Summary and Analysis of The Pardoners Tale Essay example -- Canterbur

sum-up and depth psychology of The excusers Tale (The Canterbury Tales)Prologue to the excusers TaleThe Host thinks that the cause of Virginias termination in the previous tale was her beauty. To counter the sadness of the tale, the Host suggests that the Pardoner ordain a lighter tale. The Pardoner delays, for he wants to finish his meal, scarce says that he sh every promulgate a moral tale. He says that he will tell a tale with this moral the love of cash is the root of all evil. He claims that during his sermons he shows useless trifles that he passes forward as saints relics. He proudly tells about how he defrauds people who believed they have sinned. He states explicitly that his goal is not to save people from sin, but to gain money from them. The Pardoner says that he will not imitate the apostles in their poverty, but will have food, comfort, and a wench in every town. AnalysisAmong the various pilgrims featured in the Canterbury Tales, the Pardoner is one of the mos t to the full realized characters. The only character to whom Chaucer gives greater detail is the Wife of Bath. The Pardoner is a fraudulent huckster who shows no qualms about passing off false items as the relics of saints, but he also demonstrates a great sense of self-loathing. The Pardoner shifts from moments of direct honesty to shameless deceit, openly admitting the tricks of his care to the travelers but nevertheless attempting to use these various methods on these travelers who are aware(predicate) of his schemes. The Pardoner is in many senses a warped character, unable to prevail to any consistent code of moral behavior. Even in his animalism he is deformed. The General Prologue, suggesting that the Pardoner resembles a gelding or a mare, hints that the Pardoner may be a ... ... only expression of any spirituality contained in the Pardoners Tale. The Pardoner has little concern with actual religious matters and makes no real reference to Christianity. His concern i s money, and the Christian religion is only the way to achieve this end. The Tale itself is a relatively simplistic moral fiction that hinges on the distinctions between literal and figurative language. The initial personification of demolition that the young child uses as a allegory and euphemism leads to the actual physical manifestation of Death as a tangible object the arrange of gold that the three rioters find. The plot of the tale derives from the rioters literal interpretation of euphemism since death has taken their friend, they must find death. This personification of death finally becomes metaphor once again when the piles of gold represent the death that they find.