The Pardoner In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

The Pardoner is perhaps one of the most complex characters in The Canterbury Tales because of the tricks and games he plays with the other pilgrims. The tale he tells about the three greedy men is a moral story in order to have his audience, the other pilgrims, feel guilty about their own sins, repent, and then, in turn, give him money. The Pardoner is only concerned with making a profit. He even says this in his prologue that all his sermons are about money being the root of all evil because he is a greedy man. Therefore, in the middle of telling his tale, the Pardoner interrupts with a sermon about gluttony, sin, and greed because he is playing the very trick he explained to the pilgrims he himself plays on his visitors. The purpose of the sermon material in the Pardoner’s tale is part of Pardoner’s grand scheme to make the pilgrims feel guilty, repent, and to have them give him money so they can be cleansed of their sins.
In the General Prologue of the Pardoner’s tale, he explicitly tells the other pilgrims how he draws money out of people to pardon them and how he is a con man and is only a Pardoner to make a profit. The Pardoner says, “Is al my preching, for to make hem free / To yiven hir pens, and namely unto me, / For myn entente is nay but for to winne” (113-115). This confirms
The tale gets increasingly ironic because the Pardoner interrupts his story to preach which he has already admitted is a key part of his con. After introducing his tale of the three men who delighted in sin, the Pardoner starts off on the seemingly tangential sermon. This sermon includes various examples of people, such as Biblical characters, philosophers, and emperors who indulged in sin. At one point, he