The Pardoner’s Tale is one of the collection of stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
“And every one of the rakes ran until he came to that tree; and there they found almost eight bushels, it seemed, of fine round florins coined of gold.” The story is told by an unic to warn against greed. The tree represents nature or life. The men are described as rakes, which are men who live immorally. The men do not walk, but run there and find fine gold. Described in this tale – Greed is seen as the root of all evil. On that tree, the symbol of nature and life, lay the gold. The men are called rakes or immoral men. Almost naturally, they rush towards the gold which is at the root of their future evil doings because they later conspire to kill each other so that each man thinks he would have all the gold to himself.
Greed is reiterated throughout the tale on many levels. Greed kills these men in the tale.The unic who tells this tale, in an effort to warn against greed, charges the guests near him so that they he can pardon their sins – of greed.
