the various sins that they have seen so dramatically depicted and punished…” (Williams). The story is funny and full of adventure as it deals with the controversies of medieval Christianity. However, it certainly shows that people were willing to pay for their salvation without realizing they were being taken advantage of. Even today, there are frauds in every religion and continue to take money from anyone who are willing to pay for their fake Christian