The Canterbury Tales: The Pardoner's Tale Manipulation Quotes

The Pardoner's methods are all about manipulating the emotions of his audience to get them to buy his pardons and relics. Here he describes how he mixes a display of his "bulls," or pardons, with words in Latin. He knows this would be pretty impressive to an uneducated audience. The Pardoner's use of the figure of "spicing up" his speech (with Saffron) foreshadows his description of cookery later in his Tale; the implication might be that Latin whets the appetite of his audience for substantial food (the Pardons) just as spice does for an epicure.

The Pardoner keeps a sack full of old rags and bones, which he passes off to his audience as relics, or the real clothing or bones of saints. The Pardoner clues us in that the relics are total fakes with the phrase "as wenene they echoon," which basically means, "or so they think," implying that although the audience believes they're real, the relics are definitely not. He's successful because of the medieval craze for relics; he's got a very popular product, even if he's selling snake oil.

This is the really impressive part of the Pardoner's sales pitch. He basically forces everyone to buy the merchandise or risk being "outed" as a terrible sinner. If someone doesn't come forward to make an offering after this part of the speech, everyone else will suspect them of a sexual sin (in a woman's case, specifically of being an adulterer). A genius move, in Shmoop's opinion.

Here the Pardoner shows his hand, admitting that he preaches only about avarice not because he has a deep-seated belief about it being the most dangerous sin, or even any concern about sin at all. It's just a sin in which repentance means opening up your wallet—specifically to the Pardoner. Preaching only about sloth, e.g., might make people want to be more industrious, but wouldn't necessarily make them feel they had to be financially generous.

Here the Pardoner reveals the extent to which his success depends on his manipulation of his audience's emotions. He talks about making people turn away from avarice and "soore to repente." The goal of his speech, then, is to make people feel emotions like shame and guilt so that they'll be willing to buy his pardons to escape from these emotions. This is the basis of advertising: creating emotions that will drive people to buy stuff.

The final part of the Pardoner's performance relies upon his audience's taste for "tales olde." The Pardoner's intention is far from what it would be if he were a moral preacher. In that case he'd tell stories to teach faith lessons. But here he tells them because he knows that his audience will remember them and repeat them, thus providing good advertising for him. Creating nostalgia—another advertising trick.

Like every good salesman, the Pardoner knows how to create the perception of the rarity or scarcity of what he's selling. This is equivalent to the "limited time offer." Here, he tells his audience that they're lucky to have him and his pardons on pilgrimage, implying that they'd better take advantage of this fortunate circumstance while they can.

Dying in a state of sin would have been a major fear of the Pilgrims, steeped in the theology of damnation and hell. But no worries—all they have to do is buy pardons throughout their journey and they'll die in a state of grace.