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

Geoffrey Chaucers The Pardoners Tale, a relatively straightforward satirical and anti-capitalist view of the church, contrasts motifs of sin with the salvational properties of morality to draw out the complex self-loathing of the emasculated 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 unbuckle their purses, but to elicit their wrath and check his eunuchism. Chaucers depiction of the Pardoner in The General Prologue is unsparing in its effeteness he has heer as yelow as wax/ But smoothe it heeng as dooth a strike of sour/ 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 h ath 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 premise can be drawn that the Pardoners status as a man 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 become a substitute for the Pardoners loss of masculinity, yet also a symbol of his incompleteness. The Pardoners need to exhibit 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 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 finally made by someone else. later the knight res tores tranquillity, it leads one to wonder whether the Pardoners underlying intent may have been to expiate his guilt and face his shame. Works Cited and Consulted Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales in The Riverside Chaucer. General Ed. Benson, Larry D. capital of Massachusetts Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Pichaske, David R. Pardoners Tale. The Movement of the Canterbury Tales Chaucers Literary Pilgrimage. New 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