1. How can irony be an effective tool to both teach and manipulate?
“The Pardoner’s Tale”
How can irony be an effective tool to both teach and manipulate?

2. The Pardoner’s Tale
3 young men of drunk and riotous behavior search for Death.
An old man whom they insult tells them that Death lies up the hill under a tree.
They find bags of gold and plot to send the youngest for food and wine and then kill him for the gold.
He returns with poisoned wine.
They all die.

3. Some Background…
Pardoners sold pardons—official documents from Rome that pardoned a person’s sins.
The Pardoner in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is dishonest.
The Pardoner often preaches about how money is the root of all evil.
Beginning course details and/or books/materials needed for a class/project.

4. Death personified
The Pardoner’s Tale is a reminder that death is inevitable.
Death is personified as a thief who pierces the heart of his victims.
The tale refers to death as the person responsible for slaughtering one thousand by his hand during the plague (line 670).
The three men from the bar are determined to challenge death because he has taken away their friends.
This was an iconographic image of death throughout the middle ages and later.
(image taken from )

5. Hypothesize…
How did Chaucer feel about the role of the Pardoner in society/ the church?

6. Explain the role of death in “The Pardoner’s Tale”

7. Chaucer’s dissatisfaction
There was widespread dissatisfaction with pardoners (as also with money-loving Friars) in Chaucer's time, and both were popular subjects of satire and joking.
“The Pardoner’s Tale” is an allegorical, satirical, and ironic conveyance of the greed of the church and the recognition that the church was corrupted during this time period.

8. A symbolic representation.
ALLEGORY
The Seven Deadly Sins
Pride
Avarice
Lust
Anger
Gluttony
Envy
Sloth
A symbolic representation.
In “The Pardoner’s Tale” we are exposed to the symbolic representation of the vices of humanity- The Seven Deadly Sins

9. Allegory a narrative with both a literal and symbolic meaning.
Exemplum: an allegory that uses an example to make a point.

10. “The Ship of Fools”
The allegory shows a boat “populated by human inhabitants who are deranged, frivolous, or oblivious, passengers aboard a ship without a pilot, and seemingly ignorant of their own direction.”

11. “The Ship of Fools”
The allegory shows a boat “populated by human inhabitants who are deranged, frivolous, or oblivious, passengers aboard a ship without a pilot, and seemingly ignorant of their own direction.”

12. The Canterbury Tales Religious Allegory
Literal meaning
Symbolic meaning

13. “The Pardoner’s Tale” as an Allegory Exemplum
a narrative with both a literal and symbolic meaning.
Exemplum: an allegory that uses an example to make a point.

14. Archetypal Narrative Elements
Example from text
Characters, events, and other things that come in threes
A test of characters’ moral fiber leading to their destiny
A mysterious guide who helps point the way
A just ending that rewards good or punishes evil

15. How can allegory be an effective tool to both teach and manipulate?
How does the Pardoner both teach a lesson and manipulate?

16. Chaucer uses SATIRE and IRONY in “The Pardoner’s Tale”

17. Satire
Noun. A literary manner which blends humor with criticism for the purpose of instruction or the improvement of humanity

18. Some tools of the satirist
Direct satire
Indirect Satire
Exaggeration/Diminutiztion
Utopianism/ Dystopianism
Caricature
Parody

19. DEFINITION/ DESCRIPTION
TERM
DEFINITION/ DESCRIPTION
EXAMPLE
Mockery
Making fun of something
“Man is the only animal that blushes- or needs to.” - Mark Twain
Sarcasm
Harsh, personally directed comment: using praise to mock someone; usually aims to hurt
To refer to a 98-pount weakling as a “real he-man”
Overstatement
Say more than is meant; exaggeration
“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse”
Understatement
Saying less than is meant
“Mount Everest is not small”
Parody
Imitation of a specific, known person, literary work, movie, or event; often involves mocking
General MacArthur said, “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away” PARODY: “Old blondes never grey, they just dye away.”
Pathos
Going from the serious to the ridiculous quickly
“I love my country, my wife, my job, and chocolate candy”
Mock-Heroic
Imitation, exaggeration, and distortion of literary epic style
The garbage man, tall and strong, lifted his glittery can of rubbish as if it were a feather, and with the strength of Thor, hurled it into the dumpster.
Irony
Say one thing yet meaning another
In Romeo and Juliet when Romeo tells Mercutio that his wound is slight. Mercutio says “No, it’s not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ‘tis enough, t’will serve”

20. Irony
At Its Finest

21. IRONY Situational Verbal Dramatic
The opposite of what is expected to happen occurs
Verbal
The opposite of what is meant is said (sarcasm)
Dramatic
The reader knows something the character does not

22. Situational Irony
The fire safety lectures were canceled because the screen caught on fire.
An ambulance runs over a pedestrian.
If you have a phobia of long words you have to tell people that you have Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia...

23. Why is this ironic?

25. Accidentally Ironic

27. Define the irony.

29. What TYPE of irony is this?

30. Extra Examples
Your friend walks into a pile of dog poop and you say “Wow, how lucky are you?”
*This is where sarcasm is shown for verbal irony.

31. You work from six in the morning to six at night doing manual labor.
Verbal irony would be if you came home and said “I just had the most amazing day!”
A mean sales women is rude to you.
You would turn to whoever you are with and say “What a lovely lady she is.”

32. Dramatic Irony
Scary music in a horror movie only the audience can hear, so we are prepared for what is to come while the characters are not.
In Titanic, we know the boat is going to sink. The people on the boat are unaware of the actual dangers the iceberg presents.
Have you seen, read, or know the story of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet?

33. What does the Pardoner always preach about?
Sin of Greed and “The Love of money is the root of all evil”
How does this quote relate to “The Pardoner’s Tale?

34. In church he was a noble ecclesiast.
Chaucer’s words
And with these relics, any time he found
 Some poor up-country parson to astound,
 On one short day, in money down, he drew
 More than the parson in a month or two,
725And by his flatteries and prevarication
 Made monkeys of the priest and congregation.
 But still to do him justice first and last
 In church he was a noble ecclesiast.

35. The Pardoner (lines 689-734) Greed, Sloth
Compared to Summoner—together they sing a song about lustful love
Has yellow waxy hair hanging down on his head thin like rat-tails; has bulging eyeballs; small voice like a goat; no beard
Wore a little cap
Greed, Sloth
Personification of evil; sells holy relics and favors to pardon people form all their sins to ensure purgatory; extorts money from people by preaching against having money; has repulsive physical features; special skill is singing at the offertory to extract money.

36. So, what is ironic about…
 In church he was a noble ecclesiast.

37. AND So, what is ironic about…
His sermons:
Sin of Greed
“The Love of money is the root of all evil”

38. EQ: How can irony be an effective tool to both teach and manipulate?
What is Chaucer teaching?
How is he manipulating?
What is the Pardoner teaching?
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