THE PARDONER’S TALE Geoffrey Chaucer

BACKGROUND Within the frame story, a pardoner is one of the characters that is traveling to Canterbury, and he decides to take a turn to tell a tale of his own. In medieval Christianity, when a believer committed a sin, he or she had to seek the services of a pardoner. A pardoner was a church employee who collected money from people who regretted their sins and gave them God’s forgiveness in return.

The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer Summary and Analysis The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale Summary Apparently deeply affected by the Physician's sad and gruesome tale of Virginia. Thinking that the pilgrims need a merry tale to follow, the Host turns to the Pardoner. The more genteel members of the company, fearing that the Pardoner will tell a vulgar story, ask the Pardoner for a tale with a moral.

The Pardoner then explains to the pilgrims the methods he uses in preaching. His text is always "Radix malorum est cupidatis" ("Love of money is the root of all evil"). Always employing an array of documents and objects, he constantly announces that he can do nothing for the really bad sinners and invites the good people forward to buy his relics and, thus, absolve themselves from sins.

Then he stands in the pulpit and preaches very rapidly about the sin of avarice so as to intimidate the members into donating money. He repeats that his theme is always "Money is the root of all evil" because, with this text, he can denounce the very vice that he practices: greed. And even though he is guilty of the same sins he preaches against, he can still make other people repent.

Scholars, critics, and readers in general consider The Pardoner's Tale to be one of the finest "short stories“ ever written. Even though this is poetry, the narration fits all the qualifications of a perfect short story: brevity,a theme aptly illustrated, brief characterizations, the inclusion of the symbolic old man, rapid narration, and a quick twist of an ending. The entire tale is an exemplum, a story told to illustrate an intellectual point. The subject is "Money (greed) is the root of all evil."

1. What makes Geoffrey Chaucer so important in British Literature? 2. What is the literary structure of The Canterbury Tales? 3. Who was the Pardoner? 4. What’s the plot in the Pardoner’s tale? 5. Who are the characters? 6. What is the conflicto? 7. What is the climax? 8. What is the moral? 9. Is there irony in this tale? elaborate 10. What do you think Chaucer tried to communicate with this tale?

Exercises 1. What happens at the beginning of the story that causes the young men to decide to search for Death? 2. What does greed cause the three Young me to do in the end? 3. Find 3 synonims for the word hooligans. 4. When an author gives human qualities to an object, natural forces or ideas it is called personification, identify one example of this in The Pardoner’s Tale and créate one of your own.

5. According to the narrator, what does greed do? 6. Instead of fearing Death, the three Young men swear to slay Death, does this mean that they think that Death can die as a living thing does? 7. In which way were the Young fellows rude to the old man? 8. Find three synonims for secretive.