Reading Notes: Canterbury Tales, Part A

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- The Pardoner's Tale is one story within the collection by Chaucer known as the Canterbury Tales. A pardoner was an individual in the Middle Ages who would go around the countryside and sell church pardons, signed by a bishop, that entitled the bearer to be forgiven of their sins. I imagine that many of these were complete forgeries, although even a 'real' one is worthless.
- The pardoner tells a story about a group of three revelers, which would be a general term to describe rebellious young men who are more interesting in drinking and partying than in being contributing members of society. No matter what, people like that have always existed.
- The revelers overhear a conversation about how Death keeps killing people. Death is being anthropomorphized, and is talked about as though he is an actual person, but it's difficult to tell if that is how everyone is speaking of Death, or if that's simply the way the revelers, in their ignorance, understand it. I think it's everyone, because I believe that the tavern keeper mentions that he must live in the village over. I think I would prefer to have it be a misunderstanding on the part of the revelers.
- The three young men decide to go and find Death and kill him. In their search, they come across and old man and make fun of him for being old. Then, they decide that he must be a spy for Death and threaten him. They demand to know where Death is. The old man tells them to follow a path into the woods and they will find him. In my story, I will make the old man actually be Death.
- The revelers travel into the woods where they find a big pile of gold coins. One of the men is sent into town to get food so that they can wait and take the gold out of the forest at night, so they won't be seen. While separated, they all plot to kill each other in order to increase the amount of gold that they will have. In the end, all three die. So, they in fact they did find Death.
- I like the general framework of the story, particularly where they end up killing each other, and therefore inadvertently becoming successful in their search. I would focus more on the thoughts and perceptions of the old man, who in my story would actually be Death.



Bibliography: The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan. Web source.