The Pardoner's method for selling pardons and relics is to preach an entertaining sermon/story to inspire repentance in his audience. He's a master storyteller.
In the General Prologue, the narrator describes his voice as small and high, like a goat, but says that he's great at telling Bible stories and can really put across a song. The Pardoner's very aware of the powerful effects of speech. He's seen how his speeches make people hand over the money, even very poor people.
He also weighs in on the medieval debate about whether a speaker's good or bad intentions have an effect upon his speech. His answer is no: sermons can be preached from evil intention but still inspire their listeners to piety.
The Pardoner's Tale expands the Prologue's focus on the effects of speech with its exploration of the senseless speech of drunkards and the serious evil of idle oath swearing. Medieval culture was fearful of the consequences of false speech about God's true words, and the Pardoner's Tale reflects this.
Questions About Language and Communication
- What effect does the Pardoner hope his speech has on the listener? What does he do to achieve this effect?
- Why do drunkards make their throats into a "privy," or outhouse?
- Why does the Pardoner think that swearing is even worse than murder and other sins?
- What nonverbal communication does the Pardoner use?
Chew on This
Chaucer is doing the same thing as the Pardoner: telling stories as a way of engaging the reader in a religious discussion.
The Pardoner's ability to make so much money from his sermons shows that he was a real genius in being able to read an audience and target his language accordingly.