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Examples Of Greed In The Pardoner's Tale

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The Pardoner’s Tale: Radix Malorum est Cupiditas The Canterbury Tales, a collection of various stories, is among the best literary works written in Middle English. The central story of this composition is the journey of 29 pilgrims to Canterbury, England. In the story, each pilgrim was intended to tell a total of four stories as a form of entertainment for such long travel. The author, Geoffrey Chaucer, was an observer during the pilgrimage and the recorder of the tales. His writings exposed, in a very discrete manner, the severe corruption of the people during that period of time, especially within the Catholic Church; the institution promulgated humbleness and abstinence, yet it was characterized by its wealth. In this manner, Chaucer emphasized …show more content…

The Pardoner not only violated his vow of poverty, but also completely abandoned his humanity by placing himself above everyone else as shown in the following lines: “I'll have my money, wool, and food, though it/Be from some page whose poverty is dire/Or from the poorest widow in the shire;/Although her kids be starving, I'll be fine,/For I will drink the liquor of the vine/And have a jolly wench in every tow” ("The Pardoner's Tale” 448-453). This excerpt is critical in understanding how Chaucer intended to report the corruption of the church. Even though, it was very common to see many of the clergy “[exploit] their positions” to live in luxury and leisure, nobody dared to expose this truth (Walker). Correspondingly, this corruption has remained as time progressed and is very common today. As an example, taken form public record documents, many current events represent the same level of greed and immorality. Simply illustrated in common crimes like the following: the sentencing of a former Texas judge for using his office “as a criminal enterprise to enrich himself and others through extortion”, and also the sentencing of religious officials such as Laura Whittley, who was sentenced for bank fraud and money laundering ("Examples of Public

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Each tale reveals moral lessons that attempt to prevent the reader from performing the same mistakes as the character. “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale” possess similar themes, distinct differences arise in the topics presented in each passage. “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale” illustrates how greed corrupts men, how sin leads to more sin, and how revenge drives men to undertake foolish feats. The differences between Chaucer’s tales allows for a humorous yet insightful

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Chaucer wrote the book: The Canterbury Tales, in which a group of men going on a journey all tell a tale. Within each tale is a moral lesson as well as each tale consists of a corrupt action committed within the church and is conveyed by those kind of characters within the story. One of the tales that Chaucer tells in his book is called: The pardoner 's tale. Within this tale the pardoner (who is telling the tale) is a preacher who often gives sermons but admits that he does is solely for money and not to condemn people of their sins. (Greed)

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Chaucer’s Best Story Essay In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, there are many entertaining values and moral lessons. In Geoffrey Chaucer's, The Canterbury tales, a group of pilgrims are journeying to the holy site of Canterbury. Due to the long journey, the host plans to start a contest between the pilgrims. Each pilgrim has to tell an entertaining story and the pilgrim with the most entertaining story wins a free dinner.

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“All they needed was a series of impressive looking letters and a confident manner in making the appeal” (Chaucer role of pardoner).The pardoner would go on to using the same tricks on everyone they saw near them. All they did was pull out the papers with the bishop's signature and use a confident manner to impress them. When the people of the villages found out about the scamming they would just ignore the pardoner's when they saw them. The pardoner’s were looked down upon the people all over the villages and all across the land. They would just simply ignore them or just keep on walking if they happened to come across a pardoner.

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The indirect characterization of the Pardoner, in consideration of his objective stance towards his own wrongdoings, reveals him to be a man with conscious partial to his intents and basic motivation. The Pardoner explicitly states his reason for sermonizing as his “exclusive purpose is to win and not at all to castigate their sin” (p. 243). With brutal honesty and in meticulous fashion, the Pardoner embraces his love for profit and monetary gains in spite of his pious occupation. Though the actions and impressions of the Pardoner are both distasteful and lacking in morals, it is the same hypocritical disposition that highlights the depth and good of the character. While not righteous or honorable in any traditional sense, the Pardoner argues that he is appropriate to preach against his personal vice of greed due to his understanding of the sin and that in the process he is able to truly assist others in the relinquishment of their faults.

