Canterbury Tales Essay, Research Paper

In Geoffrey Chaucer?s The Canterbury Tales, the Pardoner tells a tale which reflects some of his characteristics, but is not consistent with all of his qualities. The Pardoner sells pardons and relics not for the sake of the people he should be trying to save, but for his own monetary gain. The tale he tells is an ironic one, in which three friends set out to locate Death and kill him. However in the end, they just find death. The Pardoner is honest and so is the tale he tells. The three men in ?The Pardoner?s Tale? are vile, as is the Pardoner. The Pardoner gets what he deserves in the epilogue, just as the three companions do at the end of the tale. ?The Pardoner?s Tale? reflects the Pardoner?s homosexuality. In contrast with the avaricious Pardoner, ?The Pardoner?s Tale? is a sermon preaching against greed. Certain characteristics of the Pardoner are shown throughout his tale, while other parts of the tale are a contradiction of the Pardoner?s qualities.

?By trade the Pardoner is a preacher. His task is to use his rhetorical gifts to persuade his hearers to repent and be saved? (Hallissy). By profession a pardoner should be holy. He should want to save people from eternal damnation in Hell. However, the Pardoner in The Canterbury Tales does not care for the people he is supposed to be saving. He sells phony relics. The Pardoner?s love in life is money. He abuses his job to increase his own wealth. ?The Pardoner is a man who by his own account makes a rich living from corrupt preaching? (Cooper 274).

In ?The Pardoner?s Tale,? three friends see a coffin on a carriage go by in the street. They learn that the dead person is their friend. They ask who killed their friend and are told that Death killed him. In their drunken state, they go out with the goal to find and kill Death. On a road, they see an old man who tells them that Death is under a tree. The three men go to the tree and find treasure underneath it. They decide to take the treasure home at nightfall so they do not look like thieves. The youngest man goes into town to fetch bread and wine. While he is away, the two other men decide to kill the youngest and take his share of the treasure. In town, the youngest of the friends buys poison so he may kill his two companions and steal their gold. When he returns to the tree, the other two men stab him. To celebrate their victory they drink the wine, which the youngest man filled with poison. ?Eventually, of course, the revellers reach the end of their quest, but the death they meet is not in the form of a person? (Hoy 176).

The Pardoner is an honest man and he tells an honest tale. He tells the pilgrims that he uses his position to gain money from people. He is truthful to the pilgrims and admits to them that he is greedy.

?But let me briefly make my purpose plain;

I preach for nothing but for greed of gain

And use the same old text, as bold as brass,

Radix malorum est cupiditas.

And thus I preach against the very vice

I make my living out of ? avarice (Chaucer 243).

At the end of his tale, the Pardoner admits to the rest of the pilgrims that Jesus Christ?s pardons mean a lot more than his own do. He tells everyone his relics are bogus. He openly tells the pilgrims the truth about his relics before trying to sell them. The Pardoner could have easily lied about the authenticity of his items, or he did not have to mention it at all. Instead, he decides to tell everyone the truth. ?The Pardoner?s Tale? is an honest sermon to deter people away from greed.

Harry Bailly clearly wants a bawdy fabliau [comic] story, and the Pardoner, despite his ecclesiastical office appears to be quite ready to oblige. But he is forestalled by the ?gentils?, who demand a more constructive and ?honest? Tale?. To this the Pardoner readily agrees, and, provided with a glass of ale and cake, he proceeds with his Prologue? (Hoy 172)

The Pardoner takes pride in the fact that his preaching skills make people want to be saved. The Pardoner?s sermon is a realistic story that could happen to any one of the people who listen to him. ?The Pardoner?s Tale? is straightforward and honest and so is the Pardoner.

The Pardoner is vile; he does not care about the people who listen to his sermon. He wants only money from the people.

?That trick?s been worth a hundred marks a year

Since I became a Pardoner, never fear.

Then, priestlike in my pulpit, with a frown,

I stand, and when the yokels have sat down,

I preach, as you have heard me say before,

And tell a hundred lying mockeries more (Chaucer 242).

He repeats his sermon repeatedly, and the words are meaningless. ?Clever and interesting though the Pardoner is, the modern reader must remember that, by medieval standards, he is an evil man, a mortal sinner? (Hallissy 51). The Pardoner does not preach to help people. He preaches for his own gains. He does not care if people go to hell. He just wants to make money. ?Sin lies in the Pardoner?s intention. He uses his ecclesiastical authority for his own purposes, not for the spiritual good of his audience? (Hallissy 215). This quality of the Pardoner seeps into his tale. The three rioters are very cruel. They meet an old man who is kind to them, and they reject his compassion.

When they had gone not fully half a mile,

Just as they were about to cross a stile,

They came upon a very poor man

Who humbly greeted them and thus began,

?God look to you, my lords, and give you quiet!?

