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

Chaucers View of the forgiver 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 nigh devotion at the time. Chaucers view of the Pardoneras a character, and as well 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 someone who is ironically deceptive anddriven by his own egoistic motives.A key theme that runs by means ofout the Pardoners Prologue is religion,and as the Pardoners proper role is to act as an intermediary betweenthose who wish to repent and God himself, it is appropriate thatChaucer uses a prominent deal of religious lexis. There are many examplesof this all through the text, such as when he mentions that thePardoner carries Bulles of popes and cardinals or officialdocuments sign(a) by popes and cardinals . The plural use of the wordpopes reveals a lot about the Pardoner in that it immediately showshis disregard and contempt for the clergy. Religiously, there is andmeant to be one Pope and pluralizing the word devalues the pro-noun toa simple noun. The lack of determiners nevertheless 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 dissent and be of the opinion that the Pope is thehighest religious authority, but the Pardoner brings him great deal 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 lug it as he givescontinuous reminders throughout the text.Chaucer is not always so subtle in his presentation of the Pardoner.Near the end of the prologue, the Pardoner boldly asserts that thoughmyself be a full vici ous man, A clean tale yet I you distinguishe kan. Thepardoner describes himself as we have aready been do 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, two-faced and vicious but he also has no regretor remorse for his actions and attitudes, hence he is unlikely tochange. It is ironic that the Pardoner admits to this indicationof 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.