The Pardoner of The Canterbury Tales
How can a man exact vengeance on God if there is nothing a mortal can do to hurt Him? The Pardoner was born sterile, which resulted in abnormal physical development. He blames God for his deformities and attempts to attack God by attacking the link between God and mankind – the Church.
In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer indirectly depicts the characters through the stories they tell. The tale is a window upon the person that tells it. However, the Pardoner’s tale seems to contradict this situation. The Pardoner, an immoral man, tells a moral story because he believes that doing this will further his ultimate objective – revenge upon God for his anomalous physical attributes. “He had the same small voice a goat has got. / His chin no beard had harboured, nor would harbour, / smoother than ever chin was left by barber. / I judge he was a gelding, or a mare” (21).
The Pardoner usually offers his pardons and relics for sale after delivering a sermon, but he readily admits to his companions that they are not real. By admitting his dupl...
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.
...nations of his thought processes, it is clear that the Pardoner does not practice what he preaches. It is ambiguous, however, as to whether the Pardoner believes what he preaches, but just doesn’t follow his preaches or whether he doesn’t believe what he preaches at all. It is evident, though, that the Pardoner has an astute mind. He is highly effective in what he does. Although he exploits the church for his own personal designs, he succeeds at obtaining that which he pursues. The efficacy of his strategy is confirmed by Chaucer’s description of the Pardoner as being a “noble ecclesiastic” and as being unmatched in his trade . Thus amidst all of his flatteries, there exists a spark of genius that complements his minimal level of ethics. This intellectual finesse is the riverbed from which all of the products of his mind flow.
In the Canterbury Tales the narrator goes on a pilgrimage and for entertainment he has the people he went on the pilgrimage with tell him tales. And he would reward whoever told him the best tale. The pardoner's tale is about three friends who let greed and money get to their heads which end up killing their friendships and themselves. The wife of bath's tale is about a knight who let's lust get to his head instead of loving someone for who they are. Although both tales are great tales and give a great moral lesson, The pardoner's tale is the better tale of the two because of its ability to teach a lesson while still creating a great story.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Canterbury Tales Study Guide : Summary and Analysis of The Pardoner's Tale | GradeSaver." Study Guides & Essay Editing | GradeSaver. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2011. .
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist who was born in Shrewsbury, England on February 12, 1809. He was the second youngest of six children. Before Charles Darwin, there were many scientists throughout his family. His father, Dr. Robert Darwin, was a medical doctor, and his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, was a well-known botanist. Darwin’s mother, Susannah Darwin, died when he was only eight years old. Darwin was a child that came from wealth and privilege and who loved to explore nature. In October 1825 at age sixteen, Darwin enrolled at Edinburgh University with his brother Erasmus. Two years later, Charles became a student at Christ’s College in Cambridge. His father wanted him to become a medical doctor, as he was, but since the sight of blood made Darwin nauseous, he refused. His father also proposed that he become a priest, but since Charles was far more interested in natural history, he had other ideas in mind (Dao, 2009)
The pardoner was a proud man. While others were not as educated as he was, the pardoner spoke in Latin to show off his linguistic ability. His failure to practice what he preached made him a model of hypocrisy and deceit. The pardoner was such a bragger that he boasted of the sins that he had done. "I spit out my venom under the color of holiness, to seem holy and true"(page 343). The pardoner admitted to his astonishing behavior and confessed to his immorality. His shameless confession indicated that he was guilty of foolishness: I preach, as you have just heard, and tell a hundred other falsehoods...my intention is to win money, not at all to cast out sins (page 343).
myself be a full vicious man, A moral tale yet I you telle kan.’ The
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.
Downsizing, restructuring, rightsizing, even a term as obscure as census readjustment has been used to describe the plague that has been affecting corporate America for years and has left many of its hardest working employees without work. In the 1980’s, twenty-five percent of middle management was eliminated in the United States (Greenberg/Baron 582). In the 1990’s, one million managers of American corporations with salaries over $40,000 also lost their jobs (Greenberg/Baron 582). In total, Fortune 500 companies have eliminated 4.4 million positions since 1979 (Greenberg/Baron 627). Although this downsizing of companies can have many reasons behind it and cannot be avoided at times, there are simple measures a company can take to make the process easier on the laid-off employees and those who survive with the company.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Pardoner's Tale." Chaucer's Works. Ed. Walter W. Skeat. Vol. 4. London: U of Oxford, 2007. N. pag. Web. 24 Apr. 2014
The willingness of companies to swiftly lay off workers to cope with changing business environments.
The direct characterization of this selection involves stating exactly how the character is and what they do. However, when he follows his pattern of indirect characterization by revealing who the characters actually are through expressing the actions or thoughts. In his section "The Pardoner 's Prologue," Chaucer doesn 't say everything about the Pardoner; he lets people figure it out for themselves as they read the selection and realize that the Pardoner is actually a con man who trades money for the "gift of forgiveness" as he, ironically, preaches tales of greed and how it can ruin lives. Chaucer characterizes the individuals both directly and indirectly, giving the reader both the idea and the chance to figure out how each character lives and makes it through their
An interesting aspect of the famous literary work, "The Canterbury Tales," is the contrast of realistic and exaggerated qualities that Chaucer entitles to each of his characters. When viewed more closely, one can determine whether each of the characters is convincing or questionable based on their personalities. This essay will analyze the characteristics and personalities of the Knight, Squire, Monk, Plowman, Miller, and Parson of Chaucer's tale.
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.
The Canterbury Tales is a great contemplation of stories, that display humorous and ironic examples of medieval life, which imitate moral and ethical problems in history and even those presented today. Chaucer owed a great deal to the authors who produced these works before his time. Chaucer tweaked their materials, gave them new meanings and revealed unscathed truths, thus providing fresh ideas to his readers. Chaucer's main goal for these tales was to create settings in which people can relate, to portray lessons and the irony of human existence.