The author of the Pardoner’s Tale was Geoffrey Chaucer. According to Wikipedia, “Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the “father of English literature”, or, alternatively, the “father of English poetry”. He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets’ Corner, in Westminster Abbey.” He was born in 1340 London, United Kingdom, and died on October 25, 1400, London, United Kingdom. His greatest known work is a book called The Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales contains twenty-four stories, one of which is the Pardoner’s Tale. The Pardoner’s Tale will be the story my essay is based off of today. These stories are all of the genre of poetry and were originally written in Middle English. These stories took from 1387 to 1400 to write, thirteen years.

The Pardoner’s Tale, according to Wikipedia, “is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. In the order of the Tales, it comes after The Physician’s Tale and before The Shipman’s Tale; it is prompted by the Host’s desire to hear something positive after the physician’s depressing tale.” This story is one of the twenty-four stories in the Canterbury Tales, a book written by Geoffrey Chaucer.

The story of the Pardoner’s Tale tells of three drunken revelers who try to seek out Death and destroy it after one of their friends died. During their quest to find Death they come across an old man. The old man tells the three men that Death can be found under a particular oak tree in a particular grove. The three men seek out this tree. Once they find the oak tree, they do not find Death under it, but rather gold florins (coins). Two of the friends plot to kill the other as to have more money fore themselves. After they do kill their friend, the other two become drunk on wine that the already dead friend had poisoned earlier, and as such, the remaining two died. Geoffrey Chaucer ends this story with florid rhetoric against the wickedness of blasphemy, gluttony, and gamboling.

This story clearly shows the Bible verse 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” ‘The love of money is the root of all evil’ statement is clearly shown in the end of this story, by the friends killing each other over money. Obviously, the ‘love of money’ got to them and showed itself by the friends killing each other; I mean their friends for crying out loud! They would not kill each other unless something got to them, in this case, the love of money.

The old man in this story could possibly be Death knowing that as soon as they found the gold they would kill each other over it. Or, the old man could be an ally to Death, doing Death’s bidding by sending them to the tree to die. Either way, the old man was evil, and either an ally to Death, or Death himself.