Pardoner's Tale Analysis

The chosen extract illustrates an example of digressio, where our Pardoner launches into a tale of three riotours, which shows Chaucer developing their characterisation as a means of illustrating the development of sin, ultimately leading back to the Pardoner’s theme, that is Avarice is the root of all evil, or ‘Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas’. However, the tale of the three riotours is simultaneously also effective in addressing the theme of death. The 14th Century was a difficult time for England due to a series of failed harvests, the Great Famine in 1315-1317 and most notably, Black Death in 1348-1349 which killed up to a third of the population then, all of which contributed to a high mortality rate. These normal dangers surrounding medieval

At times he was also portrayed as a man carrying spear, as seen in ‘with his spere he smoot his herte atwo’. In the passage, as Death is often capitalised as ‘Deeth’ and classed as a proper noun. Throughout the passage, Death acts as a powerful off-stage character, personified as a ‘false traytour’ and a figure of stealth— a ‘privee theef men’ where the long ‘ee’ sounds are used to suggest Death’s creeping presence. This is too seen in the wider text, where the rioters later attempt embark on a journey to physically ‘fynde Deeth’. Presenting Death to be like an actual person lurking around worked to emphasize that those encountering death were not ready. In the passage, there is a ‘cors is that passeth heer forby’, where a dead man was ‘yslayn to-nyght’ ‘sodelynly’. The use of sibilance is effective in adding to the tension that death was everywhere, and any soul unprepared for death, dying with its burden of sins, would be in danger of eternal damnation. The alliteration of the ‘w’ sound in ‘wente his wey withouten wordes mo’ suggests that death comes in a quiet manner. Furthermore, the fact that the dead man was no stranger, but rather ‘an old felawe of youres’ also makes Death appear much more personal and