Character Analysis: The Pardoner's Tale

In The Pardoner’s tale, a horribly greedy man divulges the sinful business tactics he uses to trick people out of their money. He teaches sermons using fake relics fooling people into buying them to work miracles. The real-life version of the Pardoner, Marjoe, made his living by traveling across the United States pretending to be an amazing preaching prodigy, as a child, thus tricking people out of their money in the same way. Furthermore, the Pardoner entertains his fellow travelers by telling the story of three men who search for death and find riches. The Pardoner’s Tale concludes with the men being punished, by death, through the riches they found. This happens by the men murdering each other in attempts to gain all of the gold for themselves: the men murdered each other through their …show more content…
His beginning is what I envision the Pardoner’s beginning to be like. Like Marjoe, the Pardoner has no personal connection to religion, if he did he would feel guilt for his actions, which leads me to believe that they were taught religion as fact instead of something that you develop a relationship with and believe in. They both understand the motions of inspiring, or scarring a crowd, using religion, to get the most money in the offerings. There is a scene in Marjoe where he is counting his money on a hotel bed that reminds me strongly of the Pardoner. The greed and care for money is so strong that Marjoe is willing to rejoice over his treasure instead of over the lives he greatly influenced. Another similarity between Marjoe and the Pardoner is that, like the Pardoner, in one part of the film, Marjoe is selling “prayer clothes” that will supposedly work miracles if pray over someone using the cloth. However, after further inspection one can conclude that the prayer clothes Marjoe is selling are really bandannas torn into pieces. These relics gain Marjoe more money, but are completely