The Canterbury Tales - The Pardoner's TaleYou might assume that the person telling the story has a lot to do with the story he is telling. This is the case of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". In the short story "The Pardoner's", the voice tells a story about his famous sermon; "Radix malorum est Cupiditas." In English, “The root of all evil is greed.” An ironic distinction can be made between what is known to be a "Pardoner", the character (the voice/Pardoner) and the story he tells. Through the Prologue of the Pardoner's Tale we can say that it lives up to its name. As the “Webster” dictionary puts it, “a medieval clergyman authorized to raise funds for religious works by granting papal indulgences to taxpayers.” The Pardoners were known to be grantmakers of the church. That they would actually keep all the money given to them by generous people. They were generally associated with being untrustworthy and sneaky. They actually had the gift of preaching, but they didn't follow exactly what they preached. In the prologue the Forgiver shows his true self. Chaucer, describes him as both evil and detested. It depicts him with long, greasy, yellow hair and also no beard ("The Pardoner's Tale".) The Pardoner reveals in the prologue that the only thing he cares about is money. “I preach nothing except for gain” (The Pardoner's Tale). Besides being extremely greedy, he is also a hypocrite. He preaches the one thing he is most guilty of. "Avarice is the greatest evil" ("The Pardoner's Tale"). Greed and hypocrisy are also shown in the story he tells. Throughout the tale itself, the Pardoner's greed and hypocrisy are also shown. In the story, three friends begin a journey to kill death. During their journey they meet an old man who tells them where they can find treasure. He also warns them that he is in no way a good darling. At this point in the story, the three friends show their greed, and then their hypocrisy, by planning to kill each other to keep the treasure. Ultimately, that greed and hypocrisy leads to their downfall.