Disloyalty is more lenient and common in society today, contrary to medieval times when unfaithfulness was opposed, and the wrongdoer suffered grave consequences. The Canterbury Tales are 24 short tales that focus on human defects and the outcomes that these flaws may bring. Even though the different stories focused on various defects, all of the characters seem to have the same thought in mind, themselves. Geoffrey Chaucer’s frame tale The Canterbury Tales demonstrates that the worst human vice is disloyalty because it shows that the character possesses traits of dishonesty, lack of respect, and selfishness. Dishonesty goes coincided with disloyalty because if someone were to betray another, they were lying about their loyalty. The Miller’s …show more content…
The Pardoner’s Tale is about a journey that three best friends take to find Death and murder him. The three friends refer to each other as “brothers” (138) as they cheer to their not so well thought out plan. They start to look for Death when they run into an old woman who says Death is right by the tree up the path. Once they reach the tree they come across an abundance of gold, this is where the tale takes a deadly turn. These three men, that just called each other brothers, start developing plans to kill each other so they can have more gold for themselves. The two men, who stayed with the gold while the other got bread and wine, devised a plan to kill the other when he came back. One of the men looked skeptical about the proposal, but the other reassured him by saying, “You needn’t doubt / My word. I won’t betray you, I’ll be true.” (174). The reader can see greed and selfishness take over these characters. Instead of sharing the gold three ways they automatically think of ways to get more gold for themselves. A lack of self- control also has a factor in this tale, because the three men could not control their actions when money came into the picture. At the end of the tale the three men died, proving that greed and selfishness get people nowhere but in