Pardoner’s Tale by
Geoffrey Chaucer
About the author
Geoffrey Chaucer (1314 to 1400) was an English poet author and Civil Servant best known for The Canterbury Tales, he has been regarded as the father of English Poetry and was also gained fame as a philosopher and also maintained career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, Courtier, diplomat and Member of Parliament.
Chaucer is seen as crucial literary figure and given birth to medieval English and also established English as a dominant literary language in the world.
Introduction
The Pardoner’s Tale is one of the Tales of Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, it comes after Physician’s Tale in order of tales. Described by the host’s desire to hear something positive after Physician’s depressing tale.
Three young men encounter an old man who says they will find death under a nearby tree they set to kill death. When they arrived they found a Treasure and decided to take that in night out of the greed they killed each other.
The tail and the prologue primary concerned with what Pardoner says “ Radix Malorum est Capiditas” (‘ Greed is the root of all evils’)
Prologue
The prologue takes form of the literary confession however rather than an apology for his vises. The Pardoner talk about the partner says that “Radix Malorum est Capiditas” (‘ Greed is the root of all evils’). Then he will produce some relics and claim that among them with has miraculous power.
But Pardoner warned that any person will not be able to benefit from these relics. By this tricks Pardoner earned money.
Pardoner conclude the prologue by saying, he may be a ‘ful vicious man’ he can tell a moral tale and proceeds.
Summary
The Pardoner’s tail is set in Flanders during medieval time, the story revolves around three young men known as rioters drinking, gambling and blaspheming (religious crime) in a pub .The partner condemns this and considered these acts as ‘sins’, he identifies drinking, gambling and swearing from the Christians religious scriptures.
Three Rioters get to know that the friend has been killed by ‘Privee thief’ known as ‘death’, who has also killed thousand others so they decided to take a revenge and plan to kill death for that they went into nearly forest to take the revenge from death.
An old man me 10 in the way to forest and enquiry about what they are doing and told the three routers that has been asked that to take him but as quilt the old man the Tech can find suggest them that they can find that under an oak tree.
when three men arrive at the tree they find the large box full of gold coins and forget about their revenge to kill death, now they decided to sleep at the oak tree overnight so that can take the coins next early morning.
The three main draw straws to decide who among them should go to village to take wine and food while other to wait under tree, the youngest of the three men draws the shortest straw and when to take wine and food, while he is away the other two plans to kill him as he comes however the one who went in town plans to kill them by adding rat poison in the wine and take the treasure alone. When he returns with the food and drink the other two killed him and then drink poisonous wine, they died slowly with a pain.
After completing his tale Pardoner appeals for gold and silver from pilgrims so they may receive pardon for their sins, the host response with anger but the knight interferes and urges them to make peace.
Themes of Greed and Irony
However the Pardoner warns everyone against greed, the irony is that Pardoner’s character himself is greedy man it was shown by hypothetical actions. The Pardoner admits that he tricks the guiltiest sinners into buying relics and does not really comes what happens to the soul of the relics.
The partner is very deceptive in how he carries out his job instead of selling genuine relics; the bones which he carries are of pigs and cross he carries appear to be made of common metal not precious stones. This irony could be an indication to Chaucer’s dislike for religious profit, Chaucer’s use of subtle literary techniques such as Satire seems to convey this message.
Conclusion
As
a conclusion it is said that “The Partner’s tale is one of the best literary
creation of medieval English literature”, that portrays social religious
conditions and themes of greed and irony.
