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The Irony In The Pardoner's Tale

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The Irony in The Pardoners tale The Pardoners Tale is ironic due to the fact that “Radit malorum est cupiditas” (Chaucer line 8) means the love of money is the root of all evil. The tale is about the pardoner who is full of evil exploiting people with fake junk to receive money. The Pardoner goes around towns to those that barely have money to tell them if they pay for an old relic it will bring them good fortune. He does all of this since he thinks he should make more money for all of the work he does. The pardoner does not like to do much for free, he prefers to “drink the liquor of the grape and keep a jolly wench in every town!” (Chaucer line 48-49). If the pardoner is supposed to forgive you of sins why is it that he drinks alcohol and
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Sherika Jiang Dr. S-R Foundations of Literature 23 January 2023 Pardoner’s Greed In “The Pardoner’s Tale” from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400), the pardoner’s greedy methods of money-making by manipulating people's emotions often leads to the customer falling for his scam revealing the social problem of people's greed for money can cause society to not function correctly when everyone is only looking out for themselves. As a salesman, the pardoner uses fake relics to sell to his Christian customers.

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A pardoner is a man who sells religious relics of forgiveness to sinners. However, Chaucer’s Pardoner is an untrustworthy character who sells fake tokens for a profit. He boasts of his great ability to preach, and ironically, his favorite topic is greed. “

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No,no, that’s never been my policy”(p,152, lines 100-114)! The Pardoner looks down upon peasants and gluttony. To which he is being hypocritical because he is greedy with gaining money. The misuse of trust is greatly displayed on how the Pardoner practically takes the earnings of people who are being tricked into believing they are

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The temptation of greed ended up killing the three men at the end of the tale. ”The Pardoner's Tale” provides a clear understanding that greed is a sin we all have to battle with in our lives, whereas the moral of the wife of bath's tale applies to people doing bad things. This tale teaches the reader a lesson about greed and how it can overcome people, making them do bad

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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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“Radix malorum est cupiditas” translated from Latin into “Greed is the root of all evil.” (Chaucer 125) Throughout the Pardoner’s Tale, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, this is the story of three men that treat people lower than them and they end up finding a whole pile of gold, but they end up killing each other to get the gold to themselves. The entirety of the three men end up dead and not even one gets the gold. There are many topics involving greed, this essay will involve what it is about, the dangers, and the benefits of controlling the desire to gain.

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The Pardoner is extremely upfront regarding his greedy motives as seen in the quote “For myn entente is nat but for to wynne,” (117). The sole reason he is in this game is no other reason than to make money. The revelation of this goal results in an ironic situation as his job consists of preaching against greed, while the only reason of his employment is driven by his own greed. “To yeven hir pens; and namely, unto me” is also written as “With offered pence, the which pence come to me” (116). Through this line, the audience can see that the character of the Pardoner, himself, does not see his situation as particularly ironic, instead, to him, is what he has to do in order to support his lifestyle.

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This is ironic as the pardoner tries to get the group to give him money after telling them how it was all a scam, “My holy pardon saves you from all this:/ If you will offer nobles, sterlings, rings,/ Soome brooches, spoons or other silver things,”(906-908). While he knows that they know his faulsities he deliberately ignores this in order to try and proceed with his con. Another layer of irony in this is that he promises pureness while he himself is not pure, “If you will give. You’ll be as clean and pure/

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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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He says, "I mean to have money, wool, and cheese and wheat" revealing that he actually has no intention of educating or pardoning the masses. His sole concern is swindling people out of money. This is ironic because he admits this fact about himself, but the moral of his story is that greed can lead to death. The Pardoner is an example of a man who does not practice what he preaches.

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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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