Advantage In The Pardoner's Tale

In The Canterbury Tales, more than twenty pilgrims meet at the Tabard Inn, preparing to leave to Canterbury to visit the shrine of the archbishop, Saint Thomas Becket. Before the travellers had set off on their pilgrimage, a character known as the Host decided create a game between them; all of the pilgrims would tell two tales during the entirety of the trip. Who ever would win would receive a free meal paid by the losers of the game and who ever decided to not participate in the game would be forced to pay during any stop that were made during the trip.. Two of the tales that were told during the pilgrimage included “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Pardoner’s Tale.” Once the pilgrims had returned to the Tabard Inn, the Host judged the tales based on two factors: moral education and entertainment value. If a winner was to be chosen from these two tales, then “The Knight’s Tale” would have won. In “The Knight’s Tale”, two men,

The reader would likely get the most entertainment value out of “The Knight’s Tale” due to the length of the rivalry between the two knights, their hidden love from the princess, and the eventually skirmish between the two, while “The Pardoner’s Tale” is much shorter since the Pardoner was attempting to quickly swindle the Host. “The Pardoner’s Tale” also struggles to have interesting characters that the reader can connect with, especially when compared to “The Knight’s Tale” with Theseus, Emily, Arcite and Palamon all playing a role in the story and being easily relatable. “The Pardoner’s Tale” is also harder to relate to since the reader has likely never attempted to find and kill Death, while most have rivalries and competitions with their friends over the affection of another like in “The Knight’s Tale”. Overall, the ability to connect to the story and characters of “The Knight’s Tale” makes it the winner in entertainment