The Power Of The Pardoner In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous set of poems, The Canterbury Tales, one of his most notable characters is the Pardoner. During Chaucer’s time, a Pardoner was a member of the Church who went around various neighborhoods and villages to preach the word of God and collect money or charitable donations in turn for God’s forgiveness of their sins. But in Chaucer’s story, the Pardoner is depicted as a thief and criminal who takes all of the profits from donors and boasts about this theft. As an influential member of the church and symbolically closer to God, a pardoner was automatically placed at the top of the social hierarchy during Chaucer’s time. However, his motives for taking advantage of the Church and religion places him at the bottom of humanity.

While this portrayal is not false, it fails to take into consideration the power with which the Pardoner preaches in order to obtain his material riches. He has obvious success in these endeavors and his work to fulfill these greedy goals, while morally incorrect, is seen only for its impropriety, rather than its artistic or intellectual effort. It is easily overlooked how the Pardoner produces successful moral improvement from his listeners through his “good words” and teachings, and while his actions may contradict this, they are nonetheless impactful on others’ repentance (Reiss, 264). His goals and intentions are without a doubt wrong, but his confession and admittance of these moral character flaws show that he is a real person in the world, motivated by vices that we are all guilty of holding, like greed. The irony within the Pardoner’s prologue and tale certainly exists, but I understand the traits that Chaucer and other scholars condemn, to be true and real amongst all individuals. We as readers are not meant to authorize, or “[sanction] the Pardoner’s actions”, but rather take what he says with an understanding that we as humans hold the same traits (Reiss, 264). Chaucer paints the Pardoner to hold on his shoulders “the sins of the world in general” to display characteristics of the human

The border that outlines the text looks like branches with various leaves and plant-like growths. It frames the left side of the poem, and then literally curls around and frames the text. Toward the end of the curling branches, there are what appear to be thorns poking off of the branches, which represent Jesus’s crown of thorns and allow for the understanding that this is Pardoner’s tale because of this religious reference. The colors of these branches, leaves, and thorns are painted to be stark and dreary shades of brown, orange, and blue, however, there is a painting of the Pardoner off to the side of the poem in which he is painted with bright red and gold. The somber colors of the border represent the Pardoner’s true malicious values and poor character, whereas his own depiction off to the side, shows him as a king or royalty-like figure that he thinks of himself as. However, the fashion choices that the Pardoner is depicted as portraying highlight the innate selfish desire that represent inherent character traits of humanity. The desire for material wealth and economic prosperity is present within all of us, and the Pardoner is an example of the manifestation of this desire in the world. In the material text, he is also shown as holding and brandishing a large golden cross to illustrate his many journeys through villages preaching the word of God from