Irony In The Pardoner's Tale

In the 1300s, literature began to advance. The famous writer, Geoffrey Chaucer, was working on The Canterbury Tales. This story was a collection of small stories told by the travellers on their journey to the remains of Saint Thomas Becket. Around the same time, Giovanni Boccaccio was writing The Decameron, which was a collection of small told by nobles to pass the time while trying to hid from the plague. Bother stories have a similar concept, but also have completely different styles. Both “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “Federigo’s Falcon” use irony and plot to show that obsessed devotion can destroy everything one has worked for. One of many similar elements that these two stories hold is irony. It is used as a meaning of missing the goal
In each story, the characters’ choices cause a different outcome. In “Federigo’s Falcon”, Federigo gives up everything for Monna. He loses his money and cooks his bird because, he’d rather have her than anything else. At the end Monna sees “Federigo to be a gentleman of great merit even though he was poor”. She decides to marry him and Federigo finds himself married to this great lady with whom he was so deeply in love” (Boccaccio 165). Even though his dedication to have Monna lost him everything he had, he had no consequences in the end. He married the woman of his dreams, which is what he truly wanted. Whereas, in “The Pardoner’s Tale” the end isn’t as forgiving. For the rioters obsession for riches, caused them to turn against and kill each other. With the third rioter stabbed and the two others poisoned, the gold was left alone and was owned by noone. By disregarding their own promises “these two murderers received their due, so did the treacherous young poisoner too” (Chaucer 316-318). By being greedy only caring about power, the had a suffering consequence. Though the same theme occurs in each story, the message about obsession is