Irony Used In The Pardon's Tale
Irony is an implied discrepency between what is said and what is meant. Geofry Chaucer used irony in nearly every aspect of his tale, "The Pardon's Tale", in The Canturbery Tales. The main reason irony was so prevalent in his story was to bring light to the cruption in the church during the middle ages.
The Pardoner was a church official who exchanged relics, that were believed to grant forgiveness, for money. He was exspected to donate the money gained from the relics to charity. Like many in this time, the pardoner kept the money for himself.
The tale told by the Pardoner was suspost to give the moral that "money is the root of all evil." Ironicly, the pardoner used all the money gained illigally from the relics to fund his own vices. Chaucer shows that even the highest up church officials can preach about all the evil in money, but hypocritically cheat the people they are preaching to out of thier own money.
The Pardoner's story tells of three rioters who, after the funeral of thier frient, set out to find "death." They meet an old man who tells them that death is under a tree. When they look under the tree, they find treasure. They decided that they can not move the treasure during the day light, and send one of the rioters to town to get food. The rioters who stay decide that they will kill the third rioter, so they only have to split the money two ways. While the third rioter is in town, he stops by the poison shop to drug the wine of the other two rioters. He also doesn't want to split the money with the other rioters. When he gets back to the tree, the other rioters kill him. After wards, the two rioters drink the poisoned wine. Ironicly they found "death" under the tree.
Chaucer did a great job of using satire to bring awareness to the cruption of the church durning the middle ages. He used irony very well to bring the moral of "money is the root of all evil."
View Full Essay