The PARDONERS TALE analysis

The text under discussion is The Pardoner's Tale. The plot of the narration is centred
around three young men who spend much of their time in revelry.
The tale is set in Flanders, and the Pardoner during the telling of the tale, tends to drift
from the plot and sermonize to the Pilgrims. The author stress the point that the three men
indulge in gambling and drunkenness, amuse themselves by singing, reveling. The Pardoner's
primary purpose is to criticize their sinful lives, citing many Biblical examples as support. First,
he denounces their gluttony, which he says caused the fall of Man. He next decries their
drunkenness, which makes men witless and lecherous. He then denounces their gambling: dice,
he says, are the mothers of lies. The Pardoner criticizes the swearing of false oaths, saying that
cursing and perjury are wretched. Although the Pardoner himself hardly leads a spotless life, he
bashes the protagonists of his tale for their sinful ways but he himself is a hypocrite, but he uses
his Tale as a moral example.
They hear a funeral passing outside the Inn and a servant tells them that the dead man was
a friend of the revelers who had been stabbed in the night by a thief called Death. The revelers
declare that they will seek and slay this false traitor Death. They pledge to be true to each other
as brothers in this quest. The revelers belief that they can slay Death emphasise the idea of their
extreme hubris. Rather than mourning their friend, they rashly seek their own glory. Although
they here pledge that they will be brothers in their quest, as the story progresses it doesn't take
much to dissolve their own bond. "Rioters" was a term for rambunctious young men.
The revelers meet an old man in rags who says that he must wander the earth restlessly
because Death will not take his life. He makes a move to leave, but the rioters demand that he
tell them where they can find Death. The old man says that he has just left Death a moment ago
sitting under an oak tree. The youths run down the crooked path to the tree, where they find not
Death but eight bushels of gold.
Then the author evoke an old man in rags is a typical character in a parable, a prophet-like
figure who gives the travelers information that turns out to be dangerous. Instead of the figure of
Death that they expect to find, the three revelers find bushels of gold that ultimately lead them to
their deaths through their greed.
The worst of the rioters speaks first, saying that this is their lucky day, and they
immediately decide to keep the treasure for themselves rather than try to find out if it belongs to
anyone, and this first greedy action sets off a chain reaction of escalating greed.
While the younges is away, the other two rioters plot to kill the third when he returns so
that the two of them will each get a bigger share of the treasure. Meanwhile, the youngest
decides to poison the other two revelers so that he can keep all the money for himself. He goes to
an apothecary, buys the strongest poison available, and pours it into two bottles, keeping a third
clean for himself.
A third of the treasure is not enough for the rioters: even though the third will make each of
them far richer than he was before, they each immediately see ways to become richer still. The
bonds of brotherhood that they swore to each other disappear in the face of their greed.
When the youngest reveler returns, the two others slay him. Then, celebrating, they drink
the poisoned wine. Thus, all three of the revelers die. Everyone must therefore beware sins, says
the Pardoner, especially greed, which is the root of all evils.
All of the rioters meet their demise due to their gluttonous, avaricious ways, giving the
Pardoner the chance to remind directly to the reader yet again that greed is the root of all evils.
At the concluding lines of the Pardoners Tale, the Pardoner practices the exact opposite of
what he preaches: although he has just argued that greed is the root of all evils and that lying is
terrible, he himself attempts to swindle the company, and the Knight must restore the social
order. The pardoner is a complicated characterthe morals spouting and yet gleefully immoral
man of the church.
In my opinion the text is remarcable for its descriptions of its characters that paint an ironic
and critical portrait of English society at the time.