Satire In The Pardoner's Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer, during the 1300s was a reformist, that being said, he used satire to change the views of the church he wished to reform. Chaucer had an agenda, this agenda was satire, directed to the yokels, the uneducated commoners. He targeted these people by writing in English. His writings were directed to these people because they would be those who were going to question the church. Natural instinct is to take what you know and share it, especially if the information is “juicy”. The information that Chaucer was showing to the yokels was indeed, “juicy”. The yokels would then be able to share this information, and hopefully, there would be a reformation of the church. In Carly Smith’s article she observes, “The goal for satire is always

This irony is found not only in the Pardoner’s Character, but in the tale that the Pardoner tells. It is ironic that the pardoner is telling a story of greed, when he himself is very greedy. Even after he is done telling his story in his drunken stupor he says on page 134, lines 328 through 334; “Dearly beloved, God forgive your sin and keep you from the vice of avarice! My holy pardon frees you all of this, provided that you make the right approaches, that is with the sterling rings, or silver broaches. Bow down your heads under this holy bull! Come on, you women, offer up your wool!” The pardoner has literally just completed his tale of three young, drunken men dying from greed, yet here he is, another drunken man, being as greedy as they come. As John Finlayson says, in his article, Satiric Mode and the “Parson’s Tale”, “A flexible, comic-satiric mode is established.” This is exactly accurate, it true that a comic-satiric mode is established. This comic-satiric mode is also established in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s