To which the proudest of these men of riot

Gave back the answer, ?What, old fool? Give place!?

Why are you all wrapped up except your face?

Why live so long? Isn?t? it time to die? (Chaucer 251)?

They treat him as if he were inferior. Even after the old man tries to correct the way the young men act, they call him a spy who is secretly trying to kill them. The three men are completely rude and that rudeness is one of the characteristics the Pardoner possesses.

After the Pardoner completes his tale, he tries to sell some of his phony relics to the pilgrims. He says that the Host is the most ?enveloped in sin? and recommends that he be the first to purchase one of the relics. The Host is not an idiot; he knows that the Pardoner previously admitted to the selling of bogus relics. Therefore, he decides to embarrass the Pardoner by making a joke about the Pardoner?s genitalia, and the Host very well knows that the Pardoner is a eunuch.

Now by St. Helen and the Holy Land

I wish I had your ballocks in my hand

Instead of relics in a reliquarium;

Have them cut off and I will help to carry ?em.

We?ll have them shrined for you in a hog?s turd.?

The Pardoner said nothing, not a word;

He was so angry that he couldn?t speak (Chaucer 257-258).

The three drunken men in ?The Pardoner?s Tale? want to find Death. They think they can find Death and overcome it. When they find the treasure and are overcome with greed, they decide that they want to concentrate on keeping the gold, rather than finding Death. The desire for wealth soon leads the men into killing each other; thus finding death like they originally sought out to do. ?And so the Tale moves at great speed to its conclusion, and ironically it is the very end which the villains set out to find on their quest? (Hoy 172)?. The Pardoner and the three men in his tale both get what they deserve in the end. ?Like his three drunken and greedy revelers, the Pardoner deserves what he gets. Harry Bailly?s insults are merely a foretaste of the eternal punishment merited by such sins as the Pardoner commits? (Hallissy 222).

The Pardoner?s homosexuality is represented in his tale. In ?The General Prologue? the Pardoner is described as gay. He is singing a love song to The Summoner. ?Another interpretation, developing possible hints in the opening lines (the love song he sings with the Summoner, the latter?s rousing bass chorus taken through a double series of puns-?burdoun? meaning not only chorus but staff, staff being a phallic image), has him seen as a homosexual? (Cooper 59). The physical traits given to the Pardoner are effeminate. He also has a high-pitched voice. The Pardoner also tries to follow all the latest fashions. In most of the other tales in The Canterbury Tales, there are female characters. There is no woman in ?The Pardoner?s Tale.? The Pardoner leaves the women out of his tale because he wants his tale to focus entirely on men. The attributes of the Pardoner from ?The General Prologue? show that the Pardoner is homosexual and that the tale he tells represents his sexual orientation.

?His [The Pardoner] aim in life is undisguised: it is to ?wynne silver?? (Cooper 58). The Pardoner admits that the sole reason he preaches is that people will give him money. The Pardoner?s job does not put him in a position to collect money for himself. ?Pardoners were supposed to be authorized by the religious house for which they were collecting, to be licensed by the bishop, and to hand over most of the money they collected; that this one can get as much money himself in a day as a poor parson in two months suggests that he is not over-scrupulous in such matters? (Cooper 58). Since the Pardoner is greedy, he sells false relics to increase his income. The Pardoner?s motto is ?Radix malorum est cupiditas?(The root of all evil is greed).

His scriptural passage is always the same: ?Radix malorum est Cupiditas? (VI, C, 334); cupidity, the inordinate desire for or excessive love of money, is the root of all evil. Nothing is wrong with this text, or even with the Pardoner?s sermon on it. Something is very wrong with the pardoner?s intention however. He deliberately uses his considerable homiletic skills to persuade his audience to demonstrate their ability to overcome cupiditas by generously giving their money away-to him (Hallissy 213-214).

The Pardoner uses this motto to scare people into giving him their money. His sermon against greed is aimed at making people feel guilty so they can add to the gold in his pocket. The Pardoner is a hypocrite. He preaches against greed although he is very greedy himself. The only reason the Pardoner tells his sermon is so he can become richer. ?He is guilty of the sin of avarice, and that, according to his text, is the root of all evils? (Hoy 178).

?The Pardoner?s Tale? bears resemblance to the Pardoner in some aspects, while in others there is inconsistency with the Pardoner?s personality. The Pardoner is corrupt and sells pardons and relics only to add to his own wealth. ?The Pardoner?s Tale? is a sermon speaking out against sin. The Pardoner?s honesty leads to a straightforward tale. The Pardoner is an immoral man, as are the three main characters in his tale. In the end the Pardoner and the three rioters in his tale get what they deserved. The Pardoner?s sexuality is shown in his tale. The Pardoner?s sermon speaks against greed; however greed is what drives the Pardoner. Parts of ?The Pardoner?s Tale? are reflections of the Pardoner, while other parts are in direct contrast.