In medieval times,“pardoners” would sell these indulgences, kind of like certificates, in order to forgive someone’s sins and even sometimes salvation from eternal
damnation. Before the Pardoner begins his tale, he admits that he is
a fraud. He proudly exclaims that he is only in the pardoning business for the
money and that he is guilty greed. He even says that his relics are really "ful of cloutes and of bones," (pg 234, line 348). Kind of reminds me of Matilda's father, a greedy and sly
used-car salesman.
The Pardoner tells us a tale of three young men who spend
all of their time drinking, swearing, and gambling, and just wasting their lives away. It is here that the
Pardoner interrupts his tale to tell the group why all of these things are
terrible sins forbidden by God in the Bible, but he truly believes "gret swering is a thing abhominable," (pg 240, line 631). The three young
men find out that an old friend has been killed by Death, and in their
drunkenness decide that they shall find Death and kill him as revenge.
Quick sidebar question: how exactly does one kill Death?!
Anyway, back to the tale.
While wandering the road looking for Death, they meet an old
man who says that he had left Death under an oak tree and points them towards a
grove. Under the tree they find several sacks of gold and decide to wait until
nightfall to carry them away so as not to arouse suspicion. While one of the
young men goes to get bread and wine, the other two plot to kill him upon his
return so that they only have to split the gold two ways. Meanwhile, the man getting food and drink poisons two of the three wine bottles so that he can keep the gold all to
himself. Upon his return he is stabbed by his two friends and then they drink the
poisoned wine in celebration and die as well. Inconceivable!!
This tale demonstrates that greed will only lead to your own
demise and that it brings out the worst in people. It is so ironic that the
Pardoner is telling this tale when he is practically the embodiment of
greed and intoxication. So, do you think is it possible for him to tell a tale
of morals and be taken seriously?
Like I've (kinda) said in at least one other comment, I believe part of the reason that the Pardoner tells a story that directly contradicts his own personal morals is partially because he doesn't actually give a rat's ass (pardon my French) about teaching anybody a lesson.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though he chose a story about greed even though he basically came out and said "Hey I'm the greediest bastard on the planet" purely to emphasize the fact that he doesn't even care, and doesn't believe a word he preaches. His whole story about the folly of greed is kind of- to me at least- a jab at anyone stupid enough to listen to him, because by admitting to being a greedy man himself he effectively nullifies the moral of the story. Because as you said, who is going to take him seriously when we already know he doesn't follow the own morals he tells to others?
And to follow on from that, who's going to genuinely believe in the folly of greed when they see this Pardoner indulging his greed and prospering?
DeleteYou do a lot of summarizing here! I'm curious to know how you'd answer your own concluding question, especially since you've just read his moral tale! Did you take him seriously? I most certainly did, but only because his tale aligns with my own morals. I agree with what he's saying, and he said it in such a creative, poetic kind of way. The only problem is, I was aware his morals didn't align with his own story when I started reading it. In turn, I spent the whole time trying to figure out why he would tell a moral tale when he's an immoral man, but I couldn't figure out why. All I know for sure is that he did, most likely because of his practice in doing so. This whole thing reminds me of a theory in psychology - something about writing an argumentation paper from the position opposite to yours and seeing how persuasive you can be. Well, the Pardoner basically had to write that essay about morals, and I bet you wouldn't have known he behaved differently. He's persuasive!
ReplyDeleteAmanda