The Pardoner's Tale

        What is the price for greed? Is the price of gold really worth killing another man who has the same desire for it? In The Pardoner's Tale the corruption of greed is the moral of his story, but what makes this ironic regarding the Pardoner? Some ironic scenes from the tale are how the rioters seek to find Death, but instead find gold, which leads them all to the path called death. Another is how the reader knows how the three rioters will die, but not the characters themselves. Lastly, how the moral of the story corresponds to the Pardoner himself.
         The first Ironic scene portrayed in The Pardoner’s Tale was how the rioters were seeking to find Death but instead found treasure and forgot completely about what they were originally finding in the first place. In the end they found Death, which makes this scene ironic how finding gold lead them to finding death. The readers reaction to the irony of this scene was self exclamatory. Once the reader finds out how the three were seeking to find Death, then find treasure, and then kill each other in the end over the treasure, they will notice that in the end the three rioters found Death and somewhat knew it would to happen to all three of the characters.
         A second ironic scene in The Pardoner’s Tale was how the reader knew how each of the three rioters will die while the characters did not know what they would be headed for in the future. This is ironic because the reader knew what is in-store for the characters, but not the characters themselves. The reader will seem to be bewildered once they find out that the three rioters planed on killing each other without them knowing they were going to kill each other in the end.
         A third example of irony in The Pardoner’s Tale is not found in the actual tale, but the moral of the story and how it responds the the Pardoner. If the reader were to read the prologue of The Canterbury Tales they will discover that the Pardoner was a very corrupt man and was greedy. The whole moral of the Pardoner’s Tale was that greed is destructive, very corrupt, and could lead to death. Once the reader finds out that the moral of this tale is the corruption of greed and how it could lead to death, they will  ponder the question of why the Pardoner says greed is corrupt when the Pardoner himself is greedy. The reader is given the thought that the Pardoner is a hypocrite when he says greed is bad, but is greedy himself.
         Irony can be found all through out The Pardoner’s Tale. Scenes like the rioters trying to find death in which they find gold that leads to their death, or where the reader know how the characters will die but not the characters themselves are examples of irony found in the tale.