the sin of avarice essays

the sin of avarice essays In life everyone is searching for something or someone. Sometimes we just do not realize we have found it until it is too late. What we find may not always be what we are looking for. This is what happens in the Pardoners Tale by Geoffry Chaucer, the three rioters are searching for death in the physical form. They do find death or rather it finds them in the very end of the story. In my opinion the three men do not find what they are searching for but that death finds them, in a place they never thought to look, in the depth of the human soul. The Pardoners Tale begins with three men in a drunken rage swearing to find death after it steals another one of their friends. If we can only catch him, Death is dead(Chaucer 117). They take an oath to always stick up for one another no matter what, and then they continue on with their search. They come upon and old man who may be death himself. The men are so anxious to find death that they do not see death when they are staring it in the face. Their drunken stupor makes them blind and easily allows death to trick them. The old man tells them where to find death: ...turn up this crooked way/towards that groove...under a tree and there youll find him waiting(Chaucer 117). So they continue their quest. Under the tree they find gold florins. No longer was it death these fellows sought or so they thought (Chaucer 118). When the rioters do find the gold it dissolves their oath of brotherhood and puts them on their path to death. The gold immediately changes their plan of finding death to becoming rich. The sin of gluttony takes over in each man planning to kill the next. The old man, his words, and their pursuit are completely forgotten. This tale confirms what the Pardoner suggests in The Pardoners Prologue; the sin of avarice leads to the sin of murder. The story begins with ...