| During the Middle Ages, beginning in 1348, the persistent threat and recurring reality of the Black Plague moved death to the forefront of the collective psyche. Within this context of death as an ever present reality, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote "The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale," one of the most popular selections in his Canterbury Tales. Some six centuries later, Sigmund Freud, in describing the human psyche, theorized that people have an unconscious drive toward death, a Death Instinct. Using Freud's theory as a lens through which to view Chaucer's fictional characters of the Pardoner, the rioters in the tale he tells, and most particularly the Old Man from the same tale, highlights their universal human behaviors, thereby illuminating their ongoing appeal. The behavior of the Pardoner, the rioters and the Old Man can, in differing ways, be shown to be consistent with Freud's Death Instinct. |
