Q: The Pardoner’s Tale is “another example of his (the Pardoner’s) professional skill, an exemplum, a story with a moral to move and impress his hearers.” Are you ‘moved’ and ‘impressed’ by this tale? Give reasons.
The Pardoner is a representative of the Catholic Church of his time, his job was to sermonize to the people, lead them off the paths of evil and pardon them for their wrongs. Even at the time of Chaucer’s writing, Pardoners were universally disliked for being corrupt. Chaucer himself was once apprehended for attacking a Pardoner. In the Tales, even the other pilgrims do not take kindly to the Pardoner. Their attitude towards him borders on contempt. His tale is an exemplum rather than a narrative, for it contains a strong moral. It is an example of the kind of sermons that he gives to the local people to persuade them to give up their vices. His aim is to ‘move and impress’ his listeners. However, just as the pilgrims who listen to his story are not much moved nor impressed, we as the readers also find it difficult to be so. This is mainly because of Chaucer’s keen psychological characterization of the Pardoner himself.
In the prologue to his tale, the Pardoner begins with a chatty, confidential tone to expose his real aims in sermonizing. He is utterly corrupt and unashamed to confess it. His prologue is taken as an apologia, or a literary confession, but he seems not to repent but to revel in his vices. He tells the other pilgrims how he would take even the last penny off a widow, even if her children starved, so that he could have his worldly pleasures. He reaches against greed, drinking, gambling and swearing but follows none of his own advice. In the Tale, he digresses for over 200 lines in a mock sermon on the aforementioned vices, but by then he has committed most of them himself. He begins the tale drunks, swears throughout the prologue and he confesses his excessive greed for worldly pleasures.
The Pardoner says that his sermon always contains one theme and that is ‘radix malorum est cupiditas’ – meaning greed is the root of all evil. His tale of the three rioters builds on this theme. Avarice is the downfall of all three characters. By the end of the tale, the Pardoner has made a strong impact, he is undoubtedly a good preacher. His preaching works for the local people who listen to him. They are uneducated and naive. To them, the Pardoner’s tale is deeply impressive. Besides, the Pardoner uses his few phrases of Latin and his condescending and righteous manner to intimidate and condition his hearers. They buy his pardons and relics from him, giving him the coin that he is after.
This theme of the pardoner’s is one that many preachers and writers speak about. For example, George Herbert in his poem Avarice writes, “Money thou bane of bliss and source of woe”. In Chaucer’s time, money was equated with spiritual death. It was easy to play on this fear. This is one reason the Pardoner was a successful preacher. He knew how to tap into his listeners fears and offer them a solution to cleanse themselves.
The problem, however, is the Pardoner himself. By his own confession and subsequent actions, he negates his own moral. He says, “I preache nothyng but for coveitise.” Now that he has let us into his secrets, can we be expected to be impacted by his sermon? Clearly the Pardoner thinks so, which is why he tries to sell his relics to the pilgrims at the end of his tale and is insulted, much to his chagrin. Why does he try to sell his pardons after informing the pilgrims that it is all fraud? Perhaps he believes in his own skills so much that he thinks he can still fool his hearers, or perhaps he is so carried away with the telling of his moral tale that he thinks his hearers will be moved and impressed that they will buy his pardons. Either way, he is not successful in selling his tale to the pilgrims. His hypocrisy mars the efficacy of his own tale. He is a moral paradox. His story although full of meat is paradoxically empty and hollow.
In his defense, we can call the Pardoner honest. He tells the truth and does not try to whitewash himself. Also, whatever his intentions, his sermons do influence the village dupes and make them repent and lead better lives. The fact that Chaucer mentions this is perhaps to show that even such a lowbrow hypocritical character can do some good in society.
Even so, Chaucer uses the Pardoner to expose the corruption of the orthodox church of his time. The Pardoner is a strong indictment on the systematic and entrenched church. His vices are reflective of the corruption that went on behind the façade of holiness. Here is a statement by the writer to us to be careful, exercise good judgment and not be taken in. it’s the irony in the Pardoners prologue and tale that constitutes its main interest.
In the final analysis, it is obvious the Pardoner is an excellent preacher. His exemplum and the other tricks of his trade are effective to those who do not know his intentions and are unperceptive. However it is difficult for the intelligent reader and even for the pilgrims of the Tales to take the man or his story seriously. His prologue undermines the efficacy of his tale. We are neither moved nor impressed by his tale in the manner of the Pardoner’s regular audience. He cannot sell his story to us.
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