The Pardoner's Tale

           In the story, The Pardoner’s Tale, Chaucer demonstrates irony throughout the whole story. The Pardoner is not the best character. He definitely has certain flaws about him. He gained his money from selling pardons to the upper class people. In other terms, He told people that it was okay that they sinned and in his own way “saved” them. That, in the church’s eyes, was morally wrong. He preached to the people about how it was wrong to drink, yet, he drank himself. He preached about how wrong it was to steal, yet, at the end of the story he stole money from two other men and killed them. 

         The Pardoner preached about how wrong it was to drink alcohol and gamble. All of the people who listened to his sermons did not know the real Parson, considering the fact that he drank and gambled himself. It is hard to call him a hypocrite. His deals, for example, giving the upper class pardons for their sins, were very underhanded and secret. He was religious for all of the wrong reasons. He felt if he did not show people that he was religious then he would not be able to sell the pardons to the upper class. His main reason for being religious is for the money. 

         In the story The Pardoner’s Tale, there was a scene that strikes the readers attention. Three rioters were sitting, drunk, at the bar. One of there other friends were killed. The three men set out on a hunt to “defeat death”. They stumble across an old man who claims to have left “death underneath a tree. The men find, under the tree, gold florins. They try and think about how they will get the money back home. The youngest gets chosen to go into town and get supplies. Meanwhile, The other two rioters are sitting and plotting a way to kill the youngest to get more money. What they did not know, the youngest rioter who was in town buying poison and wine, was actually plotting on killing the other two rioters. When the youngest gets back from the town, he is killed by the two rioters. As they sit and drink the poisoned wine, they were killed instantly. There was more than one irony to this part of the story. The first bit of irony was the fact they were plotting on killing each other for the money, yet, none of the rioters even lived. The second bit of irony was how the old man said he “left death under the tree” and all three greedy rioters died. The rioters completely did not listen to the old man’s words.

         The over all irony of The Pardoner’s Tale is how the Pardoner worked for the church and preached about how wrong it is to sin. He gave pardons to the upper class people who sinned and it “saved” them. He basically went against the churches morals and told people “It is okay to sin because I will just give you a pardon.” He made his money that way. The Pardoner was religious for all of the wrong reasons. He was in it just for the money. It seemed as if people payed him so they could sin. At that point the church was corrupted. 

        In conclusion, The Pardoner’s Tale showed many different points of irony. The story mainly demonstrated the Pardoner’s way of preaching about something and then turning around and doing it him self to gain more money for himself.