217;s agent, a serpent “stinging” his audience with his “sharp tongue/In preaching” (VI, C, 413-414). He misuses his God-given talent to nurture the very Cupiditas against which he preaches(Hallissy, 216):The tale that the pardoner tells is morally abhorrent, but this could be an attempt of acynical exploitation of religion for his own financial advantage. The tale can be viewed asJohann Cabe Page Fouran image of how one should not live, and how the pardoner does live (Cooper, 263). “The Pardoner’s Tale” doesn’t match the person who tells the tale. “Spoken by thePardoner, it becomes deeply immoral - not only as a revelation of his own vice, but as ameans to advance his own love of money; and moreover he chooses this tale whiledrinking in the tavern setting he so fiercely condemns.” The way in which to see how the“Pardoner’s Tale” is not coincidental to the character identification is through this contraction of two stories in Fragment VI.The contrasts between the two stories of Fragment VI have been discussed in connection with the Physician’s Tale. The tellers as well as the tales are implicitly compared by the juxtaposition. The Physician should be a healer of bodies, but he tells a tale in which death is inflicted by a father on the young and health. Pardons should be a way to spiritual health, but the Pardoner’s Tale tells of death cutting off sinners in their pride of life (Cooper, 272).The tale that the Pardoner tells is a very moral tale. The tale is of men who find death inthe example of money. It all begins with the rioters seeking death. An old man who has already found the treasure directs the three men to the treasure. At the finding of the treasure two of the three men make themselves brothers as the other one heads to town for food. The two-brothers plan to kill the one who went to town, while at the same time Johann Cabe Pa...
