Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Pardoner's Tale," a relatively simple satirical and anti-capitalist view of the Church, contrasts the motives of sin with the saving properties of religion to bring out the complex self-loathing of the emasculated Pardoner. In particular, Chaucer focuses on the Pardoner's references to the evils of drinking, gambling, blasphemy, and money, which are intended not only to condemn his listeners and unbuckle their purses, but also to arouse their angry and to denounce his eunuchism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Chaucer's depiction of the Pardoner in "The General Prologue" is unsparing in its efficiency; he has "it is as yellow as wax/ But flattens it as a bending stroke does/ By ounces it strengthens the lokkes it had... But thins it, by columns, from time to time" ( 677-681). The pale, lanky qualities of her hair are linked to her androgynous makeup, and the repetition of “heeng” ironically foreshadows her castration. Other allusions to the Pardoner being a eunuch, such as "A see he hadde as smal as smal as hash a goot/No beerd hadde he, ne never shold have", are interspersed between the description of his "flateries and feigned jokes" which accompany its sale. false relics (707). Presumably the status of the Man of Forgiveness is also one of "flattery and feigned jokes", 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 Pardoner's loss of masculinity, but also a symbol of his incompleteness. The Pardoner's need to flaunt them fits his desire to boast about his hypocrisy, a preemptive, self-deprecating strike that ensures future resentment from his audience: "So may I preach again this same vice/that I use , and which is avarice. ./ But although I am guilty of this sin,/ Can I match other people/ Out of greed, and it hurts me to repent/ But this is not my main agreement/ I ask nothing of other than lust" (139-45). The duality of his relics becomes symmetrical at the end of his story, but not before he speaks of the oppositions of religion and sin which directly criticize his audience and, unconsciously, his own hypocrisy. The Pardoner systematically evokes the redemption of Christ and God throughout his story. He polarizes original sin and Christ: “O glotony, full of curse!/O first cause of our confusion!/ O original of our dampness,/ Until Christ has brought us back with his blood (210-3) He moves on to gluttony, and his nuanced technique of subconscious criticism becomes more apparent: “'They have been the enemies! of Cristes believe,/ Whose end is death, the womb is its god!/ O womb, oh womb, O stinking cod,/ Filled with dong and corrupcioun!'” (244-7) His story unfolds. while the pilgrims (and the Pardoner) drink at an inn, and his further attacks on alcohol reveal his blatant hypocritical values: “A lustful thing is victory, and drunkenness / Is full of effort and misery. / O drunken man, your face is disfigured! / Your breath is sour, you are filthy to kiss!” (261-3) The Pardoner's moralizing statement condemns himself more than his audience, because he is the "drone man" of the group; he is the lecherous drunkard who will “drink the liquor of the vine/and have a merry daughter in every town” (164-5). Thus, the exclamations: “O drunken man, your face is disfigured!… it is filthy to be kissed!” can be interpreted as an act of self-flagellation rather than a moralizing act. The deeper examination of sin by theForgiveness reveals other attempts to break down the walls of one's self-esteem. He associates the game with blasphemy, and this foreshadows his epilogue. He pronounces the dangers of gambling for reputation: "Now, do I forbid chancerye to you:/ Chance is a moder of monkeys,/ And of deception and accursed pardons,/ Blasphemies of Crist, involuntary homicide... / It is reprehensible and contrary to honor/ For having been held a common hazard,/ And the more status he has/ The more he is held desolate” (301-305, 307-10). When he gives his trickster speech to However, at the end of the story, he warns the pilgrims that chance can harm them during the journey, and his relics are transformed into gambling tools: "For the adventures that might happen : / Paraventure may drop in a day or two. / Get off his horse and break his nekke in two / Look what is your guarantor for all of you / That I am in your felaweshipe yfalle" (646-50). Even the story of King Demetrius and the King of Parthia reminds the Forgiver of his castration, because it links the sin of gambling to the loss of his virility as perceived by others: "The king of Parthia.../ Feels [Demetrius] a pair of golden dees in contempt,/ For he had used therbiforn chance,/ For which he held his glory or fame/ Without value or reputation” (335-8). This spurs him into his attack on desecration, which he plays as a player: "'By the arms of God, if thou play falsely/This dagger must go all through thy herte!'/This fruit comes from the two hind bones" (366-8). The coupling of an appendix with an accusation of fraud once again recalls the image of castration and provides further proof of the conscious and deploring hypocrisy of the Pardoner before even before he begins the narrative part of his story, the description of the three "riotoures" borrows heavily from the previous lists of sins in the Pardon and points the finger at the pilgrims "in a tavern to drink" when they learn. news of their murdered friend who was also “[F]ordronke while he sat upright on his bench” forces the other travelers to consider their similarities to the fictional anti-heroes (375, 386). of the rioters decides to meet Death, he exclaims: "Ye, Goddes weapons", which takes up verbatim the role-playing example of the Pardoner. Clearly, they exhibit all of the worst sins he talked about, and the Pardoner works to expose the root of their problems: money. From this point in the story, “gold” is mentioned six times. Instead of finding death, they encounter gold under an Edenic tree, and the allusion to original sin crystallizes. Immediately, selfishness enters the minds of the rioters, as evidenced by the "worst of them" who "said the first word", thus linking false words to sin in the spirit of Forgiveness: "But this could gold be carried from this place/Hoom to my house or them to yours/For you know that all this gold is ours” (488, 496-8). The pile of gold is itself gluttonous, as one rioter suggests: “And here is gold, and this ful greet plente” (523). The plan of the two rioters to kill the third, which will ensure that they can “play things to [their] own will,” involves “making him pass through both sides” (546, 536). This image of deception resembles that of castration, and the Pardoner's self-condemnation reaches its subtextual conclusion: he is as guilty of avarice as the alter egos he has created. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper now from our expert writers.Get a Custom EssayThe Pardoner ends his tale by confiding to the pilgrims what he usually tells his audience: that Christ alone "is our leeching souls" and that they.