The Pardoner

Morally questionable versus rhetorically skilled

On Wednesday 29th September, our central protagonist, The Pardoner was discussed. After reading about his quintessential vanity portrayed through Chaucer’s feminine description, with 7 lines of the story being about his “heer” and metaphoric descriptions of him being a “gelding or a mare” reinforcing femininity but also pre-pubescent youth, we as readers already get a sense of what we believe the Pardoner is like – before we have even read his tale to the Pilgrims. Analysis of language, such as the simile “glaringe eyen hadde he as an hare” gave us greater insight into the Pardoners’ traits – his “glaringe eyen” showing covetousness through lust and envy. Further on, our suspicions are answered with his claiming that he had “relikes” when in truth he had “pigges bones” in order to exploit “moore money” out of obedient religious people who believed he was a Holy man who could forgive their sins. He “feyned flaterye and japes” (put on a performance of flattery and jokes) and successfully made fools out of people “made the person [...] his ape”. Thus, we are now aware that the Pardoner is a crook fleecing people out of money.

We were assigned the creative writing task to construct our own tale of the Pardoner, with his sinful, greedy nature in mind. To aid us in this, we thought about the Seven Deadly Sins which throughout The Middle Ages had great significance because of a truly religious society.

The Seven Deadly Sins are:

1. Pride- distorted reflection of proper integrity and self-respect
2. Covetousness - avarice of God’s gifts
3. Lust - wanting too much of God’s gift of sexuality and love 4. Envy - perversion of admiration for others
5. Gluttony - unhealthy enjoyment of God’s gift of food and drink
6. Anger - distorted reflection of justice
7. Sloth - inability to work or pray. Refusal to accept God’s spiritual gifts

As we read on with the story, we saw how the Pardoner, not being honorary in his religious preaching’s or respecting God, had the desire to have things his own way for his own personal gain/greed (CUPIDITAS). He charmed folk by deceptively telling them that he can “heeleth jalousie” and that men can trust their young promiscuous wives, “And nevere shal he moore his wif mistriste”, if they “taak water of that welle and wash his tongue”, which he claims has a “sholder-boon which that was of an hooly Jewes sheep.”

Ironically however, the Pardoners main theme for his sermons are “Radix malorum est CUPIDITAS” which means ‘Money is the root of all evil’. And he is aware that in his ability to “hauteyn speche” (speak loudly), for his voice to “ringe it out [...] as gooth a belle”, it signifies his gift in getting his message across so he can dupe people to believing him and getting their money. This is supported by “my bulles shewe I, alle and some”, by showing religious documents and “In Latin I speke a words fewe” so his Latin words gives him credibility.

Therefore, the Pardoner proves himself as sinful and corrupt - indeed morally questionable but his skills in his speech allow him to cheat people out of money in order to fill his own pockets. This gives us very interesting tales as well as an interesting Pardoner.

Shenice