How Is Irony Used In The Pardoner's Tale

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The Canterbury Tales Irony Essay In the book of The Canterbury Tales by, Chaucer, there is a pristine pattern of irony throughout each character and each story in the book. The Canterbury Tales, is a collaboration of stories of character and tales told throughout a pilgrimage. Each story has its own moral and meaning to its theme, but many of the tales are ironic in their morals. Where irony is most present in The Canterbury Tales is seen through the stories of, “The Pardoner's Tale”, “The Wife of Bath”, and the character the Monk in the “General Prologue”.
“The Pardoner’s Tale” is a story about how greed can lead to death, yet the character the Pardoner is the greediest of all the characters in the book. The Pardoner states, “I preach for nothing but for greed …show more content…
“And of that maiden, spite of all she said, by force he took her maidenhead.” The knight should be punished by death for his actions, but the Queen spares his life and gives him a task to search out what women really want in life. The knight does such and finds the answer within an old woman. She tells him that women want most in life to be equal with their man and their relationship with their man. Although, the knight has the answer, in return he must marry the old hag. His life is spared, but now he is married to an old woman. He is unhappy with his marriage, but the old hag becomes a young and beautiful wife to him and is faithful. “She was young and lovely, rich in charms.” The knight is now happy that he has a loyal and gorgeous wife. The irony in this story is that the knight rapes a girl and is spared life and in return he is given a beautiful and faithful young wife to him. This story is ironic, yet it is also unjust and harsh. The story has a happy ending with the knight being happy with his new wife, but it is ironic from the beginning when he took the young girl in the woods
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