2. The Pardoner’s GP Portrait
Line 671
What does a Pardoner do?
Gelding or Mare?

4. The Pardoner’s Prologue
Hypocrisy and Deceit
Line 41 ff
Eating and drinking as he lectures on drunkenness and gluttony (line 34)

5. The Pardoner’s Prologue
Confessional like the Wife’s
Hypocrisy and Deceit
“Relics” (line 59)

6. The Pardoner’s Prologue
Hypocrisy and Deceit
Relics and blackmail l. 89 ff.

7. The Pardoner’s Tale
Form of the tale
Sermon
Exemplum

8. The Pardoner’s Tale The Black Death
Reaches England in 1348 and kills up to 30,000 of London’s 70,000 inhabitants as well as up to 1/3 of total English population
Plague reference is Chaucer’s addition to this widely transmitted tale

10. The Black Death

11. The Black Death

12. The Three Rioters They hear a bell announcing a death l. 376
They understand death literally
(Paul: the letter vs. the spirit 2 Cor 3:6)

13. Parodic Inversions in the Tale
How to learn to correctly read and interpret the world as a Christian
Tavern/Church
Oak Tree/Cross
Earthly Treasure/Heavenly Reward
Christ’s blood/wine
False Communion

14. The Pardoner’s Ambiguities
The Pardoner also clearly suffers from a type of “blindness”
His physical ambiguities mirror his moral ambiguities
Chaucer creates a correlation between his moral and physical state

15. The Pardoner’s Ambiguities
Why does the Pardoner try to “con” the pilgrims?
“Epilogue” Line 631 ff
Why does the Host react so violently?