Chaucers View of the Pardoner as a Character Essay -- Geoffrey Chauce

Chaucers View of the Pardoner as a CharacterIn the Pardoners Tale, Chaucer presents the Pardoner in a particularlight, and being a religious figure, this allows him to make a generalstatement about pietism at the time. Chaucers view of the Pardoneras a character, and also as something to epitomise religion at thetime, is evident from his use of vocabulary, his style, and by usingstrong imagery and description. In this way, Chaucer builds thecharacter of the Pardoner as somebody who is ironically deceptive anddriven by his own selfish motives.A key theme that runs throughout the Pardoners Prologue is religion,and as the Pardoners proper role is to act as an intercessor betweenthose who wish to repent and God himself, it is appropriate thatChaucer uses a great deal of religious lexis. thither are many examplesof this all through the text, such as when he mentions that thePardoner carries Bulles of popes and cardinals or officialdocuments signed by popes and cardinals. The plural use of the backchatpopes reveals a lot about the Pardoner in that it immediately showshis disregard and contempt for the clergy. Religiously, there is onlymeant to be one Pope and pluralizing the word devalues the pro-noun toa simple noun. The lack of determiners only further degrades the Popeas it shows no differentiation in these religious figures and others.They are simply the same and en masse, whereas, believers of thereligion would disagree and be of the opinion that the Pope is thehighest religious authority, but the Pardoner brings him down to basiclevels and standards.Another example of lexis related to religion is when the Pardoner saysI stonde lyk a clerk in my pulpet. This simile un... ...oner and Chaucer does not let his readers forget it as he givescontinuous reminders throughout the text.Chaucer is not always so knowing in his presentation of the Pardoner.Near the end of the prologue, the Pardoner boldly asserts that thoughmyself be a full vicious man, A moral tale e ven so I you telle kan. Thepardoner describes himself as we have aready been made to see him byChaucers other techniques and here he admits it shamelessly, whichonly adds to the readers negative impression of him, in that he isnot only deceptive, deceitful and vicious but he also has no regretor remorse for his actions and attitudes, hence he is supposed(prenominal) tochange. It is ironic that the Pardoner admits to this characteristicof his and then claims that he will still be able to tell a moraltale, although his admittance also shows that he is aware of thisirony.