As The Pardoner's Tale Analysis

Chaucer’s Critique of Medieval Society
As The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer progresses, the tales often critique one's sexual past while judging how they act through the tales, along with their gender. As karma and greed also have an extremely strong presence in the “Reeve’s and Pardoner’s tales” they both value money over the people that are important in their lives. The Wife of Bath critiques every aspect of male superiority as she is an extremely enthusiastic "feminist", that defends her side through finding the numerous amount of flaws in others arguments. This not only creates bad opposing arguments, but also helps her build a stronger argument. Her argument consists of why females should not be valued based on how many guys they
have been married to, but rather her relationship with each and her personality. The “Pardoner's tale” takes a different perspective and it rips apart the ignorance and stupidity of people as greed fill them. As Chaucer describes the “Pardoner’s tale”, he fails to defend the ignorant men as they joyfully, with no regret, are willing to end each others lives over a gain to their socioeconomic status. The Pardoner’s tale identify the males ignorance and selfishness in the story, as the one male who goes into the town mentions "to kill the both and never to repent" (530.). Even after ruthlessly killing someone, they did not believe something would happen to them. As each member of the pilgrimage is troubled by stereotypes, they have become defensive of themselves, and Chaucer is not around to help the reader understand the true depth and meaning of each tale. However, a strong take away from the tales tend to make women's authority and rights a concern while also offending the men of medieval society. As Rachel Thanassoulis states,”The Wife spends the first 233 lines of her prologue tackling some of the biblical arguments--mainly stated by St. Paul--that were used to promote virginity and condemn marriage”.
As the Wife of Bath continues to disprove the ideals of male superiority, the “Reeve and Pardoner’s tale” support her beliefs, showing the ignorance and stupidity of the male gender because they let greed and envy make their decisions for them.
While the Pardoner’s tale progresses, many may identify the transition from the three men’s original objective, as it heads towards a race for money. As Death acts, he does not directly injure anybody, but he rather leads his victims towards their individual weakness, and allows them to fall into a trap that he has set for them. The group of men in the Pardoner’s tale is easily discovered because of their sudden change in direction towards the gold under the tree of which Death has lead them to. Their rowdiness and crave for gold becomes apparent as the text describes them as “three young rioters” (446) as they “run, and reached the reached the tree, and where they found / a pile of golden florins on the ground” (447-448). The men change drastically from the beginning to end of the tale, not only in physical way, but also mentally, suggested by their ability to simply murder their friend for their own benefit. This tale helps support the Wife of Bath’s argument of female justice in her society because the tale clearly showcases the stupidity of men. Along with the selfishness and greed sketched out by the three men in the “Pardoner’s tale”, the “Reeve’s tale” also portrays women as objects and creates a faux identity of a sexual, inanimate toy for men to use as they wish. Alan and John use the Miller’s wife and daughter as a piece of a plan in order to get revenge for their injustice that was inflicted upon them by the Miller. This helps support the Wife of Bath’s fight for equality and justice of women as they commonly suffer things such as rape and abuse because they are not viewed as equal to men to the men’s
eye.
The Wife of Bath has shown how females can do an equal, if not greater, amount of good to this world if put in a position of power. The Wife of Bath fights for female equality in medieval society because she has noticed throughout her five marriages, that after each marriage she is valued as less and less to men because she is viewed as easy to get. She notices her depreciation in value in the eyes of men, and does not accept nor agree with it. Her strong arguments consist of the physical and intellectual similarities, describing how each human body is created with just as much strength as the other, but the two genders are just built with different reproductive parts. However, she believes that these parts do not create any inabilities towards women but rather, she believes that “they were fashioned at creation / Both to purge urine and for propagation” (785-786). Chaucer clearly approves of the Wife of Bath’s argument as he publishes each line with such emphasis towards the equality of women. This specific line states that both men and women are treated the same throughout creation, having been given the same exact body. This same exact body only differentiates as they are made to aid in distinguishing between the two. Chaucer even includes another argument from the “Wife of Bath’s tale”, which helps support her argument and previous statement as the text says “Tell me to what conclusion or in aid / Of what were generative organs made? / And for what profit were those creatures wrought? / Trust me, they cannot have been made for naught. / Gloze as you will and plead the explanation / That they were only made for the purgation/ Of urine, little things of no avail / Except to know a female from a male, / and nothing else” (767-775). This textual evidence helps support the Wife of Bath’s arguments as it clearly states the only physical differences between a man and woman are their reproductive organs, that “were only made for the purgation” (772).
As women are criticized and judged more than males, Chaucer discusses how no one should be valued on how many people they have slept with, but rather on their true selves and the quality of the previous relationships. The Wife of Bath is commonly looked down upon as she has been married five times, which lowers her worth relative to the other women in the community. The Wife of Bath also views herself as a backup to other men as she states “No sooner than one husband’s dead and gone / some other Christian man shall take me on” (697-698). The Wife of Bath believes men treat women like objects, and that they think they can come and go as they please because most men believe women do not have voices of their own. They do not respect her feelings, and therefore feel obliged to treat her as they will since she is viewed down upon in society, even though she is extremely wealthy and wears the finest clothes.
Throughout The Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath has transformed the ignorance of others tale’s to compile a very strong argument fighting for the social justice and equality of all women. The “Reeve’s Tale” and the “Pardoner’s tale” both help formulate her argument as well, as they give clear, specific examples of how men do not care about what they have done, as long as they profit from it in some way, shape, or form.