Sin, Guilt and Shame in The Pardoners Tale Essay -- The Canterbury Ta

Geoffrey Chaucers The excusers Tale, a relatively straightforward satirical and anti-capitalist view of the church, contrasts motifs of sin with the salvational properties of religion to draw out the complex self-loathing of the thinned Pardoner. In particular, Chaucer concentrates on the Pardoners references to the evils of alcohol, gambling, blasphemy, and money, which aim not only to condemn his listeners and undo their purses, but to elicit their wrath and expose his eunuchism. Chaucers depiction of the Pardoner in The General Prologue is unsparing in its effeteness he has heer as yelow as rear/ But smoothe it heeng as dooth a pommel of flex/ By ounces heenge his lokkes that he hadde...But thinne it lay, by colpons, oon by oon (677-681). The pale, lanky qualities of his hair relate to his androgynous makeup, and the repetition of heeng ironically foreshadows his castration. Further hints of the Pardoners being a eunuch, such as A vois he hadde as smal as hath a goot/ No beerd hadde he, ne never shold have, are interspersed between description of his feined flaterye and japes that accompany his selling of false relics (707). The premiss can be drawn that the Pardoners status as a macrocosm is also one of feined flaterye and japes, that he relies on words to compensate for what he considers a body as fraudulent as his relics. In this sense, the relics set about a substitute for the Pardoners loss of masculinity, yet also a symbol of his incompleteness. The Pardoners need to flaunt them corresponds with his desire to boast of his hypocrisy, a preemptive, self-deprecating strike that ensures future resentment from his audience Thus can I preche once again that same vice/ Which th... ... I wol thee helpe hem carye./ They shal be shrined in an hogges tord (664-7). The Pardoner is speechless, and his repressed motive to expose the direct connection between his relics and his testicles is lastly made by someone else. After the knight restores tranquillity, it leads one to delight in whether the Pardoners underlying intent may have been to expiate his guilt and count his shame. Works Cited and Consulted Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales in The Riverside Chaucer. General Ed. Benson, Larry D. Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Pichaske, David R. Pardoners Tale. The Movement of the Canterbury Tales Chaucers literary Pilgrimage. late York Norwood Editions, 1977 Rossignol, Rosalyn. The Pardoners Tale. Chaucer A to Z The Essential Reference to His Life and Works. New York Facts On File, Inc., 1999