Chaucer was known as “The Father of English Literature” because he first wrote great works of art in English. During Chaucer’s lifetime, scholarly works were written in either Latin or French. In his most acclaimed work, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s use of characterization paints a vivid picture in the reader’s mind by telling of the character’s physical appearance, personality traits, and social status. The Canterbury Tales is about thirty pilgrims traveling to the burial site of St. Thomas a Becket, and along the journey, the Host offers to buy a dinner for the pilgrim who tells the best tale. The Pardoner and the Wife of Bath were two characters who told their tales. The Pardoner’s Tale would have been victorious because it had superb style, a superior moral, and better reached it’s audience. …show more content…
However, great differences in style still exist. All throughout “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” iambic pentameter and alliteration are used. The Pardoner’s Tale used situational and verbal irony from beginning to end. An example of situational irony is that after the rioters stopped looking for Death, they end up meeting him by murdering one another. The Pardoner’s Tale took better advantage of tying in its literary devices to help relay the moral of the story to its readers. The Pardoner’s moral of “Greed is the root of all evil” is a far better moral than The Wife of Bath’s moral of “Men should always submit to their wives”. By definition, a moral is a lesson that is learned from a story. In The Pardoner’s Tale, the lesson learned from the story is superior because it is always true unlike the moral from the other tale. Greed always leads to evil and is never good in any case. Men should not submit to their wives in certain circumstances. The Pardoner’s message is easier for people to relate to; therefore, it reaches a bigger