A church member can confess his sins to a Pardoner, but to whom can a Pardoner confess his sins? The character of “the Pardoner” in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales uses one of his favorite sermons as his tale in their story telling contest. Although it does not fulfill the rules of “sentence” (moral) and “solas” (entertaining) very well, there is a deeper reason as to why he chooses this particular sermon to tell. The Pardoner uses his tale as a means of confession, and by this “confession,” he eases his guilty conscience. There are three moments in the Pardoners tale where he bares his soul and gives evidence of the guilt he feels because of his sins.
The first is evident when, before he even begins to tell his tale, he is already confessing all his sins and his dark secrets to his company. When he begins his prologue it seems as though he is just giving an explanation of the theme of his story, “Radiz malorum est Cupiditas” (PT, 21), avarice (the love of money) is the root of all evil. But right away he delves into details about his misgivings and all the trickery he uses with his parishioners. He starts his prologue by telling his companions of all the “relics… as wenen they echoon” (as the parishioners all suppose) (36) that he has in his possession to show people, telling them of how they can cure their sins and horrible afflictions. By getting people to believe in and to pay for these “relics” he obtains lots of money. “By this guade have I wonne, yeer by yeer, / an hundred mark sith I was Parodner” (76-77).
He shows his guilty conscience for the second time when he begins to resort to making up excuses for his actions although no one had challenged him. In his prologue he confesses his sin of greediness when he informs everyone that the only reason he preaches about the sin of avarice (or greed) is so that he can gleam money from all his parishioners as apposed to clearing them of their sins.
“Of averyce and of swich cursedness
Is al my preching, for to make hem free
To yeve her pens, and namely unto me;
For my entente is nat but for to winne,
And no thing for correccioun of sinne” (87-91).
After he makes this comment the audience sees, for the first time, the Pardoner making up excuses to relieve some of the guilt he feels. He tells his audience, although it is more for his benefit than theirs, that many a sermon proceeds from an evil intention, and not only out of evil intentions but for other Pardoners it may be an intent to flatter, to gain advancement, vanity or even out of hatred;
“For certes, many a predicacioun
Comth ofte tyme of yvel entencioun:
Som for plesaunce of folk and flaterye,
To been avaunced by ypocrisye
And som for veyne glorie, and some for hate” (94-98).
In this quote he is telling himself that he shouldn’t feel so bad because lots of other Pardoners have given sermons for reasons that were just as bad as his. He makes an excuse for himself again at the end of the prologue. He confesses to his company that the reason he gives this, and all his other sermons like it, is because he is guilty of being avarice himself; “Thus I can preche agayne that samw vyce / Which that I use, and that is avarice” (114-115). And directly after he admits his sin he, as if he is trying to make himself feel better, says that even though he is guilty of that sin he can still make other people cleansed of it; “But, though myself be guilty in that sinne, / Yet can I maken other folk to twinne / From avarice, and sore to repente” (116-118). His justification there is that even though he may continue to be guilty of this sin he makes up for it by purging others of their sin of avarice. These excuses he gives after admitting to his horrible actions show the inner turmoil he feels, as a result of his guilty feelings, rising to the surface and being communicated and therefore purged.
The third insight the Pardoner gives us into his guilty conscience shows up in his actual tale. There is a character in his tale of an old man who is all wrapped up except for his face. This old man gives both advice and location of where the three main characters can find what it is that they seek, ultimately leading to the main characters getting their penance for their sins of avarice. Arguably the old man character serves as a representation of the pardoner himself. They both offer advice to wayward and often lost people. The Pardoner especially deals with people suffering from the sins of avarice and, just as the old man did for the three men, the Pardoner gives them their due penance. There is a line in his prologue where he states that sometimes he includes one of his parishioners, who has committed whatever sin he is speaking of, in his sermon. And though he may not use that persons name, the rest of the parish knows who he is referring too; “For, though I telle nought his proper name, / Men shal wel knowe that it is the same / By signes and othere circumstances” (104-106). So if he uses this tactic in his sermon, why wouldn’t he then use it in his story? And since it is a story about his sin of choice he is the perfect person to use as an example in this particular sermon. The pardoner must be feeling very tormented if he chose to represent himself as an old miserable figure who is doomed to walk to earth like a “resteless caityf” (restless prisoner) (415). By this he is showing how he feels like a prisoner of his guilt for sin of avarice. The old man in the story says that he will forever be an old man because he can’t find anyone anywhere that would trade their youth for his age;
“For I ne can nat finde
A man, though that I walked into Inde,
Neither in citee nor in no village,
That wolde chaunge his youthe for myn age;
And therefore moot I han myb age stille,
As longe time as it is Goddes wille” (408-413).
This is symbolic of the fact that he feels no one else can take away this guilt that he feels inside. So the Pardoner is forced to carry it with him no matter where his travels might take him. The last line of the quote says he must carry it for as long as it is God’s will. This represents his feelings that this guilty conscience is God’s own punishment for his sins, and it is his burden to bear until God lifts it from him, if he ever does.
Since it seems that God has not decided to lift his burden as of yet, the Pardoner uses the tale telling forum as a way to alleviate some of his guilt. As he tells his prologue the audience can sense the Pardoner struggling with his feelings in an effort to try and both exorcize his daemons (namely his guilt) by confessing his evil doings to his comrades. By doing so he must feel the relief most of his parishioners feel when they are confessing and obtaining pardons from him. This serves to, although momentarily, clear his conscience of the guilt he carries around with him daily. It becomes apparent that the Pardoner is trying to quell his guilty feeling when he begins to make excuses immediately after admitting his character flaws. He comes up with excuses although no one in his company has challenged his character. And just to force himself to repent for his sins even more he puts himself in the place reserved for the ‘sinning parishioner” of his choice in one of his own sermons. He does not name the old man, but by characteristics and certain signs it becomes painfully clear that he is projecting his guilty feelings thorough the sufferings of the old man in his story.
If it seems out of character for a person who is both a liar and a cheat to admit publicly his cheating ways to a whole group of people, it is. One would have to be of less than average intelligence to give up the secrets that have made one quite successful. Unless, of course, that person can gain something by doing so. The Pardoner is one such person who is gaining something by “showing his hand” so to speak. The Pardoner gains relief from the burden of his guilty conscience. For a moment he can step away from his role of the old man who is doomed to walk the earth as decrepit and miserable, by preaching to an audience of impartial persons who will more likely never come into contact with him again. Although his relief is temporary, it is the only way that a person in a Pardoners position, who is often as sinful as the person he pardons, can gain any pardons himself.
Copyright 2002 Megan Tharpe
