Comparing Wife Of Bath And The Pardoner's Tale By Chaucer

Chaucer uses both the tales of the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner to display similar morals which lead to the common theme that the best way to resolve a flaw is the realization and correction of faults.
The Wife of Bath’s Tale demonstrates the theme that the recognition of a flaw is the best way to resolve it. The Pardoner narrates a story of a knight who has been punished for his lustful crime to a young woman. In order to be forgiven, he goes on a search to find what a woman most desires. He finds a woman who tells him that “a woman wants the same self sovereignty / over her husband as over her lover” (214-215). The importance of this lesson is evident throughout the tale. The knight did not follow this lesson in his encounter with the young

In the tale, three rioters embark on a search for Death. Their search halts, however, after finding gold under a tree. The three rioters then become engulfed in greed. In the Pardoner’s prologue, he says to his fellow pilgrims that “covetousness is both the root and stuff of all I preach” (11-12). The Pardoner preaches about the downfall of those with greed. He explains that avidity is the rout of all evil, this idea develops into a major theme in his tale. After finding the gold, the rioters turn on each other, and while one of the men is supposed to be getting food for the others, he buys rat poison in an attempt to kill the others. In the meantime, the two other men develop a plot to kill him and “to men in such state the devil sends” (242). They have been engulfed in selfishness and are doomed by their actions. After the two of the men kill the youngest, they drink the poisoned wine, killing themselves and “thus these two murderers received their due, / so did the treacherous young poisoner too” (289-290). The rioters had a major flaw and this was the rout of their downfall. They did not recognize or change anything about their