In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the social status of the character is important to his or her point of view. In the story, he uses a lot of characters to show his use of irony and characterization, but none is more ironic than the Pardoner. The Pardoner is a preacher who lives a life full of greed. Then he tells a tale about greedy men with a personality similar of that of his own. In the General Prologue, the Pardoner is described as being a preacher. He preaches against being greedy and wanting more than what a person needs. He admits to doing all these things but still preaches against them. "I only preach of avarice and the like, And in this way induce them to be free In giving cash--especially to me. Because my only interest is in gain.” The Pardoner also doesn’t feel guilty about his own greed or selfishness but tries to distract the group, the pilgrims listening, with his story. Chaucer also uses ironic characterization to describe the …show more content…
The three men went looking for Death but meet an old man who is looking for Death. The old man tells them that Death is over by a tree. So the men went over to the tree to look for Death but instead finds eight bushels of gold. The men didn 't want to seem like thieves, so they sent the youngest of the three to town to get bread and wine. As soon as the youngest in the group leaves for town. The other two plot to kill the younger one when he gets back and divide the gold. While he is gone the two set up the trap. Meanwhile, the youngest man buys poison and puts it in the wine. When he returns the two oldest men kill the youngest one. The two celebrate by unknowingly drinking the poisoned wine. Thus, death comes to the greedy rioters in the tale, but not to the Pardoner, who is telling the tale for