The Pardoner’s tale is structured like a sermon, but it also contains commentary at the start and at the conclusion of the story. The pardoner's reflection of himself is juxtaposed against his tale, creating a dramatic sense of irony throughout the entire passage. There are multiple sources of irony, starting with the self proclaimed description of the pardoner, and continuing within the literal interpretation of his tale. The Pardoner's Tale begins by characterizing the man, who we immediately see is not pious at all. He accuses himself of gluttony and avarice, caring more about personal wealth and materialism than his subjects and religious duties. While this is slightly ironic in and of itself, for the way he acts contradicts his profession, greater irony is seen through his hypocritical speech that ensues later. The preface to the actual ‘tale’ shows the pardoner condoning different types of vices, ranging from alcohol and gluttony to swearing and gambling. …show more content…
The three rioters are shown as drinkers, gamblers, and, once their quest to kill Death is declared, also heretics. This is mildly ironic because the protagonists of the tale do not exhibit heroic qualities, nor do they fit the bill as good religious models. Later in the tale, the three men meet an old man, who says that Death will not take his life. This is ironic because, while the young characters die later in the story, the old man keeps on living, which suggests that age does not necessarily correlate to the proximity of death. Furthermore, the old man advises the three characters to go to a nearby tree, where he claims Death is located. They deceive themselves over the ownership of a pile of gold, and eventually kill each other intentionally. The irony here is that Death did not kill them, but they killed themselves. As a result, they technically did find death, just not in the way that they had
The man claims he is waiting for Death to take him for some time, and the angered men are enraged by the name Death. The rioters ask where to find Death, and the old man says they can find death under a certain oak tree. The rioters rush to the tree and find gold coins. The men do not want to be taken as thieves, as discover a plan to transport the gold at night. The men direct the youngest to retreat back to town and grab wine. While the youngest is away, the two remaining men design a plan to kill the third to increase their profits. The man in town is also consumed by greed, and he decides to poison the wine. Retreating with the poison wine, the youngest man is killed by the other two rioters. To celebrate, the two men drink the wine. Within minutes, all three of the greedy rioters are dead. After his tale, the Pardoner asked the group for
Kittredge points out that the pardoner is "too clever a knave to wish others to take him for a fool. " The pardoner, rather than being an unrealistic fool, understands that the other members of the pilgrimage perceive him in a negative light. He does not wish to seem like an ignorant fool, handing out pardons for sins he also commits. Therefore, he decides to tell the truth, revealing his false trade, fake ... ...
My purpose is to write an essay in which I describe the use of personification and irony in "The Pardoner's Tale.". Without Geoffrey Chaucer we probably would not be speaking English, but French as our main language. Geoffrey Chaucer has wrote many amazing stories including The Pardoner's Tale. Geoffrey Chaucer uses personification and irony throughout the story "The Pardoner's Tale.". Throughout the story Death is personified. Three men known as rioters in their town are at the bar drinking away when the tavern boy goes on describing the passing of their dear friend. Saying their friend was murdered by Death himself. The three men are outraged and in their drunken stage, vow to find Death and destroy it to avenge their friend. As the men babble
...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 beginning of The Pardoners Tale he talks about his qualifications and what he does, talking to several people. The pardoner tries to use his story to get the audience to give him money for their greedy sins. Then he tells a story about three young men who find an old man and they talk about age, the younger kids say the don’t want to grow old like the old man. The old guy tells the kids that they can find death by a tree. Excited to see death, the kids go to the tree and discover a pile of gold coins instead. Excited they decide to draw lots to decide which one would go down to the store, and who gets to stay with the money. The one who lost would have to go down to a store and buy some bread and wine that is later poisoned. Meanwhile, back at the gold, the other two conspire to kill the guy that is walking to the store by stabbing him to death, so instead of splitting the money three ways there would be more money apiece by splitting it two ways between them. So when they guy who walked to the sore gets back they stab him (he dies). Then the two drink the poisoned wine afterwards and they died from the poisoned wine.
