Friday, October 7, 2011

Decameron 1


Once of the main things that I observed in the book was that fact that in ever story in some way there was the underlying theme of lying and deception. In every story there seems to be some lie told to benefit the person and often times in this story the liar doesn’t receive any punishment, but the person is often benefited by their lying and deception. The book so far has dealt win many different things but one of the biggest things that is focused on is the wicked things that the church does, making me believe that during this time the church was doing things of these sorts and that the stories are not entirely made up.

“…I believe that he is, instead, in the hands of the Devil in Hell rather than in Paradise.” (Boccaccio 37)
This quotation is interesting because it deals with the thought that because of all the bad things he did although he confessed his sins they did not mean anything at this point because it was already too late and he was dying. This has to do with the theme of lying because he tricks the friar into giving him a confession when he clearly does not deserve because up to his last breath he is lying.

“And this they did to the extent that the influence of whores and young boys was of no little importance in obtaining great favors” (Boccaccio 41)
This quotation is one of the most noteworthy ones I found. This quotation says that the priests were having sex with these boys and women and that they were even trading them within each other so that they can gain a better position. This quotation shows only one of the things that the priests were doing bad, in the full text they do a lot of things that it is believed that priests don’t do. The tale is basically a story about how the church is actually evil in some ways.

“Saldin realized how the man most cleverly avoided the trap which he had set to snare him…” (Boccaccio 45)
This quotation is interesting because it deals with lying once again. A man tries to set a trap so that he can gain riches but his trap is seen right through by a clever man and the robber can’t successfully gain anything. This quotation shows how clever the man was to have avoided the trap set for him and it tells us that the people in this time we’re wicked because they would do things like this in order to better their position.

“And so he pardoned him and made him promise never to reveal what he had seen.” (Boccaccio 49)
This quotation is another one of the more important quotes I found. This is about how a monk commits one of the worst crimes he can possibly commit, this monk fearing the repercussions, blackmails another monk with the same crime. He does this because then the monk would have to punish himself and the other monk equally and instead of him punishing both himself and the other man he just pardons the man and makes him swear to never tell what he had found. This story is another story that relates to the terrible things that the church was doing and the fact that there were no punishments when these priests were caught doing bad things because the system is corrupt.

“For this reason I have decided to take you as my husband over all other men…” (Boccaccio 91)
This story a man decides to marry a woman for all the wrong reasons. The woman declares his love for him and asks him to marry her. He accepts the woman’s proposal, not because he lovers her but because she looks like she is rich and wealthy. He is right and through this it is rumored that he took over Scotland by using the power he had as her husband. This again goes with the underlying themes of lying in the book.

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