Reading Notes: Canterbury Tales Part A

After reading Part A of the collection of stories known as the "Canterbury Tales," I grew to like the Pardoner's Tale the most. In olden times the person with the title of "pardoner" was a part of the church who would go around the countryside and sell pardons that would forgive the sins of the buyer. These pardons were signed by the bishop himself. In my opinion these pardons sound like they were fake and only were sold to make money for the church or even for the individual themselves. The pardoner in this tales starts off by mentioning a group of three troublesome and rebellious boys. All they cared about was drinking and having fun with no care whatsoever in the world. They did give back to their society or care about anyone in it. One day the group of boys eavesdrop into a conversation about Death and how he keeps killing the people of their village. The tavern keeper also drops the fact that Death lives in the village next door. This makes Death an actual figure and not a figure of speech. Much like my project where Death is personified and is a person, it seems like the same is being done in this tale as well. The group of kids come to the decision that they will take on the task and vanquish Death himself. On their journey to the next village they stumbled upon an elderly man, but knowing the arrogance of the kids they start to make fun of him. Now for some reason the thought that the man might be a spy for Death came across them and they started to intimidate the old man. They demanded to know where Death was. The old man tells them that the path ahead leads straight to Death. The group of men stumbled upon a pile of gold along the road. One of them is sent into the village to get food for the rest while they wait on the gold. They didn't want to be seen taking the gold, so they waited until nightfall. While they were all separated they all plotted in their heads to kill one another and take each others portions of gold. In the end they all end up dead which indicates that Death was their endgame. The ending of this tale had a very nice twist. I thought they would actually find the figure of Death, but instead found it amongst themselves.

Canterbury Tales by Eva March Tappan, link to online reading

(A Pardoner, Source: Alamy)