The Wife of Bath vs. The Pardoner

The Canterbury tales were certainly an interesting read. Of the characters that we read, the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner, I thougth the characters were interesting, and kind of vague at the same time. I think that the Canterbury Tales are meant to show a person from all of the social classes, and because of this the characters are kind of stereotipical. The notty girl who goes for older men just to have their money, and the con-artist. But the way the author describes them in such detail makes them much more of an intersting character. Although I thought the Wife of Bath's prologue was way too long and shared unnessecary details (scandalous), I thought it made the character more interesting. Her first three old husbands she marries for money, and didn't really love them. Her fourth was kind of pointless. The fifth however, was the one she loved the most, even though he beat her and made her ear deaf. She didn't marry him for the money, but for his good looks and charm. He was also a lot younger than her.
Her story was really strange. It talked about what women want most, which is control over their husbands. Then, in the end, he is forced to marry an old hag who he doesn't love. She gives him a choice between a willing and loyal wife who won't try to control him (totally goes against her own opinion on what women want) or a beautiful young wife who isn't loyal. He lets her choose, and he gets a loyal young woman. Totally ruins the moral of the story, I think. The Wife of Bath contradicts herself a lot.
The Pardoner is similar to the Wife of Bath in many ways. He decieves to get money, except he earns money by being a con artist. They both contradict themselves; the Pardoner told everyone how he lies and decieves, and at the very end he asks them to buy a pardon anyways.
He preaches that the root of all evil is desire, and he tries to get money himself. He is a total hypocrite. He story had a great moral, however. If you ask me, I think the root of all evil is desire, greed, and selfishness. When the 3 young men kill each other over money, it shows this. Some people might kill their friends to get money, but I wouldn't. I think that is an unrealistic example. But it does show that the root of evil is greed in a very creative way.