Archetypes In The Pardoner's Tale

Throughout the history of literature archetypes have posed as an important part of creating stories and characters. An archetype is a repetitive theme found within stories and other works over time. A few common ones are good vs. evil, damsels, and heroes. Archetypal elements are important in The Pardoner’s Tale and The Sorcerer’s Stone because deception, false sense of reality, and greed have a significant impact on the main characters, causing death, betrayal, and discovery in both stories.

Deception would appear to be the most prominent theme in both of these stories. The old man deceived the three young men by telling them “if it be your design to find out death, turn up this crooked way toward that grove, I left him waiting” (Chaucer

The three young men from The Pardoner’s Tale were willing to kill one another for the sake of having wealth. The two older men of the thieves devised a plan for one of them to “have a wrestle; then, as you attack, I’ll up and put my dagger through his back while you and he are struggling, as in game; then draw your dagger too and do the same” (Chaucer 131). Little did they know that the youngest of the thieves also planned to kill them as well. Unfortunately, the gold made them forget their brotherhood that they had just reconciled moments before, and the greed drove them to murdering one another. In addition to the three thieves, Professor Quirrell and Voldemort had a very similar problem with wanting to obtain the stone. Voldemort made many promises to Quirrell and deceived him to join him and his evil army, but Voldemort was driven by his own greed for the stone, and Quirrell was sent to his death during his fight with Harry; after he spent months lying to his fellow professors and his students about his true intentions. He told Harry, “There is no good or bad, only power and those too weak to seek it” (Rowling). This shows that he truly enthralled himself in Voldemort’s ideas and