The Pardoner's Tail

The pardoner`s tale
This is a poem that revolves around the theme of greed against the poor and the failure of various institutions to abide by the teachings against jealousy. The author also admits having tricked most of the guilty sinners into buying some spurious relics and pays less attention to what happens to the people that he tricked. This poem is about three young men who spend most of their time celebrating. On the day of narration, them are involved in drunkenness and hear a funeral passing outside their drinking place. When they inquire who had passed on, they are told that it is their friend who had been stabbed by a thief called death. Therefore they decide to pursue the thief and on their way they meet an old man who tells them that he had been cursed to wander. The men got a bag of gold and decided to keep them for themselves since moving the gold at day time would be too dangerous. Therefore they decided to move it at night. The younger of the two men therefore decided to poison the food so that he could have everything for himself. However, he is stabbed while his tow accomplices are poisoned. When the poem began, it started with an address to the company explaining to them that when he preaches to the churches, his voice impressively booms like a bell. His main theme when preaching is that greed is always the root of all evils. In the play, the relationship between the tale and the narrators is very significant. The narrator tells the pilgrims of his own sins prior to the narration. The results of this preaching despite the rampant corruption in the setting of the sermons are good. He manages to capture the audience`s attention through careful choice of words. The narrator seems to be very open to his subjects and also offers confession. The pardoner generally is a good speaker. This is an attribute which is shown n the quality of the narratives that he makes. His intention is however woven inside the poem and it is not easy for a person to know his intentions at once. This piece was written during pre-reformation. This is a time when sacraments were still largely considered. His moral character is however, tainted and the reader can get the type of a person "pardoner" is as the narration progresses. Suggestive analogies have also been used in the throughout the poem to provide a perception of a man who has extreme spiritual poverty and extreme sexual poverty. The pardoner also admits having sold fake relics. The pardoner hypocritically preaches against greed. He admits extortion of the poor and the failure of the society to abide by his teachings on avarice and jealousy. Pardoner tricks the sinners into buying his relics. He however, doesn`t care about what happens to the people he tricks. Instead of selling the genuine relics, he carries bones belonging to pigs and not belonging to departed souls. The cross being carries appears to be studded with precious ...