The Pardoners Tale
The Pardoner’s Tale1216 Literature Essay
Geoffrey Chaucers’ “The Pardoner’s Tale” is a good example of a creative work that uses an exemplum. The tale taught that good greed was the root of all evil, and betrayal was wrong. What really made this tale a great one was Chaucer’s use of symbolism to get his points across?
The story has three rioters that swear brotherhood in Christ to each other, making that the ideal unselfish relationship. Their mission is to find death, and make him stop killing people. So, these three “smart” men decide that it can’t be that much hard to find death. Well, they do catch up with an old man that represents death in the story, and the old man tells them that they will find what they are looking for under the oak tree. At the tree the men find a treasure chest full of money that could have had totaled up to eight bushels. “ What was that foolish old man thinking?” They must ask themselves, “ Here’s the good life, not death.” Ironically the treasure is what leads all three men to their deaths.
Greed is what eventually causes each man to betray his “brother in Christ”. For now they were no longer looking for Death. The plan was to draw straws, and the man that drew the longest straw would go into town to fetch food and wine, while the other two guards the treasure. The two that were left behind decide to kill the third man when he returns. All the while the third in town wanted the money all to himself. He got the food poisoned. Now when he returned a surprise he received, his “brothers” had just deceived him. Then as the two sit and enjoy their meal it is poisoned. They too die. Be careful of what you look for, you just might find it. That is a statement that can be said about the ending of the story. All three men in the beginning of the story were looking for death.
In the end they found it. Their greed led them right into death’s hands. Death didn’t have to lift a finger.