Hypocrisy In The Pardoner's Tale

412 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Irony of the pardoner's tale

There is fued between the Pardoner and his good moral. He has a thing that the people have to pay him so he can get rid of their “sins”. In all reality he's just lying for reason that are said in the tale. I will tell you why and what he dos that causes Chaucer’s attack on the church's hypocrisy. There will always be a feud in every story which that have a reasoning to it so it would make sense to read it all the way. First of all, the Pardoner is manipulating the people by telling them that they have committed a sin and they have to go to the church so they can get rid of their “sin/s”. Overall it's all just a lie because he just wants money. He also has the Summoner to help get people to go and confess their sins. All the people believe

Show More
Related

  • Analysis of Kittredge's Chaucer's Pardoner

    571 Words  | 2 Pages

    Chaucer was "not a reformer" or "satirist" whose goal is to reform the church. He merely wished to use different characters to tell his stories. Kittredge also mentions how the pardoner is not drunk when telling his tale, as only one draught of ale was consumed, not nearly enough to intoxicate a seasoned drinker like the pardoner. Through his reasoning, Kittredge concludes that the pardoner's foolish confession, in fact, has a purpose for the story. While the pardoner may seem foolish to reveal his sins and hypocrisies, there is reasoning behind this madness.

    Read More

  • Greed of the Pardoner in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout literature, relationships can often be found between the author of a story and the story that he writes.  In Geoffrey Chaucer's frame story, Canterbury Tales, many of the characters make this idea evident with the tales that they tell.  A distinct relationship can be made between the character of the Pardoner and the tale that he tells.

    Read More

  • Greed Depicted in Chaucer's The Pardoner’s Tale

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    A pardoner is a person that could relieve someone from their sins. In the case of the Pardoners Tale, the Pardoner expects money for relieving sinners from their sins and for telling a story. The pardoner in this tale is hypocritical, his scare tactics prove this. He says that greed over things like money is an evil thing, and his audience should give him large amounts of money so he can pardon them from their sins.

    Read More

  • Pardoner's Manipulation of Audience

    804 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Pardoner may or may not believe it. If he does, he will. clearly doesn't care: after his tale is over, he proceeds to the height of audacious mockery -- of himself and of the pilgrims -- by hocking his relics to the pilgrims to whom he has just revealed. entire cynical fraud of the sex. But does Chaucer believe that the moral of the tale applies to the Pardoner.

    Read More

  • sir gawain

    522 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Pardoners Prologue, we see the theme of hypocrisy throughout the play. The pardoner knows he is a con artist and liar and freely admits it in both word and action in his tales prologue. The pardoner begins with the tale itself. In his sermon he describes gluttony in detail, and defines it as not only overeating, but the intense pleasure of doing it. He also denounces wine with examples of drunkenness. He also discusses swearing and cursing and concludes with condemning gambling.However, we can see hypocrisy be4 the tale even begin.The pardoner before telling his tale stops off at an inn for food &bear .He also partakes in a bet , whoever tells the best story wins. The pardoner also insults the host, who just before asking the pardoner to speak has been cursing and using bear to mend his broken heart. Furthermore, he is also the owner of the tavern which encourages eating &drinking. We can also assume that the pardoner and the host r drunk.In addition, the pardoner offers his lisnters a chance to redeem themselves, not through relics by acknowledging what they did wrong.However,at the end of his tale is saying his relics are needed for redemption eventhough he knows they are fake. In conclusion we see how through the pardoner the theme of hypocrisy.

