The Pardoner's Tale and Its Irony

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? 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pardoner

Why the heck does Beowulf remind me of Thor?

In all honesty, I thought this book would be extremely boring. I mean, who wants to read a Middle English book with some weird language and a story that is not relatable to people of today? Well then, how come I keep seeing parallels between Beowulf and Thor? Even Grendel reminds me of Loki. Some of you might not see any correlation between the two, so allow me to show you what I see.

In lines 106 to 108, Grendel is compared to Cain from the book of Genesis in the bible. For those who don't know, Cain killed his brother, Abel, in order to be the favorite son. Loki basically does this by sending a giant robot, that shoots a fire-laser out of its face, to kill Thor so that he can become king of Asgard.

Not too different from Grendel, who is a descendant of Cain. In lines 136-137, Grendel “mourned not at all/for his feuds and sins.” Loki killed a lot of people in the first Avengers movie, heck he even gouges out someone's eye.

All Grendel and Loki wanted was to rule over the people using fear; “one against all (145).”

 One last point, Loki is a frost giant and Grendel is a giant; therefore, Grendel = Loki.

Beowulf is totally Thor. Line 418, Beowulf says that he is known for his “might of…strength.” Plus he says that he has fought a “tribe of giants,” another thing Thor has done before. In lines 431-432, Beowulf says,“ I might alone, o my own band of earls/and this hardy troop,” will defeat Grendel. Could Beowulf’s band of earls and hardy troop be similar to Thor’s Lady Sif and the Warriors Three?

 
That's what it looks like to me. In line 670, Beowulf is describe as “the Maker’s favor,” in other words, he is blessed by God. Something that many people don’t know about Thor is that his hammer, Mjöllnir, was not only a weapon, but was used to bless marriages, births, and funerals. http://norse-mythology.org/symbols/thors-hammer/ So in this case, Thor is the one giving the blessings. Lastly, in lines 818-819, “Beowulf was given/glory in battle.” I wonder who else has glory in battle? You guessed it; Thor.

 
You may disagree with me, but I’m pretty sure Beowulf and Thor are practically the same person. Fight me if you want to but the similarities are there.