The Canterbury Tales
...a. Profession
b. Cheater and liar
c. Rules of Church
III. Untrustworthy
a. Not good representative of church
b. Sexual gender
c. Uses fake credentials
IV. Preaches
a. Actually preaches about his own fraud
b. Makes people believe they are bad
c. Money causes even greed in a Pardoner and is root of all eveil
The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer is a brilliant masterpiece. In the beginning or prologue Chaucer described the medieval time period in which he lived. He described the characters, settings and the journey that awaits them. Chaucer achieves his purpose by having each character while traveling tell a “tale” which teaches, informs and entertains the reader. The Pardoner although pardons those who have done wrong does not practice what he pardons. He is all about self gratification and profit and wants to act like he can help everyone else by really only helping himself. The Pardoner is able to pardon people for their sins while committing the same sins himself. He charges a person for their pardons which is truly against the rules. But when he tells his tale he actually tells the people exactly what he does and preaches against the “Love of money being the root of all evil” and greed, by doing so it benefits him as people think they are sinning and pay for pardons making the pardoner even more money.
The Pardoner rides in the very back of the party in the General Prologue and is fittingly the most marginalized character in the company. His profession is somewhat dubious—pardoners offered indulgences, or previously written pardons for particular sins, to people who repented of the sin they had committed. Along with receiving the indulgence, the penitent would make a donation to the Church by giving money to the pardoner. Eventually, this “charitable” donation became a necessary part of receiving an indulgence. Paid by...
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