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Canterbury tales pardoner character analysis
Canterbury tales pardoner character analysis
Chaucer irony in Canterbury tales
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In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer writes stories in the form of poetry of people of different classes. We hear story from the poor, wealthy, honorable, and members of the Church. Chaucer especially critiques the members of the Church through the stories he writes. He gives them a stingy, arrogant, and misleading charisma. One particular tale that focuses on the corruption of the Church, is the Pardoner’s tale. Before getting into his tale, the Pardoner talks about himself. The Pardoner tells his companions all about his job at the Church, and how he preaches solely against fraud, avarice, and gluttony. The irony and corruption lies in the fact that the Pardoner explains to his companions how he fools the people who come to him and seek his pardon, and how he only cares about the money that he gets from them. He bluntly admits to his sins and is actually proud of …show more content…
Chaucer gives them the characteristics that make them the least pious and worst of people in the journey, which is ironic. The Pardoner tells his companions of how he would give people “relics” that they could buy, and how these relics are literally anything he can find, such as sheep bones, and claim they have powers. He tells his companions that they are fake, and yet that the end of the story, he offers some relics to them, starting with the Host. Chaucer uses this method of extreme hypocrisy to critique the Church’s manipulation of the poor people. As the Pardoner said “Let me preach and eg from kirk to kirk/And never do an honest job of work/I mean to have money wool cheese and wheat/Though it were given me by the poorest lad.” The moral of the Pardoner’s story is money is the root of all evil, and Chaucer shows his view of the church by creating a character whose sole purpose in life, is to try to get as much money as possible and fill his pockets with money, even if it came from a poor mother and her starving
Analysis of Kittredge's Chaucer's Pardoner A realistic character is an important element of literary works. This "dramatic propriety" is a characteristic that many critics believe is absent in Chaucer's "The Pardoner's Tale" due to lack of believability. However, George Kittredge challenges this view in "Chaucer's Pardoner", stating that throughout the tale, the pardoner is indeed an extremely realistic and complex character. Kittredge's defense of "The Pardoner's Tale" begins with his acknowledgement of alternative explanations for the pardoner's unusual confession. Using logic, Kittredge disproves the theory that the pardoner is "a reproduction of the False-Semblant."
In the Prologue of the tale, the Pardoner clearly admits that he preaches for nothing but for the greed of gain. His sermons revolve around the biblical idea that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). Ironically, however, the Pardoner condemns the very same vice that he lives by, as he proclaims “avarice is the theme that I employ in all my sermons, to make the people free in giving pennies—especially to me”. Thus, covetousness is both the substance of his sermons as well as the mechanism upon which he thrives. He clearly states that repentance is not the central aim of his preaching, by mentioning “my mind is fixed on what I stand to win and not upon correcting sin”. Rather, his foremost intention is to acquire as many shillings as he can in exchange for his meaningless pardons. In this regard, one can argue that although the Pardoner is evil, he is not a dissembler. His psychology is clearly not guided by hypocrisy because he does not conceal his intentions under false pretences.
Pardoner's Manipulation of Audience The Pardoner has had a graduate education in the rhetoric of confession. I will be a Chaucer might intend it to be merely cutely ironic that this confessor confesses -- as in "isn't that a turning of the tables, la!" On the other hand, it may well be that the Pardoner is practicing his rhetorical prowess on the other pilgrims, and on us, with the extreme skill of a cynical and. perceptive man who's heard every villainy and mastered every. deception.
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.
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
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”.
In the “Prologue” of The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer sketches out each character that appears in his stories. For both the summoner and pardoner specifically, Chaucer emphasizes imagery and details to convey the idea that one’s religious standing does not affect their moral one. Through the characterization of the summoner and pardoner, Chaucer reveals that even the holiest of people can be corrupt. By characterizing the summoner using imagery and details, Chaucer demonstrates that immorality does not discriminate against religious views.
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 Canterbury Tales is more than an amusing assortment of stories; it is an illustration of the society in which Geoffrey Chaucer lived. It portrays the culture and class system of the medieval ages in microcosm. Every strata of human life at the time were represented by the many characters whose tales are told. Each character’s basic human nature also plays a role in their stories, and each one has within them the strengths and weaknesses that make up all of humanity. Each character exemplifies their life and reputation through the stories they tell. The Pardoner uses his tale as a ploy to garner money. His tale embodies each deadly sin, and every reader can relate to his story and feel the guilt of his characters. The Wife of Bath’s tale expresses her own ideals in the way her character is given a second chance after committing a crime. The Franklin’s tale, because of its straightforwardness and honesty is a direct representation of the Franklin’s simple and joyful life. Each character tells a tale that is a suitable match to their personality. These characters’ tales represent prevalent themes of the middle ages, including greed, corruption of religious clergymen, violence, revenge, and social status. In Chaucer’s society, the traditional feudal system was losing its importance and the middle class began to emerge. The middle class characters within the Canterbury Tales, with their personal lives and interactions with members of differing social classes, gave an understanding of the growth of society, especially the rising middle class, during medieval times.
We have all heard the common adage “Practice what you preach.” Another version of this sentiment can be found in the saying “You cannot just talk the talk; you must walk the walk.” In other words, it is commonly considered useless for one to talk about doing something or living a certain way if he does not actually live out those words. It is overall a sentiment that denounces hypocrisy. This idea is explored by Geoffrey Chaucer in his “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale,” as well as the Introduction to the tale. Chaucer identifies a pardoner as his main character for the story and utilizes the situational and verbal irony found in the pardoner’s interactions and deplorable personality to demonstrate his belief in the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church during this time.
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.
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,
Chaucer’s "General Prologue" is remarkable in that it allows us to see not only what characters may claim to represent, but also how they really are inside. Chaucer’s depiction of the Friar, who should be a man of upstanding piety and virtue, makes it readily apparent that he is quite the opposite. The Friar’s elitist background and behavior, his begging-supported greed, and the vices that oppose true Christianity prove that he is a man of low moral standards. Certainly, Chaucer paints a masterful contrast of image vs. reality.
Chaucer uses the Prioress, the Monk and the Friar to represent his views on the Church. He makes the three model members of the Church appear to have no problems with self-indulgence, greed, and being unfaithful to their vows. He displays his anti skeptical thoughts of the faults of the medieval church by making fun of its teachings and the people of the church, who use it for personal gain. Chaucer see’s the church as corrupt, hypocritical and greedy.
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.