Hypocrites Unite A Comparison of the Pardoners Tale and the Wife of Baths Tale from Chaucers
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, “The Pardoner’s Tale” has very much the same look and feel to it as “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”. Both the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner are people who are thought to be good and righteous people, but both harbor secrets that prove they are exactly the opposite of what they seem to be. The Wife of Bath has everyone believing she is a good woman, a worthy wife, and one who attends church and tithes regularly. ... Then they could have what they wanted from her. ... The Pardoner is just like the Wife of Bath. ... The Wife of Bath tells a tale that reinforces her main point—that women should be the heads of their households. When the Pardoner tells his tale, though, it is just another sermon about three sinners who try to outdo one another and they all end up dying for it in the end. I guess I was expecting him to tell a tale about how you shouldn’t preach one thing and practice another or to tell a tale about how it’s okay to do such things, but he doesn’t. ... While both “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Pardoner’s Tale” are tales of hypocrisy at its best, I didn’t mind the Pardoner’s tale nearly as much as I minded the Wife’s tale.