Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Question for September 16: The Prologue to the Pardoner's Tale (8:00 Class)
Both the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner reveal a great deal about themselves and their ethical standards in the prologues to their tales. Briefly compare the shortcomings of the two. (The Wife of Bath's Prologue is on pages 257-275. The Pardoner's Prologue, our reading for today, is on pages 284-88.) Which of the two characters does Chaucer portray less favorably than the other? Defend your answer with at least one reference to the text.
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(My opinion may be completely inaccurate so if you think different please correct me! This was very confusing and hard to follow) The Wife of Bath's Prologue and The Pardoner's Prologue are different yet similiar in their own ways. Both reveal and are aware of their bad traits, and begin a tale that somewhat revolve around their personalily/life. The Wife of Bath is a women who expresses herself as a selfish wife that has five husbands and get what she desires through gilt. She realizes this is wrong but is doing this for all women. Women during this period of time were treated very badly and this kind of behavior was unheard of. She presents this side to her audience because she wants them to realize that a man must treat their wife with respect and give them what they want or there will be a conciquence, in her case gilt. Her story relates to this by the knight through him eventually treating the old woman with respect so she gave him everything, beauty and loyalty. This is a lesson to all men where as the Pardoner is somewhat giving a moral lesson to his audience but he himself commits the crime. I believe that the Pardoner's Prologue is less favorable.This is because in his prologue the Pardoner explains certain traits of himself before his tale, that he is a greedy, heartless individual and will do anything in order for his pockets to be stuffed with money.In his tale the three men die because of their greed. The Pardoner is aware of what he does is wrong, however he continues to do so and is explaining to others through a tale of what can happen to an individual if consumed by greed.
ReplyDeleteThe pardoner and wife of bath are similar in the way they can admit their shortcomings, (shortcomings, so to say). The difference is in the way they see these attributes and try to justify their means. The Wife of Bath is an ‘experienced woman’ when it comes to sexual endeavors. Throughout her life she has wed 5 men. In each of those relationships, she admits, although she had a fondness for her husbands, her passion of love never matched that of her counterpart.
ReplyDeleteThe pardoner on the other hand is guilty of succumbing to the allures of greed. He recognizes this guilt while, in his preaching, there is a reoccurring theme of ‘Greed is the root of all evil. The pardoner pretends to hold spiritual relics when in reality they hold no religious worth. He tells his audiences that these relics will solve their problems but they must give the pardoner an offering for their use. This is the way the pardoner makes his money. He does not want to live a poor apostle’s life, he wants to “drinke licour of the vine, And have a joly wenche in every town.” (164-165 pg. 288)
The wife of bath recognizes that her actions might not necessarily be looked upon with great morality but, in her perception of life, she is doing no wrong. She speaks of her in good standing. She feels that through her life style, she loves life more. How can someone be wrong if they find themselves enjoying themselves to no ones expense other than maybe her religious upstanding?
The pardoner realized his acts are wrong but doesn’t seem to feel remorse, or have any plans of changing his actions. The way he can make up for his wrongdoings is to preach to others, and influence them to choose a more righteous life path.
The more I tried to compare and contrast them the more I realized some things they had in common. In both tales they both tend to scam people out of their money and status.They also do this through appealing to others guilt.
ReplyDeleteThe wife of bath tells her first few husbands how badly they treated her when they were "drunk". While the pardoner gives sermons on how the root of all evil is desire, and since desire is an emotion everyone feels, everyone feels guilty of his accusations.So you can see how they both manipulate the readers thinking.
Then, finally, the wife of bath changes somewhat with her last husband. I don't know, but it felt like there was more tenderness when she spoke about her last husband. This, to me made her seem more like a human. The pardoner showed he was a human being only in a negative way.I feel like the character is more sympathetic in the wife of bath because she truely seems to be searching for something real.The pardoner may want something like that as well but it's hard to see past his double standards.So even if he did I wouldn't notice because of the way he is.
I feel that the Pardoner is less favorable.In the Wife of Bathe despite her brash accounting of marriage,one gets the impression she is not sure of herself when she exclaims,"Alas,that every love was a sin!"Chaucer has given us a portrait of an immoral woman,a coarse creature to shock her age.But the author does not apologize for her.He leaves the moral arguments in balance.One can only conclude that he believes that unbridled sensurousness is not the key to happiness.
ReplyDeleteThe Pardoner is a prime example of one who refuses to listen, whose folly or disbelief (which is it?) is such that he firmly opts for this world's petty happiness "'Nay, I wol drynke licour of the vyne."
I really wanted to respond to this blog question because I enjoy both the wife of Bathe’s tale AND the pardoner’s tale. I agree with swimmergal. The Pardoner’s tale is much less favorable, according to Chaucer. Even though both of these characters admit to their wrongdoings, I believe the pardoner’s traits are far worse.
ReplyDeleteThe wife of Bathe confesses to controlling and, in some sort of way, manipulating her husbands. She also goes “out of the norm” as to say that women are meant to make love and have children. For instance, in lines 28-29 she says “God bad for us to wexe and multiplye; That gentil text can I well understonde.” However I do disagree with Swimmergal on the fact that she think the wife of Bathe is selfish. I think she is just smart and finds ways to get what she wants out of man (nothing wrong with that).
On the subject of the pardoner, I think that he is repulsive. Unlike the wife of Bathe, the Pardoner knows what is wrong and does just that. He preaches against something yet does the exact thing the preaches against. On p. 287 line 141-143 he says “But though myself be guilty in that sinne, Yit can I make other folk twinne.” Swimmergal said it all when she said that he is a “heartless individual” who in consumed with nothing but greed and money. Both the wife of Bathe and the pardoner are conscious able their crimes but I believe and I think Chaucer believes, the pardoner’s is far worse.