The Pardoner's Tale

1. “The Pardoner’s Tale” How can irony be an effective tool to both teach and manipulate?

2. Some Background… • Pardoners sold pardons—official documents from Rome that pardoned a person’s sins. • The Pardoner in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is dishonest. • The Pardoner often preaches about how money is the root of all evil.

3. Role of the pardoner (during Medieval times) A Pardoner…. • was a church official • was authorized to preach and distribute indulgences that absolve people from sin • Indulgences were written pardons for sins • Indulgences were granted in exchange for services or donations ($$) to the Church • Corrupt pardoners (like the one in Chaucer's story) sold indulgences for their own profit. • Chaucer’s Pardoner displays/sells relics, or holy objects.

4. Death personified • The Pardoner’s Tale is a reminder that death is inevitable. • Death is personified as a thief who pierces the heart of his victims. • The tale refers to death as the person responsible for slaughtering one thousand by his hand during the plague (line 670). • The three men from the bar are determined to challenge death because he has taken away their friends. This was an iconographic image of death throughout the middle ages and later.

5. Hypothesize… • How did Chaucer feel about the role of the Pardoner in society/ the church?

6. Chaucer’s dissatisfaction • There was widespread dissatisfaction with pardoners (as also with money-loving Friars) in Chaucer's time, and both were popular subjects of satire and joking. • “The Pardoner’s Tale” is an allegorical, satirical, and ironic conveyance of the greed of the church and the recognition that the church was corrupted during this time period.

7. ALLEGORY The Seven Deadly Sins Pride Avarice Lust Anger Gluttony Envy Sloth • A symbolic representation. • In “The Pardoner’s Tale” we are exposed to the symbolic representation of the vices of humanity- The Seven Deadly Sins

8. Allegory • a narrative with both a literal and symbolic meaning. • Exemplum: an allegory that uses an example to make a point.

9. IRONY (write these if you don’t know them!!) • Situational • The opposite of what is expected to happen occurs • Verbal • The opposite of what is meant is said (sarcasm) • Dramatic • The reader knows something the character does not

10. Situational Irony • The fire safety lectures were canceled because the screen caught on fire. • An ambulance runs over a pedestrian. • If you have a phobia of long words you have to tell people that you have Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia...

11. Why is this ironic?

13. Accidentally Ironic

15. Extra Examples Your friend walks into a pile of dog poop and you say “Wow, how lucky are you?” *This is where sarcasm is shown for verbal irony.

16. You work from six in the morning to six at night doing manual labor. Verbal irony would be if you came home and said “I just had the most amazing day!” A mean saleswomen is rude to you. You would turn to whoever you are with and say “What a lovely lady she is.”

17. Dramatic Irony • Scary music in a horror movie only the audience can hear, so we are prepared for what is to come while the characters are not. • In Titanic, we know the boat is going to sink. The people on the boat are unaware of the actual dangers the iceberg presents. • Have you seen, read, or know the story of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet?

18. Pardoner’s Tale: Overview and Summary • Prologue: • The Pardoner begins by telling his audience that the theme of every sermon he delivers is “greed is the root of all evil.” • Why is this ironic? (You’ll need to read the story…) • The Pardoner starts by revealing his tricks of the trade, admitting that he roams all over the countryside selling fake relics and pardons in exchange for money. • He feels no guilt or remorse for his actions. • He ends the prologue saying that would take money from the poorest person in town, or steal from starving families, for money.

19. The Pardoner’s Tale: Summary • Three debauched young men, after a long night of partying and gambling, go around looking for Death, who just killed one of their friends. • An old man tells them that they can find Death under a tree. But instead of Death, they find a treasure of gold coins (imagine the equivalent of five million dollars). • This treasures causes the young men to meet Death in a way that was not expected. Each one tries to backstab the other (literally) in order to keep the treasure for himself. • This connects back to the prologue, the theme of the Pardoners sermon, “greed is the root of all evil.”

20. Literary elements • Characterization: the way an author presents and develops a character. • To analyze characterization, you should consider: • What the character says • The characters thoughts and feelings • How other characters react to the character. • Satire: the use of humor, irony, or exaggeration to expose or criticize a human folly (flaw) or vice.