The Pardoners tale is one of many stories within the book the Canterbury tales. All of these wonderful stories are well written, and can keep up with the times. The originally written book has over 24 well crafted stories for the reader and others to enjoy. one of the many reasons this book is so important is because of the fact it was written in English. During the time, French was still the largest spoken language in the region. The Canterbury tales became one of the very first books of major importance to be written in English. It was written in the 14th century. One of the largest themes is that fact that lust and sin, are not love. Love is a deep connection, and lust is very different to that.
The story specifaclly is called the pardoners tale. It starts with three very drunk men sitting at a bar. They are all discussing the fact that they want to kill death. To murder him. This immediatley implys death is either a person, or a physical entitie. They leave the bar and decide to try to track death down. On their travels, they meet an old man. A mysterious figure who looks to have a lived a long life. He tells them that they will find death under a tree. The men listened to him. Many argue that this man infact is the personificatn of death. The story goes that the three men find gold under the tree. Immediatly tensions rise ans plans shift and change, While recovering the gold, the group splits. One man will go down and get food water, and baisic needs, the other two are going to just leave. The man in the village is susupicous putting it lightily, thus he decides to poison all of the food, water, and wine. When returning, the two men are suspicious of his behaviour, and decide to kill him. Once he was taken care of, they eat the prepared food, water and wine, un aware of the previously planted poison. Both men then die soon after.
After reading this story, people began to wonder if they found death, Did they recieve what they wanted. At first glance, they were not succesful, but many argue a deeper meaning. Perhaps the old man that led them to the Gold was dearth himself. Some say that he was able to do his work by letting the men kill eachother. A clever move is intented. While death was never said to be a person, this theroy is supported by a large numbver of people. They argue death was clever and was able to evade being killed by turning them to something different. When the men first heard to story about the gold, they immpedialty changed their objective and complety forgot that they wanted to kill death.
As stated previously, the men were killed by eachother. However, when looking at the poem through a larger lense, it becomes more and more clear that perhaps death evaded bing killed, and then made the men kill eachother. This and many stories can be read over and over again for anaylis, and deeper reasoning. Part of what makes the cantebury tales so good. However to sum what has been previously stated, The old man was death.
JBSchool 