Analysis of the Pardoner s Tale
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In Geoffrey Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale, the teller is the Pardoner. The Pardoner was a preacher who went place to place giving sermons and raising money. Pardoners had the job, criticized even within the church, of exchanging indulgences for cash. The indulgences were gifts given to sinners; freeing them from a period of Purgatory. However, the Pardoner turned the structure of repentance into a profit center (p. 314).
On a typical day the Pardoner would stand before his audience and deliver a sermon; once he was done, he would put his relics (l. 630) and offer them for sale, telling the people that anyone in the audience who had committed an unforgivable sin would be unable to buy a relic from him. In order to prove themselves "sin-free" to their friends and family, the people would run forward to buy his relics.
Thus, he increased his sales and the money went directly in his pocket...