, didactic message within entertainment and baseness. Further analysis of the Pardoner himself leads to the question of whether there is any good within him. The Pardoner makes it extremely clear to the group (and, incidentally, to us as readers) exactly how he swindles common people. He then goes on to attempt the same actions against them after telling his tale, a seemingly absurd act. Chaucer isn’t simply being sloppy here in trying to convey the Pardoner’s nature to us as readers - if Chaucer didn’t want the travelers to know how the Pardoner works, then he would have told us more discreetly. There must be some reason for the Pardoner’s indiscretion. Even while under the influence (however great or small) of alcohol, he wouldn’t tell the group what he does unless he wanted to. It remains, then, to explore further the Pardoner’s character and the reasons for his actions. I stated earlier that the Pardoner’s root intention is to accrue money. This is the account that he offers himself. The Pardoner’s lack of discretion, however, negates this root drive. If he only wants money, then his presence in the pilgrimage is exclusively for swindling the others. He would not have complicated that goal by revealing his art - which he does. This revealing, then, might be explained as a perverse game or challenge to his skills as a con artist. Perhaps the Pardoner wants to set up a completely skeptical audience against which he will challenge his oratory skills – an ultimate challenge. This raises a question: since he couldn’t have known about the story-telling contest beforehand, what were his original intentions in undertaking this pilgrimage? Perhaps he was simply looking for an opportunity to take advantage of the pilgrims, or, more provocatively, he felt pangs of guilt for his sinful life. The latter seems an implausible theory, given his seemingly unremorsefu...
