Why Is The Pardoner In Canterbury Tales So Corrupt?

2025-09-05 10:28:38 90

4 Answers

Gracie
Gracie
2025-09-06 00:38:18
Viscerally, the Pardoner feels corrupt because he monetizes salvation. He’s not some naïf who misinterprets doctrine—he’s a cunning performer who preys on fear and hope. When I read his prologue I’m struck by the clinical way he outlines his scams: claim authenticity for a relic, stage a tearful sermon, collect money. It’s almost scientific.

What clinches it is his frankness; he admits the scam and still goes on. That makes him more loathsome than a hypocrite who believes what they preach—because he clearly doesn’t. I end up feeling a little cold toward him, and oddly grateful that Chaucer lets readers see behind the curtain.
Charlotte
Charlotte
2025-09-06 22:07:40
Sometimes I think about the Pardoner as a product of his time and as a timeless character sketch. On one level, medieval church structures allowed and even encouraged middlemen: people who brokered indulgences and relics and used spiritual language to secure material support. The Pardoner exploits that niche, but he also amplifies it into personal vice—he uses storytelling, tears, and theatrical relics to create demand.

At the same time, Chaucer gives him a kind of self-aware cruelty. He boasts that he preaches against avarice because it works on gullible crowds—he knows the mechanism. That meta-commentary is important: the Pardoner’s corruption is not accidental; it’s intentional performance. It forces readers to ask who’s responsible—the individual who cheats or the institution that makes cheating profitable. I often bring this up when I talk about modern analogues: charismatic figures selling quick moral fixes, or institutions that blend commerce and conscience. The Pardoner, for me, remains an unsettlingly modern figure, and that’s why his corruption still nags at me.
Mitchell
Mitchell
2025-09-10 06:42:39
I’ll be blunt: the Pardoner’s corruption boils down to motive and method. Motive—he’s driven by profit, status, maybe the thrill of outwitting the faithful. Method—he packages religious sentiment into commodities: fake relics, emotional sermons, and the promise of salvation for a price. He’s not merely greedy; he’s an expert salesman who weaponizes faith.

What fascinates me is the theatrical element. He deliberately performs a kind of holy vulnerability to manipulate listeners, then profits from their guilt and awe. Chaucer isn’t just ridiculing one crooked cleric; he’s exposing a social phenomenon where spiritual authority gets tangled with commerce. From my point of view, the Pardoner is a study in moral theater—someone who knows the rules and bends them to his advantage, and whose very confession becomes another layer of manipulation.
Cara
Cara
2025-09-10 18:54:19
Honestly, the Pardoner in 'The Canterbury Tales' reads like a little morality play about hypocrisy and the human habit of turning belief into business. When I picture him, I don’t just see a corrupt individual; I see someone shaped by a system where relics, indulgences, and theatrical sermons could be monetized. He’s learned the craft of persuasion—slick language, staged piety, and a knack for making people feel small enough to buy comfort. That’s the engine of his corruption: rhetorical skill plus economic incentive.

What’s deliciously blunt about Chaucer is how the Pardoner confesses his own fraud. In the prologue he admits he preaches against greed while actually exploiting it, and that self-awareness makes him more sinister. He’s not deluded; he’s calculating. That confession turns him into a mirror for others—showing that corruption isn’t only about failing moral standards, it’s about choosing profit over principle. I always come away from 'The Pardoner’s Tale' feeling both amused and uneasy: amused at Chaucer’s bold satire, uneasy because the type of corruption he mocks still finds new forms today.
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