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The Pardoner’s Tale
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Canterbury Tales, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Satire
Competition
Courtly Love and Sexual Desire
Friendship and Company
Church Corruption
Writing and Authorship
Summary
Analysis
“What man artow?” says the Host to Chaucer the pilgrim. The Host makes fun of Chaucer for staring at the ground all the time and for being a fat little doll for ladies to toy with. The Host asks Chaucer to tell the company a merry tale, and Chaucer says he will give them a rhyme he learned long ago.
Chaucer gives a modest, ugly depiction of himself as a shy, bumbling, fat little man who doesn’t have any sort of backbone around women. His tale is similarly lame: it's a foolish childhood tale.
Themes