    Read More

  • Fraudelence Personified

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Honesty In The Pardoner

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Pardoner does the opposite of that. When the Pardoner sells a pardon instead of giving the money to the church or donating it he keeps it for himself. This is totally against integrity and shows again why the Pardoner is not honest. Cheating is another word that is important with the word honesty because it is the opposite of it. To cheat someone is to wrong them with or without their knowledge. The Pardoner does this buy selling his so called “relics” when really they are just fake and he is just trying to get more money. As Chaucer (1476) himself said in the Pardoner’s prologue “he made the parson and the people his apes” (line 705). The Pardoner is a cheater and a scammer these are qualities that an honest person has, an example of an honest person is Abraham Lincoln, he was also sometimes referred to as “Honest Abe” or supposed honest

    Read More

  • The Pardoner's Tale And The Wife Of Bath Satire Analysis

    1115 Words  | 3 Pages

    However, after hearing his tale it is quite shocking about his frankness about his own hypocrisy. We know that he bluntly accuses himself of fraud, avarice, and gluttony, all things that he preaches against throughout this tale. It is in lines, 432-433 that the Pardoner states, “But that is not my principal intent; I preach nothing but for convenience.” It is here that we truly begin to learn that The Pardoner’s Tale is merely an example of a story that is often used by preachers to emphasize a moral point to their audience. That is why, this tale in particular helps to comprehend Chaucer’s own opinions, and how he used satire to display them.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Pardoner's Prologue And Tale

    1340 Words  | 3 Pages

    He also shows through the Pardoner that perhaps immoral people cannot guide people to morality, through subtle lines such as “For though myself be a full vicious man,/ A moral tale yit I you telle can” (GP 171-172). Through Chaucer’s portrayal of the Pardoner in this tale, the audience is able to see that the Pardoner is a self-absorbed, greedy man that mirrors what the author thinks of the Church, and that the Pardoner is the exact opposite of what he preaches, which also points towards the supposed corruption of the Church. The irony found throughout this work serves the important purpose of bringing attention to the dishonesty and fraud Chaucer believes can be found in the Roman Catholic Church at this time.

    Read More

  • Power and Corruption in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Canterbury Tales is a very popular and well known set of stories, written by Geoffrey Chaucer. This collection of stories is great entertainment and some even provide very good moral lessons; most of these stories show the contempt Chaucer had for the Church of England which had control at the time over most of England. Chaucer’s bias towards the corruption of the Church is best demonstrated in the Pardoner’s Prologue, in contradiction with the Parson’s Tale, and the level of power within the Church structure. These are two of the stories of the many that are in The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a high level leader who is corrupt and yet enables him to convert the sinners even if he does it for personal gain. While the Parson is of lower standing in the Church, he is not corrupt, and gives the message to the pilgrims so that they might be forgiven.

    Read More

  • Greed and Corruption in The Canterbury Tales

    365 Words  | 1 Pages

    In "The Pardoners Tale," all the characters seek out Death, and the Pardoner describes Death like a person, an evil person. During the fourteenth century death was commonplace. The plague was the biggest killer of all and nobody knew what caused it therefore it was considered a mysterious and evil occurrence. In this particular tale death is personified, and all the characters in the tale who seek him out either die or kill each other when they get close to him. The point Chaucer makes through the words of the Pardoner is that the evil traits like greed, avarice and corruption lead to death. Of course the Pardoner himself is a hypocrite and embodies all of these traits. In the end of the tale he tries to sell his relics to the people to make money which shows that he, as an official of the church, is just as evil and corrupt as the Summoner in "The Friar's Tale."

    Read More

  • Attitudes And Attrivants In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    The monk receives some scathing sarcasm in Chaucer’s judgment of his new world ways and the garments he wears “With fur of grey, the finest in the land; Also, to fasten hood beneath his chin, He had of good wrought gold a curious pin: A love-knot in the larger end there was.” (194-197, Chaucer). The Friar is described as being full of gossip and willing to accept money to absolve sins, quite the opposite of what a servant of God should be like. Chaucer further describes the friar as being a frequenter of bars and intimate in his knowledge of bar maids and nobles alike. The friar seems to be the character that Chaucer dislikes the most, he describes him as everything he should not be based on his profession. The Pardoner as well seems to draw special attention from Chaucer who describes him as a man selling falsities in the hopes of turning a profit “But with these relics, when he came upon Some simple parson, then this paragon In that one day more money stood to gain Than the poor dupe in two months could attain.” (703-706, Chaucer). Chaucer’s description of the pardoner paints the image of a somewhat “sleazy” individual “This pardoner had hair as yellow as wax, But lank it hung as does a strike of flax; In wisps hung down such locks as he 'd on head, And with them he his shoulders overspread; But thin they dropped, and stringy, one by one.” (677-681,

