The Obscure Object of Desire

The influence of Celestina is seen all throughout the movie, the plot can almost be broken down the same exact way as the play. The guy couldn’t get the girl and he spent whatever money necessary to get her love.  The only thing she sought was his love but he ruined it with his overbearing habits and purchases her love attitude. Paying her mom to bring her to his house and buying her a house in order to be with her, these are the types of things that Calisto would do to gain Melbias love. The theme of her mother not wanting her to work because she believed “Girls lose their honor by listing to women, not by listening to men”. This quote goes with a major theme in Celestina, the fact that Celestina was able to manipulate women for men because she understood the way women worked, women corrupting other women. There are many things prevalent in the movie that are just as common in Celestina. There are defiantly influences from Celestina in the film.

The final moments of the movie were very surprising and had a very different ending that I expected. The whole movie was set in a flash back so it was hard to decipher the reality from the history of the movie. The end felt like a flash and it ended tragically just as Celestina did. The scene with the man staring at the woman’s hands the same way he did as he first met Conchita, implying many different things about the character of Matthieu making me even doubt his love for Conchita.

Celestina 5

Areusa wants to murder Calisto so that Melibea can suffer and feel the sadness that she feels. She is being cruel but it is not like Calisto doesn’t deserve some sort of punishment. She is not being sincere when she says to spare his life because she doesn’t care how he dies “We’ll celebrate whatever way he dies.”.

I did like the fact that Calisto died in an accident because he never intended for anyone to get hurt he only wanted to receive the love of Melebia. Yes Calisto is dead either way but I believe the play would seem a lot darker because of all the murder. Melebia’s reaction is that she is immediately heartbroken. She already starts to regret all the things that her and Calisto didn’t get to enjoy together. She even paraphrases the old cliché “we don’t know what we got till its gone”.

It did not surprise me when she killed herself because I knew the play was a tragedy and by her reaction to Calisto’s death I predicted her to commit suicide. I thought her father would try to stop her but both him and his servant were foolish in leaving her by herself in her state. Once they had both left I knew that she would end her own life.

I believe that the author has the father do this to make the reader feel more sorrow. I did not feel bad during the deaths of the other characters in the book because most of them were going to get some sort of punishment for their actions. For the father of Melebia who had done nothing wrong to have to go through the sorrow he goes through is sad in a way. The author doesn’t show the mother’s reaction to better show you that she is so heartbroken that she cannot even speak. From the mothers few lines you can understand the sorrow she feels. He does not talk about her affair with Calisto because he is so overcome by her loss he cannot even think about that.

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I believe that this scene was very unexpected. I don’t believe that Celestina is a victim but I don’t believe she deserved to get murdered. At some point all of the people she tricked the karma was going to come back around. They we’re not justified in killing her but she was wrong in promising them something and not holding up her end of the bargain. I believe that Sempronio and Parmeno overreacted and made a bad decision but as they said earlier in the text “there are no friends when money is involved”. I do not sympathize with either party because they picked an evil way to get money and the consequence turned out to be bad.

I believe that Calisto feel bad about his servants but he is overcome with so much happiness that he has finally made a great breakthrough with Melibea. He grieves their deaths but it is not true sadness he is too happy because of his situation with Melibea. Calisto feels bad rather than grieves their deaths.

The chain links all the characters together, and represents their unity as a community. Every action that one character makes effects all of the other characters in the play. The gold chain is what made them all fall apart so the chain is a huge symbol that is used throughout the book.

In medieval times women were expected to be chase at the time of marriage. She was so hesitant because she knew this and she did not want her parents to ever know what she was doing with Calisto. It was not an act of rebellion to her father it was more of her desires which were fueled by Celestina. She is presumed to be innocent and chaste until marriage but now that she is not and her parents are planning to marry her off there is a problem.

I believe that this theme is very major in all the stories that we have read and especially in this one. Celesitna’s whole trade is deceiving people, she used to put makeup on people, trick people into sleeping with each other, and ticking husbands into thinking their wives are virgins. The whole book is based into tricking people into getting a desired result. People change their appearance to get what they want or to create a certain feeling. The latter part of the quote to me kind of seems like their finished with all the deception and wants to cleanse themselves of it.

