Death In The Pardoner's Tale

The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of tales told by different people on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. All of the tales have a strong central theme to them; The Pardoner’s Tale in particular, has one of the most apparent value lessons of all the tales. In the tale there are two sins that the rioters performed which led to their expiration; these sins include: drunkenness and greed. In the beginning of the tale, the pardoner denounces these sins as being two of the most relentless acts that a man can commit. Although drunkenness was discussed in the story, the most relevant lesson in The Pardoner’s Tale is “Radix malorum est Cupiditas,” or that “greed is the root of all evil” (The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale line 46). …show more content…
There are two ways that the reader can interpret death; one is the idea that death is an actual person who kills people, which is the easiest way to interpret it. In this interpretation, death can be blamed for leaving the gold which resulted in the rioter’s demise. In the story the three men venture off into the woods to find death, them stumble upon an old man who claimed to have seen him. In this scenario we can infer that death is a real person who left the gold for the three rioters to find. Death was well aware of the three men’s greed and used it as a method of destruction. He purposely left the gold and stood back while the three men killed each other as a result of their greed. The readers can also view the old man as being death because he led the three men to the gold which caused their death. In this interpretation, the old man planted the gold knowing very well that the three men would battle for it eventually leading to their