The Pardoner's Tale: Irony and Allegory

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

2. The Pardoner’s Tale • 3 young men of drunk and riotous behavior search for Death. • An old man whom they insult tells them that Death lies up the hill under a tree. • They find bags of gold and plot to send the youngest for food and wine and then kill him for the gold. • He returns with poisoned wine. • They all die.

3. 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.

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. (image taken from www.vidimus.org/.../issue_40_2010-03.html )

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

6. Explain the role of death in “The Pardoner’s Tale”

7. 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.

8. 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

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

10. “The Ship of Fools”

11. “The Ship of Fools”

12. The Canterbury Tales Religious Allegory • Literal meaning • Symbolic meaning

13. “The Pardoner’s Tale” as an Allegory Exemplum • a narrative with both a literal and symbolic meaning. • Exemplum: an allegory that uses an example to make a point.

14. Archetypal Narrative Elements

15. How can allegory be an effective tool to both teach and manipulate? How does the Pardoner both teach a lesson and manipulate?

16. Chaucer uses SATIRE and IRONY in “The Pardoner’s Tale”

17. Satire Noun. A literary manner which blends humor with criticism for the purpose of instruction or the improvement of humanity

18. Some tools of the satirist • Direct satire • Indirect Satire • Utopianism/ Dystopianism • Caricature Exaggeration/ • Diminutiztion • Parody • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI

20. At Its Finest Irony

21. IRONY • 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

22. 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...

23. Why is this ironic?

25. Accidentally Ironic

27. Define the irony.

29. What TYPE of irony is this?

30. 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.

31. 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 sales women is rude to you. You would turn to whoever you are with and say “What a lovely lady she is.”

32. 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?

33. What does the Pardoner always preach about? • Sin of Greed and “The Love of money is the root of all evil” • How does this quote relate to “The Pardoner’s Tale?

34. Chaucer’s words And with these relics, any time he found  Some poor up-country parson to astound,  On one short day, in money down, he drew  More than the parson in a month or two, And by his flatteries and prevarication  Made monkeys of the priest and congregation. But still to do him justice first and last  In church he was a noble ecclesiast.

35. The Pardoner (lines 689-734) • Compared to Summoner—together they sing a song about lustful love • Has yellow waxy hair hanging down on his head thin like rat-tails; has bulging eyeballs; small voice like a goat; no beard • Wore a little cap Greed, Sloth Personification of evil; sells holy relics and favors to pardon people form all their sins to ensure purgatory; extorts money from people by preaching against having money; has repulsive physical features; special skill is singing at the offertory to extract money.

36. So, what is ironic about…  In church he was a noble ecclesiast.

37. AND So, what is ironic about… • His sermons: • Sin of Greed • “The Love of money is the root of all evil”

38. EQ: How can irony be an effective tool to both teach and manipulate? • What is Chaucer teaching? • How is he manipulating? • What is the Pardoner teaching? • How is he manipulating? • Baba’s Word Review Video