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Although greed controls the world and the actions of the political power houses, it all started with the greed of the church, cheating people out of their hard earned money for their own profits. The Pardoner addresses his greed, ”‘But let me briefly make my purpose plain;/ I preach for nothing but for greed of gain’” (lines 41-42). The Pardoner boldly says this, coming off almost whimsically amused at his ability to get away with such treachery. He knows his wrongs and courageously accepts the fact that he will take anybody’s hard earned money, no matter what false hope he needs to give. The Pardoner tells a tale of three men who come across money and then end up plotting against each

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The selling of indulgences was popularized during the Crusades by Pope(WHO) in the eleventh century as a means for Crusaders to justify their atrocious sins. Stronger presence of Christian faith only masked the corruption of Church officials who continued to sell indulgences for their own benefits. While Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis and his work On Christian Liberty and in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales both agree that the Church has become corrupt due to the Selling of Indulgences, they differ in that Luther believes the Church’s justification of faith is wrong while Chaucer believes the Church’s justification of faith is correct.

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He does not take the measure to simply admit to additionally wanting money, rather, exploits his sole desire for wealth and fortune. This creates a situation of verbal irony, as his job consists of his preaching against greed driven by his own greed. Finally, Chaucer exemplifies the true greedy persona the Church withholds through the voice of the Pardoner stating he, “will preach and beg in sundry lands;/ I will not work and labour with my hands” (“Pardoner’s Prologue” 157-158). In case the audience was not already in light of the mask the church hides behind, the pardoner proves once his true greediness.

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There are three main things that Chaucer wants to address through his tales. He is very concerned with the hypocrisy of the church, he is also very concerned with people thinking they are stronger than they really are, and that women do have a place to stand up for themselves. Initially, Chaucer describes his concern for hypocrisy through the

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Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, is a popular story about a pilgrimage taken by 30 people, including himself, to Canterbury, England. It starts with a general prologue that helps break down each of the characters. The reader gets an understanding of who the people are that are travelling on this pilgrimage. Certain characters are part of each of the three estates that Chaucer describes, which are the people who pray, the people who fight, and the people who work. The specific characters he uses for the clergy members are the monk, friar, and prioress, the knight, the squire, and the yeoman are all part of the nobility class, and the workers are the miller, the reeve, and the pardoner.

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During the 14th century, the Catholic Church ruled over almost all of Europe and was extremely wealthy. While people were suffering from poverty, disease, and famine, lavish cathedrals were being built in the bigger cities, only proving that the contrast between the misery of the people and the wealth of the Church was mind-boggling. Consequently, the characters Chaucer uses in the Canterbury Tales as a representation of the Church, or clergy, project character traits of greed, deceit, and corruption.

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982 Words | 4 Pages

Like the Monk, the Friar enjoyed a lavish and extravagant life style, always ready to befriend young women or rich men who might need his services, the Friar actively administers the sacraments in his town, especially those of marriage and confession. However, Chaucer’s worldly Friar has taken to accepting bribes and exploiting the hapless and hopeless to achieve financial gain as seen in lines 250-273: “He was the finest beggar of his

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“Put it in his mind to buy poison With which he might kill his two companions”(Lines 383-384, Chaucer). The greed within pardoner’s

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By the fourteenth century people became suspicious with why the church was so wealthy. Many people did not trust the church's authority because the church officials were seen as bribing and corrupt. In the article, "Chaucer's Criticism of the Catholic Church in The Canterbury Tales" the

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The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, reveals that religion does not make moral individuals. Chaucer goes on about telling how several of the characters on the pilgrimage had questionable lifestyles yet the characters were taking part in a religious journey. Religion can only influence a moral character but does not make its followers untouchable to the imperfections found on earth. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s character, The Pardoner, is a church official who altered the peoples mind by cheating the people into believing any nonsense.

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