One of the Canterbury Tales which refers to the question of morality is “The Pardoner” as the Chasseur highlights such human evils as greediness, hypocrisy and corruption. The story shows that the Pardoner is as corrupt as other representatives of his profession and, moreover, his hypocrisy combined with frankness impresses greatly as well. On the one hand, he frankly tells about his frauds, gluttony and avarice, and it is possible to think that he sacrifices spiritual good in order to cure the sins of other people, though, on the other hand, he surely likes money as it brings comfort to him. The Pardoners defines himself as totally amoral and selfish person: “But that is nat my principal entente; I preche nothing but for coveitise”.
(432-433)Actually, the Pardoner does emphasize the role of morality in professional sphere and stresses that greediness is the root of evil in society. The Pardoner illustrates the disastrous effects of amorality and greediness. The hypocrisy is one more moral point in the tale with all its sub-tones: swearing, gambling, gluttony, and drunkenness: “Now, for the love of Crist, that for us dyde … now wol I telle forth my tale”. (658-659) I think that Pardoner’s character is fully consistent with his fraud and hypocritical actions. This tale is the example of typical wry comedy.
It is necessary to outline that the Pardoner seems not to be aware of the hypocrisy he displays. The Pardoner acts like a professional actor. For example, in Prologue he exposes to his company that the current operation is a complete fraud and he seems to enjoy telling the audience his personal story and explaining his corrupt essence. Moreover, he feels pleased when showing the readers his routine work, as an actor might enjoy showing people backstage. Summing up, the whole story is a source of rancor because the Pardoner is willing to sell pardons to the pilgrims.
When trying to swindle others the Pardoner managed to violate the notion of fellowship which is the core value of pilgrimage.
