Manipulative Mercy In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Sidney Ison
AP English
Mrs. Sutton
November 24, 2015
Manipulative Mercy
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the Pardoner, a corrupt, greedy man, uses his tale to manipulate his audience into repentance for his own profitable benefit. The Pardoner is known for cheating people and stealing their money through his selling of false relics. Through his tale, he manipulates his audience by inspiring repentance through his ability to evoke emotions of shame, guilt, and fear. These emotions are evoked by his being able to read and adjust to his audience, making his tale relatable to his audience by social status and monetary desires, and instilling in the pilgrims a fear of death and damnation. The prologue to the tale begins with the Pardoner

In his tale, death can be portrayed as desirable. The Old man, otherwise known as Death himself, longs to die so that his days of suffering on earth may come to an end. As a Christian, death is viewed as a joyous thing because with death we are set apart from a world of misery and placed into heaven. Christians don’t fear death because they have something greater to look forward to. Death is a gateway to an eternal, everlasting utopia. However, the greed and selfishness of the rioters in the tale portray death to be undesirable. The rioters’ death implies that if you live a life in sin your sin will ultimately lead to your demise and eternal damnation. This forces the pilgrims to not only fear death, but to also fear of dying with an unpardoned soul. The Pardoner exploits this fear of being unprepared for death and uses it to urge the pilgrims to repent and give him their money. Immediately following the tale he says to the

Alas mankind, how may it be that you art so false and unkind to your Creator, Who made you and redeemed you with His precious heart’s blood, alas! Now, good men, God forgive you of your trespasses and guard you from the sin of avarice. My holy pardon will cure you all…
This dialogue evokes emotions of guilt and shame into the audience for having sinned against God and it aides in evoking the emotion of fear because the Pardoner makes the audience feel that if they do not repent they will not be forgiven and they will therefore die and suffer in hell. Medieval Catholics strongly believed in relics and pardons. They would be willing to buy them from the pardoner even if they knew he was a hypocrite because they took advantage of every opportunity for repentance. Knowing this, the Pardoner uses it to comfort the pilgrims by informing them that he can pardon their sins. He sells salvation to make it appear as a bargain to them. The Pardoner successfully utilizes his tale as an aide to manipulate his audience. He uses various techniques and strategies while addressing the audience and telling his tale in order to evoke emotions of shame, guilt, and