Amber Saunders

G. Coleman

English IV

November 09, 2001

Analysis

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales. In one of the many tales, "The Pardoner's Tale," Chaucer used element such as characters, moral, and symbolism to link the story together. Which created a very excellent literary work.

The main characters of the story were the three rioters. They were shown as lazy drunks because they sat in the taverns and drank all day. Greed captured the lives of these men. It evan. went so far as to killing them. They had pledged their life to one another and were set out to kill death. "They made their bargain, swore with appetite, These three, to live and die for one another As brother-born might swear to his born brother. And up they started their drunken rage . . . 'If we can only catch him, death is dead!'" The three rioters are anonymous and the narrator gives no distinctive characteristics which gives the Pardoner opportunity to condemn a vast arrangement of sins. Death was shown as character with human qualities. The old man that points the rioters in the direction tells the rioters that he wishes to die, he claims that he walks on the ground, his 'mother's gate,' and asks to return to earth in the form of a decayed corpse. However, for the old man this is only his second choice. He would rather change bodies with a young man, but he could not find anyone willing.
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The moral of the story is "Greed is the root of all evil." The moral is shown in the story first when the three rioters are being greedy toward death because they are trying to escape death. It is shown last when the rioters plot to kill each other and end up killing themselves.

The tale displays symbolism very well. The old man is shown as a messenger from death. The gold is represented as death because of the greed that comes from it. The plot of the tale derives from the rioters' interpretation of euphemism since ...

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