Chaucer's pardoner "Though told by a self-confessed liar and hypocrite, the tale has a powerful moral and imaginative effect." How far do you agree with this view of the text?

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Though told by a self-confessed liar and hypocrite, the tale has a powerful moral and imaginative effect.” How far do you agree with this view of the text?

Chaucer’s pardoner is an enigmatic, paradoxical figure, both intriguing yet repulsive. From the very beginning of his Prologue the Pardoner makes no attempts to hide his “ypocrise,” instead taking a perverse pleasure in the extent of his corruption. As seen in the portrait of the Monk in The General Prologue, Chaucer allows the Pardoner to condemn himself. He purposely reveals his methods of extracting money from” the povereste widwe in a village” his contempt for his usual audience of “lewed peple” and complete disregard for the doctrines of the Church. The Pardoner’s blatant hypocrisy is most evident in the theme of his sermons: “Radix malorum est Cupiditas.” The irony of this is fully evident when he later announces “I preche nothing but for coveitise.”

       During the Middle Ages pardoners were infamous for being “frauds, libertines and drunkards” (Charles Moseley). At first glance Chaucer’s Pardoner seems true to type, he is the one called upon for “som mirthe or japes,” the worst is immediately expected of him; we see the “gentils” beg “lat him telle us of no ribaudye.” However, Chaucer’s pardoner is more psychologically complex. The Pardoner is neither a preacher nor a priest yet he usurps these roles. Pardoners were notorious for abusing their positions, mutating the spiritual into the secular. Nevertheless, he is a magnificent orator, articulate and intelligent he is able to manipulate his audience, and what is even more sinister is he knows what kind of effect he can have on people:

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“For though myself be a ful vicious man,

A moral tale yet I yow telle kan.”

His tale has a more lasting, profound effect on his audience than that of the pious Parson, whose sermon only succeeds in boring the pilgrims, proving that talent does not always rely on faith in one’s material.

Of course, we have to bear in mind that while the pilgrims hear the Pardoner’s rhetorical skills we hear Chaucer’s skill as a poet. In his digression the Pardoner melodramatically denounces a number of sins, making extensive use of rhetorical devices such as hyperbole, anaphora and ...

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