Seven Deadly Sins In The Pardoner's Tale

The seven deadly sins that plague us remain eminent in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The Pardoner’s Tale and the Pardoner’s Prologue capture the essences of gluttony, avarice, and pride—all subjects he preaches against. These subjects depict the truth of the instinct and demeanor of humans. Truth has no gender and has various appealing characteristics, but when used as a suggestion of one’s self, most people view it as undesirable. He knows what he preaches and the effects that it has on uneducated people, but when it comes to applying the lessons to his life he nudges his teachings aside. An analysis of the Pardoner confirms him as the embodiment of the ‘ugly truth’ about people, using what means he can to con and lie his way to the pockets of the masses. As a church appointed Pardoner he has thrust upon him the responsibility to establish convincing examples for those who look to him for comfort and direction. Oddly enough he takes the ‘convincing’ part of the deal and runs with it. In his sermon he describes gluttony in detail, giving it the
Everyone else seemed at the beginning quite aware of the deception as well. Yet it seems as though the Pardoner forgets this fact for a second when at the end of his story he tries to sell them again. “One thing I should have mentioned in my tale / Dear people, I’ve some relics in my bale / If there be one among you that is willing / To have my absolution for a shilling” (291-296). The Pardoner figures that anyone who falls for his relics is a fool, and a fool and his money can part easily. With his pride the Pardoner uses his intellect and dialogue to attack a person so that they forget about his previous honesty and fall into his trap. He shares this with the pilgrims but they become distracted by his manipulations and his theme of ‘Radix malorum est