Celestina Day Three

Chapter 7 – I believe that there is in emphasis on the age gap because it is beginning to show that Celestina uses her age and experience to her advantage and this effects every aspect of the book because Celestina is the most influential character in the book. She is a lot wiser and uses her experience to manipulating people into doing whatever she wishes them to do. It shows that the younger person the easier they are to trick, Celestina definitely uses wisdom to her advantages and I would even say that it is one of her biggest weapons.

Chapter 8 – I believe that by this statement Sempronio means that not everything is as easy to decipher as black and white is and it may not always be the right meaning. He also means that just because something isn’t white , it doesn’t make it black it could be anywhere in the middle. Just because it appears to be “gold” or “shiny” doesn’t mean it is, it could just be yellow.

Chapter 9 – Trust is one of the most interesting themes in the text. We cannot trust anything any character says and they only trust Clestina because without them she would have not of been able to make any profit off Calisto in the first place. They feel that they are owed at least of little bit and that Cleistina will pay them in exchange. They trust her because without her they have almost no hope of gaining any riches so they have no choice but to rust her.

Chapter 10 -  Melibea rants in the beginning of the act saying how she wishes to be with Calisto. She wants to but she cannot because for her family she must keep her chastity. This shows that she cannot do whatever she wants, she must think of the standards her family set and lives by. A modern example of this would be someone wanting to do something but they couldn’t because their parents forbid it.

Chapter 11 – It is true that Calisto is held captive by his love of Melibea but I believe that they are both under the influence of Clestina. Celestina is doing their thinking for them and manipulating them how she wants to get her desired result. I would believe that he is a captive of love but he is just a pawn piece in Clesetina’s game.

Celestina 1

1.   1. The first scene of Celestina starts out with Calisto declaring his love for Melibea in her garden. The garden itself could represent life and energy because gardens are home to many different things. Melibea immediately denies Calisto’s declaration of love and she yells at him for pursuing such a virtuous woman as herself and he is devastated by this news. I do not believe that Meliba’s words are genuine because often in these stories the women can be deceitful and later change their minds or do other things that may be frowned upon if everyone knew.

2.     2. The first conversation between Calisto and Sempronio is a very interesting conversation. I believe that Calisto’s “illness” is him being depressed about being rejected by Melibea, and his inability to accept this rejection. Calisto and Sempronio also discuss women, this conversation is very bizarre and Sempronio tried to help his master trying to tell him that Melibea is not worthy of him. Sempronio the goes on to stereotype woman in a large monologue (pg. 7) describing then as nothing less than monsters to say the least. 

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9.2. – The physical appearance of the Abbess changes the story completely, instead of getting reprimanded for her actions she get gets to spend time with her lover. All the nuns are all allowed to have lovers so it changes the outcome and the nuns entirely. Without the abbess making the mistake that she did, the story would be of a nun getting disciplined rater than being able to enjoy her lover.

9.3. – I would argue that Boccaccio is shedding light on the fact that many men did abuse their wives and it was very common for this to happen in the middle ages. He shows that women could often be mistreated badly.

9.5. – I believe he does this so that Mona Tessa can get some sort of revenge. He reverses their rolls from Tessa being abused and beaten to Calandrino being the one yelled at and beaten. It shows that Boccaccio likes to put power in the woman’s hands not only giving the men power.

9.6. – I believe that Boccaccio once again shows how cleverness and wit can get you out of almost any situation, and usually the women are using this wit and cleverness to manipulate the men so that they can do whatever they like. I relates the story 7.5, because one again in that story a woman uses her cleverness so that she can enjoy her lover whenever she wants. It shows that women are a lot smarter then the men believe and the women are often able to take advantage of this.

10.10. – I believe that the relationship between Griselda and Gualleri is completely different from the relationship of Mona Tessa and Calandrino. I believe that Griselda and Gualleri are in love and actually care for each other where as Calandrino and Mona Tessa are not, because they often physically harm each other. I do not believe that Gualleri’s actions towards Griselda are acceptable but there is a reason he does this and they wind up happy at the conclusion of the story.