Fraudelence Personified

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Recommended: Character analysis of one of the characters from Canterbury Tales

Fraudulence Personified

The Pardoner is the best representation of an allegorical character in “The Prologue” of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The Pardoner is the perfect personification of fraudulence. He shows this in three basic ways: his appearance, speech, and actions. If one just glances through the reading of the Pardoner than one will think that he is a good religious man, but if one look further into it than he will find the small double meanings that he is the exact opposite. Chaucer likes to use an allegorical style to add some comedy and sophistication to his writings.
The comedy is most heavily used in the Pardoner’s description than in any other part of The Canterbury Tales. For example (page 135, line 712) “There was no pardoner of equal grace/ For in his trunk he had a pillow case.” When the words “no pardoner of equal grace” are used you are lead to believe that the Pardoner is a great man, but if you look back in the reading you will find totally different things. He is a dirty, immoral man that really does not have much grace. Another example of the sarcastic comedy is (page 135, line 727) “In church he was a noble ecclesiast. How well he read a lesson or told a story! But best of all he sang an Offertory, For well he knew that when that song was sung He’d have to preach and tune his honey-tongue That’s why he sang so merrily and loud.” Again the text seems to be saying he is a “noble ecclesiast” and that he likes to preach the word of God to others. If one looks at it closer one will find out that calling him a noble ecclesiast is a joke and that he only preaches and sings so that he can take the tithes for himself.
There are quite a few examples of the Pardoner’s actions being the personification of fraudulence throughout lines 608-734. For instance (page 135, line 705) “He’d sewed a holy relic on his cap:/ His wallet lay before him on his lap,/ Brimful of pardon come from Rome all hot.” The relic sewed on his hat showed that he thought of himself as a righteous holy man, and that is one thing he was not. The wallet and the pardons was the most disturbing of his acts. Since he was holding his wallet on his lap, it shows that he is very interested in money.

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