Instructor's Comments

In what way does the tale fit the personality and description of the teller of the tale?

Pardoner: he is greedy and tells a tale of greed. He is a hypocrite and tells the tale for hypocritical reasons -- not to save souls but to frighten people into buying his pardons.

Miller: he is coarse and crude, so he tells a coarse, crude tale

Wife: she likes control in marriage, so she tells a tale of a couple finding happiness in the wife's control.

What is the Augustinian interpretation of the Pardoner's Tale, and the Miller's Tale?

If we strip the chaff from the grain, strip the outer story from the moral, we find that the "Pardoner's Tale" cautions us against greed and teaches that money is the root of evil. And in the "Miller's Tale" we find that Chaucer warns us against adultery and against marriage between the old and the young.