Examples Of Hypocrisy In The Pardoners Tale

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The Pardoners Tale is a tale written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1392. The Canterbury Tales consists of different people who were on a journey to Canterbury. Each of these travelers would tell a tale as they travel which added up to the many stories in the Canterbury Tales. These tales all entail very diverse yet important themes. One distinctive that happens to occur consistently not only through the Pardoners Tale, but through the Canterbury Tales itself is hypocrisy. For example, in the pardoners tale hypocrisy plays a huge part when the three men made an oath of brotherhood to find Death together but ended up plotting death on each other. The pardoner states, “The youngest is chosen, and as soon as he has left one of the remaining revellers suggests to his companion that the gold would be better divided into two parts rather than three. They plot to murder their companion so that they will have more of the money for themselves: they agree that one of them will wrestle with him, as if in play, so that the other can stab him.” (768–836). This is significant because it shows how Chaucer categorized the pardoner with the other corrupt males in the Tales, including Absolon, Sir Thopas. Thus, the pardoner’s tale exemplifies the dangers of hypocrisy. In addition, in the Prologue of the tale, the Pardoner admits that he preaches for only for the greed of …show more content…

He states, “Avarice is the theme that I employ in all my sermons, to make the people free in giving pennies—especially to me” (81-100). This quote is key because it proves that he doesn’t care about the souls of other people. He doesn’t truly have a passion for preaching, all he longs for is his desire to gain money out of people. Thus this tale represents the constant pattern of hypocrisy we continue to perceive throughout the

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