'One of the best short stories in English.' Discuss Chaucer's narrative skills as shown in the Pardoner's Tale in light of this comment.

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Aymen Mahmoud JA4                English Literature/MP

English Literature Essay

‘One of the best short stories in English.’ Discuss Chaucer’s narrative skills as shown in the Pardoner’s Tale in light of this comment.

The Pardoner's Tale is a direct extension of the personality of the narrator, an overtly moralistic tale that serves primarily to elicit a specific response. It is a particularly shameless tale, a condemnation of avarice that stems from the avarice of its narrator; by condemning the sin, the Pardoner hopes to motivate the travelers to pay the Pardoner to absolve their sins. The character of the Pardoner is omnipresent throughout the tale, which is told in an intimidating oratorical style that intends to create a sense of horror at the consequences for sinful action. Throughout the tale the narrator drifts in and out from the story, as the Pardoner occasionally leaves the plot of the tale to launch into sermons against sin. Finally, at the conclusion of the tale, he reveals the rationale for this authorial intervention, preaching against avarice for the sole intention of selling phony relics to the travelers. The tale is thus less of a fully formed narrative than a performance given by the Pardoner in which he never submerges his presence in the story.

The importance of the narrator is reflected in the relative unimportance of the characters in the story. The three rioters are anonymous hoodlums to whom the narrator gives no distinctive characteristics. The one distinction that the Pardoner makes among the three is that the rioter who is sent for food and drink is younger than the other two. Their characteristics are uniformly negative, but relatively broad  they are avaricious, but also drunkards and murderers, which gives the Pardoner opportunity to condemn a vast array of sins.

In the General Prologue, the Pardoner was portrayed as a very strange creature indeed, with physical features suggesting that he is some kind of eunuch and with a faint suggestion of sexual deviancy. None of that plays any role in the Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, which are entirely centered on the Pardoner's professional activities.

At the start of his self-presentation in the Prologue, the Pardoner tells us that he preaches in churches and that he always preaches the same sermon, which he knows by heart, on the text "Greed is the root of evils". He begins by establishing his legal rights, for Pardoners were unpopular with parish priests, as Friars were, since they took money which otherwise might have gone to them.

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He begins by advertising a private sideline having nothing to do with his work as Pardoner. He has a collection of 'sacred relics,' bones and rags for which he claims supernatural powers, able to cure sick animals, increase wealth, and make husbands trust unfaithful wives. These desirable effects are all available for a small fee, and he uses a familiar trick to encourage the unwilling to come forward by insisting that those guilty of sin, especially unfaithful wives, must stay in their places and not offer him money. As a result, he expects, no one will dare to hold back. ...

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