The Chaucer 's The Pardoner 's Tale Essay examples

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale stands to be the only tale with a clear moral. Chaucer wrote this exemplum using the Seven Deadly Sins as a basis. The Pardoner remains the most complex pilgrim in The Canterbury Tales, as he admits to committing the same sins he preaches against. Furthermore, the Pardoner admits that he does not care for the sake of the souls he claims to be saving, but instead desires only the money that is being used to purchase his merchandise. In his tale, the Pardoner falsely calls upon his Biblical knowledge in order to deceive the people and convince them of their need for absolution all for his own material gain. In the prologue to his tale, the Pardoner states that the theme of his sermons is always “Radix malorum est cupiditas”, or “The root of evils is cupidity” (PardProl 46), which comes from 1 Timothy 6:10. The Pardoner only uses the beginning of the scripture for the theme; however, the entire verse states, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (I Tim 6:10). It is ironic that the Pardoner chooses this verse for the theme of his sermons, because the scripture also not only condemns him, but it also undermines his pre-established authority.
The basis of The Pardoner’s Tale revolves around the Seven Deadly Sins, primarily greed, pride, gluttony, and envy, but he also references the Ten Commandments in…