Title__Ironic_Incident_In_“The_Pardoner’s_Tale”

Title: Ironic Incident In “The Pardoner’s Tale” Title: Ironic Incident in “The Pardoner’s Tale” Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a stroke of genius. He uses the religious pilgrimage to bring together an extremely diverse group of people who live in England during the Middle Ages. Through these religious pilgrims, Chaucer provides an insight into the society of his times. Chaucer brings together all the hypocrisies, virtues, and values of man during this time period with remarkable clarity. Chaucer’s art is demonstrated through the use of irony. Each pilgrim tells tales which reveals society and has irony in it. “The Pardoner’s Tale” is an ancient tale from the Orient. It is an exemplum. It is filled with ironic incidents. There are three types of irony; verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony. Irony is a contrast between what is stated and what is meant or is a contrast between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. The ironic incidents in “The Pardoner’s Tale” were dramatic irony or situational irony. Dramatic irony is a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader know to be true. Situational irony is an event that happens irony, death, rioters, three, tale, ironic, gold, pardoner’s, kill, dramatic, because, situational, incident, found, find, each, youngest, reader, two, through, killed, expected, together, thought, tales, same, rioter, planning, one, man, killing, incidents, chaucer, characters, between