Irony In The Pardoner's Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer does not openly criticize specific servants of the Church in this tale (i.e., the Pardoner, the Friar and the Monk). His censorship of those who disserve the people in the Church's name is found in reading between the lines. Through the Prologue, we are given insights into the hearts of the people on this pilgrimage. Chaucer keeps his sense of humor as he describes each, and while he shares the tale each member tells. Each tale casts a clearer light on each character, though those like the Pardoner miss the irony between his/her life and the message of his/her tale.

The Pardoner in The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is a fraud. His job is to sell pardons to country folk to raise money for the church. Poor and uneducated, they scrape …show more content…
(686-687)

The Pardoner also sells fake relics to naive parsons—to be displayed and prayed over in church. The Pardoner has a pillowcase that he says is the Virgin Mary's veil:

For in his mail he had a pillowber 

Which that he saidè was Our Lady's veil. (694-695)

He has a piece of cloth that he claims is part of the sail of the boat on which Peter sailed with Christ, when Christ walked on water.

He said he had a gobbet of the sail

That Saintè Peter had when that he went

Upon the sea, till Jesus Christ him hent. (695-697)

The relics are fakes...as is the Pardoner—he does not care for the welfare of the people—as charged by the medieval Roman Catholic Church—but his own purse.

It is ironic, then, that the tale the Pardoner tells has to do with greed, for greed is what drives the Pardoner! His story is rather humorous—but realistic.

Three men are drinking—it's about 9:00 a.m. (They may not have been home since the evening before.) As is the custom, as a casket passes, a bell is rung in its wake. They ask a serving boy who died, discovering that it is one of their drinking buddies. Death (personified here) has "killed"

Show More