The Crucible, by the playwright Arthur Miller, is a four act play which dramatizes the story behind the Salem Witch Trials as an allegory to the McCarthyism era. In the play, a young girl named Abigail Williams is caught in the middle of hysteria which the townspeople of Salem believe is witchcraft. Abigail and several young girls are seen dancing in the forest, so she becomes afraid she will be charged a witch. She threatens the other girls involved to go along with her story as she begins to accuse numerous amounts of innocent people of being involved in witchcraft. The whole scenario is ironic in the way that the people accused “evil” are actually good, and the “good” girls accusing are the ones corrupted by evil. As the play continues,
The difference between the tale of the Three Brothers and the Pardoners Tale is that in the Pardoners Tale the pardoner told a story of three rioters while the Tale of the three brothers was about three brothers. Unlike the tale of the three brothers, the rioters went searching for death because they wanted revenge. When they found the old man, he said he knew where death was after the three men threatened him and said he was in an old grove and pointed in the direction. When they came upon death they forgot it was death they were searching for because they found 8 barrels full of gold. They wanted everything for themselves and they were willing to kill the other rioters to get it. So they sent the youngest one to go get supplies in the town
myself be a full vicious man, A moral tale yet I you telle kan.’ The
After some time, the Pardoner is ready to present his tale, including both moral interjection and a merrier tone. The Pardoner begins by describing a group of young Flemish people who spend their time drinking and indulging themselves in all forms of excess. He continues to tell the tale, in which the people eventually end up drinking positioned wine and all die. As is, there are more details in the tale that we did not go over, there are some key elements that help us to better understand the Pardoner upon hearing his tale. First of all, we know from The General Prologue that the Pardoner is just as bad or corrupt as others in his “profession”.
There are seven deadly sins that, once committed, diminish the prospect of eternal life and happiness in heaven. They are referred to as deadly because each sin is closely linked to another, leading to other greater sins. The seven deadly sins are pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, avarice, and lechery. Geoffrey Chaucer's masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, provided an excellent story about the deadly sins. Focusing mainly on the sins of pride, gluttony and greed, the characters found in The Canterbury Tales, particularly The Pardoner's Tale, were so overwhelmed by their earthly desires and ambitions that they failed to see the effects of their sinful actions, therefore depriving themselves of salvation.
Through the Prologue to the Pardoner's tale, the character of the Pardoner is revealed. Although the Pardoner displays many important traits, the most prevalent is his greed. Throughout the prologue, the Pardoner displays his greed and even admits that the only thing he cares about is money: "I preach nothing except for gain" ("Pardoner's Tale", Line 105). This avarice is seen strongly in the Pardoner's tale as well. In the Pardoner's tale, three friends begin a journey in order to murder Death. On their journey, though, an old man leads them to a great deal of treasure. At this point, all three of the friends in the tale display a greed similar to the Pardoner's. The three friends decide that someone should bring bread and wine for a celebration. As the youngest of the friends leaves to go buy wine, the other two greedily plot to kill him so they can split the treasure only two ways. Even the youngest decides to "put it in his mind to buy poison / With which he might kill his two companions" (383, 384). The greed, which is evident in the character of the Pardoner, is also clearly seen in the tale.
Hypocrisy is simultaneously one of the most shameful and identifiable character flaws. Although it is fairly common to experience feelings of resentment toward a person who believes (or claims they believe) one thing and then acts incongruently with that belief, to accuse that person of being a hypocrite requires examination of one’s own inconsistencies before pointing a finger. Mark Twain, a brilliant and iconoclastic classic author, manipulates the paradoxical nature of hypocrisy in telling the story of Huckleberry Finn, an innocent-minded protagonist who encounters hypocritical characters frequently along his journey. When Twain’s reader notices through Huck’s eyes that an otherwise God-fearing, honorable person does something immoral without questioning his or her actions, it encourages the reader to reconsider his or her own transgressions. With a multitude of hypocritical characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain pokes at the reader’s conscience by catching their judgments and fostering a less-blind eye to one’s own iniquities.
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.
The pardoner tells the readers that money and greed is root of all evil throughout this tale. In his tale, there are three drunken men, one day, decide to find Death and annihilate it. They ask one old man where the death is and he points at the tree where a lot of gold are. When they find gold they only think of getting gold as many as possible and end up planning to kill each other. Three men are unaware of their own evil and as a result, three all die. By story-telling this tale which comprehends no interaction with his behavior, the pardoner negate his own moral and advises other people how should they live their life in order to avoid sins.
I mean to have money, wool and cheese and wheat though it were given me by the poorest lad or poorest village widow, though she has a string starving children…” ( Line 44-47, Page 168) . The pardone here tell the reader how greedy he and how he does not care where his money or food come from all he care about is that he has money and food. Yet after what the pardoner say that he teacher his audience and the reader not to greedy. “ Why make a sermon of it? why waste breath? exactly in the way they’d planned his death they fell on him and slew him, two to one… He took a bottle full of poison up and drank; and his companion, nothing loth, drank from it also, and they perished both.” (Line 280-289, Page 175). The Pardoner’s tale is teaching the readers about not being greedy by telling a story about what money and greediness can do when it comes between people, they can kill each other for it. Like the three men who were planning on kill the youngest of them so they can have the money divided on the both of the only, while the youngest man was getting poison to kill the two of them so he can have all they money for