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Allegory In The Pardoner's Tale

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1.) a.) An allegory is a story which characters, settings, and events stand for moral concepts. Allegories contain meanings that are symbolic and literal. “The Pardoner’s Tale” is an allegory because the 3 rioters believe in death actually behind the tree. Instead, they find coins there which symbolize their greediness. Greed is not a moral decision by any means. The rioters thought that they were going to find what they wanted behind the tree, but their greed ultimately ended all of their selfish lives. b.) Like stated above, greed is not a virtue by any means. Virtues are good qualities to strive for and try to model our daily lives after. The men in “The Pardoner” realized that greed is the root of all evil. The prologue told us “Radix Malorum Cupiditas” which means “greed is the root of all evil.” The 3 became greedy for what they believed was behind the tree, and this ended up turning …show more content…

This is because the Pardoner himself is a very greedy person. He chooses to steal from the church, make money off of things that are not worth anything, and chooses to cheat society. He was supposed to be the one who was pardoning people from their sins that they committed, but instead he was worried about himself and what he had. b.) In making this tale, Chaucer had a point that he wanted to make overall. He wanted to show that people can be truly greedy at times and can even go to desperate measures to achieve what they ultimately want. He might be trying to tell us that the characters in his tales think they are doing the right thing, but in the end they are doing what is morally opposed and rejected.

4.) a.) In the story, the old man states that he saw death behind the tree. He is the key figure for the 3 main characters to see the character of “Death”. Without the man, the 3 wouldn’t have been led to the tree to not even find what they were seeking, but something completely

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Part of this is due to the length of the Pardoner’s tale. There was not a lot of time to develop a background story and really intice the readers before the ending of the story. It was also very low action when compared to the Knight’s tale. It did have some chasing, drunkenness, and murder, but again all these actions were such underdeveloped events that did not allow the reader to get emotionally invested. As a result of this, the Pardoner’s Tale did not entertain the reader as the Knight’s tale

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The story “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer talks about a guy named Pardoner. The author uses Pardoner to explain different themes of the story. Pardoner is one whom you can go to for forgiveness of your sins but with a price that was meant for him. He has yellow hair like wax that hangs smoothly like a hank of flax. Towards the back of his head were his locks that felt like rat tails and fell all the way down to his shoulders.

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The temptation of greed ended up killing the three men at the end of the tale. ”The Pardoner's Tale” provides a clear understanding that greed is a sin we all have to battle with in our lives, whereas the moral of the wife of bath's tale applies to people doing bad things. This tale teaches the reader a lesson about greed and how it can overcome people, making them do bad

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The pardoner's tale, featured in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, was focused on the moral sways of men from the influences of greed. This tale was played out to reflect what Chaucer believed to be the foolish attempt to cheat death through the buying of indulgences, which had become wide spread at this time. The tale began with three drunk men playing dice. One of them got the idea that he would go out and kill death. The others agree and the three drunkards swear an oath to never forsake each other and thus they depart to find death.

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“Radix malorum est cupiditas” translated from Latin into “Greed is the root of all evil.” (Chaucer 125) Throughout the Pardoner’s Tale, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, this is the story of three men that treat people lower than them and they end up finding a whole pile of gold, but they end up killing each other to get the gold to themselves. The entirety of the three men end up dead and not even one gets the gold. There are many topics involving greed, this essay will involve what it is about, the dangers, and the benefits of controlling the desire to gain.

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