The Evil Pardoner's Motives in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Alex St. Pierre
April 15th,2013
Mrs. Capwell
English 12
The Evil Pardoner In The Canterbury Tales, the author, Geoffrey Chaucer is satirizing many members of the clergy and upper-class who lived in his time period. He wrote his tales in Middle-English in order to allow for the commoners to read it, because the people that he was satirizing spoke mostly French. By writing in Middle-English, it not only allowed for the lower class to read it, but it also allowed for him to be slightly more harsh on some of his satires with the knowledge that the upper-class would not be able to understand it. One of the character’s that is heavily satirized in The Canterbury Tales is a character who is to be known by readers as the Pardoner. In the times of Chaucer, the role of a pardoner was to sell indulgences to common folk in order to save their souls and forgive them of their sins. However, Chaucer depicts the Pardoner as having motives that are not of a Godly nature. The Pardoner in The Canterbury Tales is indeed, although a member of the clergy, a character with evil motives and an evil nature. Chaucer begins to describe the Pardoner as a character with evil intentions with the physical characteristics. “This Pardoner had hair as yellow as wax, Hanging down smoothly like a hank of flax” (Gen L. 693-694). The physiognomy of a character with blonde hair is translated by the commoners of Chaucer’s time as a person who is arrogant, prideful, angry, and deceiving. “In driblets fell his locks behind his head down to his shoulders which the overspread; thinly they fell, like rat-tails, one by one” (Gen L. 695-697). Chaucer is demonstrating that the Pardoner is not well kept; returning to his beliefs in physiognomy, long hair is representative of an untrustworthy character. “And he had bulging eyeballs, like a hare” (Gen L. 704). Bulging eyeballs are a depiction of stubbornness. “His chin no beard had harbored, nor would harbor, smoother than ever chin was left by barber. I
April 15th,2013
Mrs. Capwell
English 12
The Evil Pardoner In The Canterbury Tales, the author, Geoffrey Chaucer is satirizing many members of the clergy and upper-class who lived in his time period. He wrote his tales in Middle-English in order to allow for the commoners to read it, because the people that he was satirizing spoke mostly French. By writing in Middle-English, it not only allowed for the lower class to read it, but it also allowed for him to be slightly more harsh on some of his satires with the knowledge that the upper-class would not be able to understand it. One of the character’s that is heavily satirized in The Canterbury Tales is a character who is to be known by readers as the Pardoner. In the times of Chaucer, the role of a pardoner was to sell indulgences to common folk in order to save their souls and forgive them of their sins. However, Chaucer depicts the Pardoner as having motives that are not of a Godly nature. The Pardoner in The Canterbury Tales is indeed, although a member of the clergy, a character with evil motives and an evil nature. Chaucer begins to describe the Pardoner as a character with evil intentions with the physical characteristics. “This Pardoner had hair as yellow as wax, Hanging down smoothly like a hank of flax” (Gen L. 693-694). The physiognomy of a character with blonde hair is translated by the commoners of Chaucer’s time as a person who is arrogant, prideful, angry, and deceiving. “In driblets fell his locks behind his head down to his shoulders which the overspread; thinly they fell, like rat-tails, one by one” (Gen L. 695-697). Chaucer is demonstrating that the Pardoner is not well kept; returning to his beliefs in physiognomy, long hair is representative of an untrustworthy character. “And he had bulging eyeballs, like a hare” (Gen L. 704). Bulging eyeballs are a depiction of stubbornness. “His chin no beard had harbored, nor would harbor, smoother than ever chin was left by barber. I