Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Could you help me find a quote from "The Pardoner's Tale" that contains irony?

I'm not sure which edition of the Tales you have, so I can't give you exact lines, but the Pardoner's prologue is actually an excellent place to look for situational irony.


Situational irony is "the difference between what is expected to happen and what actually does" (see link below).


The pardoner preaches, repeatedly, against greed (avarice); he says that greed is the root of all evil. YET, the purpose of his preaching is only to get the other pilgrims to buy pardons and relics from him so that he can have more money and fulfill his selfish desires to be rich. You would not expect a preacher, or a pardoner, to preach about the sin that they, themselves, commit.

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