The Pardoner In The Summoner's Tale

The indirect characterization of the Pardoner, in consideration of his objective stance towards his own wrongdoings, reveals him to be a man with conscious partial to his intents and basic motivation. The Pardoner explicitly states his reason for sermonizing as his “exclusive purpose is to win and not at all to castigate their sin” (p. 243). With brutal honesty and in meticulous fashion, the Pardoner embraces his love for profit and monetary gains in spite of his pious occupation. Though the actions and impressions of the Pardoner are both distasteful and lacking in morals, it is the same hypocritical disposition that highlights the depth and good of the character. While not righteous or honorable in any traditional sense, the Pardoner argues that he is appropriate to preach against his personal vice of greed due to his understanding of the sin and that in the process he is able to truly assist others in the relinquishment of their faults. In correspondence, the Pardoner “preach for nothing but for greed of gain… from it, I can bring them to repent” (p. 243). The transparency of the Pardoner’s confessions is without a doubt

A friar is generally a character of clerical virtue and honor, but ironically, the friar in context is a source of corruption and a man of treachery and deceit. When the friar learns of the death of a wife’s child, he subsequently claims with the falsehood that he and his fellow friars had envisioned their child within the residence of heaven. The friar then goes on to boast that his “purity and fasting have sufficed to make our prayers acceptable to Christ” (p. 309). This is an obvious lie, for the donations that he receives is well enough for one to live a life of splendor and ease and his résumé of misdeeds is more than capable to bring shame to pagans and heretics