Title: Ironic Incident In “The Pardoner’s Tale”

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a stroke of genius. He uses the religious pilgrimage to bring together an extremely diverse group of people who live in England during the Middle Ages. Through these religious pilgrims, Chaucer provides an insight into the society of his times. Chaucer brings together all the hypocrisies, virtues, and values of man during this time period with remarkable clarity. Chaucer’s art is demonstrated through the use of irony. Each pilgrim tells tales which reveals society and has irony in it. “The Pardoner’s Tale” is an ancient tale from the Orient. It is an exemplum. It is filled with ironic incidents. There are three types of irony; verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony. Irony is a contrast between what is stated and what is meant or is a contrast between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. The ironic incidents in “The Pardoner’s Tale” were dramatic irony or situational irony. Dramatic irony is a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader know to be true. Situational irony is an event that happens that directly contradicts the expectation of the characters. Three inci

Another ironic incident in “The Pardoner’s Tale” was when the rioters found gold when they expect to find Death. The initial image of death that the young child uses as a metaphor leads to the actual physical manifestation of Death as an actual object: the piles of gold that the three rioters find. When they leave their houses to find Death they are met by an old man who give them direction towards death. In the spot where the old man said that death would be laid a pile of gold. When they found the gold they thought they had found something that would bring them joy and pleasure. The situational irony of the tale derives from the rioters\' literal interpretation of death. They expected to find an actual person with the name of Death. This personification of death becomes an ironic symbol when the piles of gold represent the Death that they were seeking for. This was situational irony because once the characters found gold they thought they were happy for life, but they were not. They became greedy. This contradicted their expectations of happiness.

dents in which dramatic or situational irony was displayed in “The Pardoners Tale” were when the three rioters made a pact of faith to kill death, when the three rioters found gold when they expected to find Death, and when the three rioters killed each other.

An ironic incident in “The Pardoner’s Tale” was when the three rioters pledge to kill Death. In the beginning of the tale, the three riot

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