Irony in the Canterbury Tales by

Irony is the general name given to literary techniques that involve surprising, interesting,or amusing contradictions. 1 Two stories that serve as excellent demonstrations of irony are "The Pardoners Tale" and "The Nun's Priest's Tale," both from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Although these two stories are very different, they both use irony to teach a lesson.         Of the stories, "The Pardoners Tale" displays the most irony. First and foremost, the entire telling of the story is …

…these qualities.         Both "The Pardoner's Tale" and "The Nun's Priest's Tale" utilize the tool of irony to teach two similar lessons. The moral of "The Pardoner's Tale" is "Money is the root of all evil". Similarly, the moral of the "Nun's Priest's Tale" is that vanity will eventually lead to destruction. By teaching this in two very different stories Chaucer makes it very clear that irony is an extremely effective method of teaching a lesson.