    Read More

  • Geoffrey Chaucer's Use Of Satire In The Canterbury Tales

    1451 Words  | 3 Pages

    During Chaucer’s time, there was only one church, the Roman Catholic Church. There is only one church because the Protestant movement hasn’t started yet, it started in the 16th century. Anyone who was a member of the Roman Catholic Church, for example a Pardoner, a Summoner, or a Friar, are not to have sex, or party around, as well as not having money. Chaucer notices that some of these people in the Church break these rules repeatedly. Chaucer uses satire to brilliantly describe the hypocrisy in the church. Although Chaucer may come off as anti-religious, he is religious, he is against anti-hypocrisy. The first character Chaucer uses satire on is the Friar. Chaucer tells his audience that the Friar liked to sleep around a lot with women. The Friar also got lots of girls pregnant and then married them off to men in the church. The Friar was also very wealthy, and liked to party. Which are clear violations of the church’s code. To make things worse, Chaucer said that this particular Friar was better than others. The next characters that Chaucer introduced were the Pardoner and the Summoner. The Summoner’s job in a church is to find people who have committed sin and bring them to the church so that their sins can be forgiven by the Pardoner. However, the Summoner abused his power by blackmailing people to go see the Pardoner or else they

    Read More

  • The Tale of the Pardoner in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

    1940 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Canterbury Tales is a literary masterpiece in which the brilliant author Geoffrey Chaucer sought out to accomplish various goals. Chaucer wrote his tales during the late 1300’s.  This puts him right at the beginning of the decline of the Middle Ages.  Historically, we know that a middle class was just starting to take shape at this time, due to the emerging commerce industry. Chaucer was able to see the importance and future success of the middle class, and wrote his work with them in mind.  Knowing that the middle class was not interested in lofty philosophical literature, Chaucer wrote his work as an extremely comical and entertaining piece that would be more interesting to his audience.  Also, Chaucer tried to reach the middle class by writing The Canterbury Tales in English, the language of the middle class rather than French, the language of the educated upper class.  The most impressive aspect of Chaucer’s writing is how he incorporated into his piece some of his own controversial views of society, but yet kept it very entertaining and light on the surface level.  One of the most prevalent of these ideas was his view that certain aspects of the church had become corrupt.  This idea sharply contrasted previous Middle Age thought, which excepted the church’s absolute power and goodness unquestionably.  He used corrupt church officials in his tales to illustrate to his audience that certain aspects of the church needed to be reformed.  The most intriguing of these characters was the Pardoner.  Chaucer’s satirical account of the Pardoner is written in a very matter-of-fact manner that made it even more unsettling with his audience.  Chaucer uses his straightforwardness regarding the hypocrisy of the Pardoner, suggestive physiognomy of the character, and an interesting scene at the conclusion of the Pardoner’s Tale to inculcate his views of the church to his audience. The way that Chaucer used these literary devices to subtly make his views known to an audience while hooking them with entertainment, shows that Chaucer was truly a literary genius.

    Read More

  • Chaucer's Use Of Satire In The Canterbury Tales

    530 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Church is the first institution that Chaucer attacks using satire in The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer wants to attack the church’s hypocrisy. Chaucer decides to create the character of the pardoner to prove his point. Cawthorne conveys, “His Canterbury Tales collects together 24 narratives with a General Prologue and an epilogue or Retraction.” Chaucer describes the character before telling their tale. The Pardoner is a man who steals from the poor. Chaucer says on page 127 line 77, “For though I am a wholly vicious man don’t think I can’t tell moral tales.” The pardoner knows what he does is wrong, but he continues to do it anyway.

    Read More

More about Hypocrisy In The Pardoner's Tale

Open Document