The Pardoner In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

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In the book The Canterbury Tales, the pardoner, a pilgrim on a voyage to see the shrine at Canterbury, is an interesting character that the narrator, Chaucer, goes into deep detail about. The story is about several pilgrims traveling to Canterbury and telling tales on the way. The pardoner is a person who is part of the church class as he goes around selling pardons or indulgences to people. This is not exactly what the pardoner does as he overprices them and sells fake relics.Chaucer the narrator says multiple things about the pardoner throughout the story, good and bad. Admiring his ability to make money off people, thinking of him as being greedy, his ability to win over a crowd, and the possibility of the pardoner being an eunuch are some …show more content…
He even says that he has " Never do [done] an honest job of work" (Chaucer 21) and "make [makes] my [his] living out of –avarice"( Chaucer 20).He is awfully bold with these statements as he told the rest of the pilgrims."Covetousness is both the toot and stuff / Of all I preach. That ought to be enough" (Chaucer 20). The ironic part of what the pardoner said is that he preaches not to be greedy, but is greedy himself as he takes other people money by selling fake relics and expensive pardons. The pardoner is also blunt about he greediness. An example of the pardoner being blunt about he greed is when he says "Though it were given me by the poorest lad / Or poorest village widow, though she had / A string of starving children, all agape" (Chaucer 21) and ''My exclusive purpose is to win" (Chaucer 20).The pardoner is so greedy towards money that he even tells the pilgrims bluntly that he would take money from poor people and has no purpose to help you he wants to win. The pardoner knows he will make money because people will buy his relics if they believe it is real and it will help

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