The Decameron (Day Two / 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.9, 3.1)

1. Story 2.5: Analyze the educative process that occurs with Andreuccio (do NOT simply recount the events of the story). Do you see any repetition occurring here? How do you read this repetition? How does this contribute to his education? What does he learn here? What might the message be for a wider audience? Use specific examples from the text to support your analysis.

Andreuccio, who had never before left his hometown, goes to Naples upon hearing that they have good cheap horses for sale there. He intends to make a steal and brings with him a large sum of money. Being naïve, he shows the entire market place his purse of 500 gold florins and, given that Naples is not a nice, pure city, sets himself up for his education in the ways of the world. The way Andreuccio learns is through a series of falls (literal falls with symbolic overtones): first, into a pile of excrement; then, into a well; finally, into a tomb. The first comes when he falls for the woman’s, who he believes is his sister, trick – he falls through a bad board in the foundation into the feces below him. Symbolically speaking, he falls from a poor foundation (his naïveté could not support him in the real world) into disgrace. Next, the men who find him wash him in the well – this is his renewal, his second chance. The last fall is into a tomb – he ‘helps’ the men rob the grave of a dead man. This time, he realizes right away that they’ve set out to fool him and when he finally gets back out of the tomb, he is reborn, wiser than he ever was, and possesses a ring worth the 500 florins his previous ignorance had cost him.

2. Story 2.6: What does this story have to say about humanity (especially considering that the central character becomes a kind of ‘wild-woman’)? How might this view of humanity influence the story of a whole? Use specific examples from the text to support your analysis.

Madam Beritola becomes a kind of ‘wild-woman’ after her grief over losing her sons consumes her. She ends up going back to nature and gaining the companionship of a deer and her baby roebucks. Becoming friendly with the forest creatures is not the event that really sealed her supposed loss of ‘humanity;’ the scene that does is the one in which she nurses the two hungry roebucks as her own children. What we see here is that ‘humanity’ is based on civilization. We see that same idea in Yvain – when Yvain tears his clothes and goes off into the woods, he is no longer considered a man but a beast; only when he is once again clothed and in the society of his fellow man is he considered back to humanity. Madam Beritola never ceases to be ‘humane’ but that is not the view of humanity here; by going back to nature, she gives up society and thus loses her ‘humanity.’ Like Yvain, once she is clothed and back in the society of people, she is considered human again.

The Decameron (Day One / 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.3)

Playing catch up, for the win~

Day 1.1 tells the story of the wicked Ser Cepparello who tricks a friar into absolving him of his sins by a false confession. Truly, the entire story is quotable just because of all the irony in the exchanges; however, to keep from getting carpal tunnel, I’ll stick to one said by the friar in response to Ciappelletto’s admittance of having once accidentally spitting in the house of God. The so-called holy man laughs at him and says, “My son, that is nothing to worry about; we priests, who are religious men, spit there all day long” (35). This shows us a bit of Boccaccio’s view on religious folk which becomes more and more pronounced as the Decameron continues: religious men are just like other men and not to be put on a pedestal. If they were truly saint-like, that holy friar wouldn’t have been so amazed and willing to grant Ciappelletto sainthood; instead, he would’ve just appreciated him as a man like himself. This story also shows us that holy men are easily fooled by wicked men (or perhaps they can just be considered fools.) Here we get the first instance (of many) in which Boccaccio shows his disdain for – not the religion itself but for – the religion’s clergy.

Day 1.2 speaks of the Jew Abraham who converts to Catholicism in spite of (or more likely, because of) the corruption of the ‘holy’ men in Rome. He says to his friend upon returning from Rome, “…I have observed that in spite of this [their corruption], they do not succeed but, on the contrary, that your religion continuously grows and becomes brighter and more illustrious” (42). At first glance, his speech at the end seems a bit ironic – why after seeing that terrible scene could he believe that there was anything good about Christianity? What sort of salvation could possibly come from such corruption? But that is exactly the point. By the first story, Boccaccio already shows disdain for the so-called holy men; however, he did not show it towards the religion itself. And that is because he feels there is nothing wrong with the religion – it is fundamentally good and therefore continues to flourish despite the fact that its followers are not necessarily fundamentally good. If something can continue to become brighter despite the dark seeds of corruption which are prevalent, then obviously it serves an important purpose.

Day 1.4 was the most amusing of this first set of stories: an monk gets out of trouble for indulging in the sins of the flesh by catching the Abbot who’d accused him in the same act. At the end, the monk shows how he’s outsmarted the Abbot by remarking: “And up until a moment ago, you never showed me how monks were supposed to support the weight of women as well as fasts and vigils.…I promise that if you forgive me this time, I shall sin no more in this respect….I shall always behave as I have seen you behave” (49). Once again, Boccaccio is showing that holy men are more deeply connected to the ‘man’ aspect than the ‘holy’ one. Putting on monk’s garb doesn’t automatically bring about the end of desire; monks and abbots are still men like other men and are just as susceptible to lust and the pleasure of the flesh.

Talk to Her

Almodovar’s film has a lot of interesting themes/symbolism in it. While the most notable is the Sleeping Beauty overtone, the first I noticed was with Lydia, the bullfighter who’s deathly afraid of snakes. A few Film Study courses and a year of Psychology were more than enough to cement the Freudian correlation into the forefront of my mind. Snakes are one of many phallic symbols in literature and film. Phallic, of course, refers to men and therefore Lydia’s deathly fear of snakes is meant to reflect her fear of men and the violence they can perpetrate. On the talk show we sense that something especially negative happened between her and the other bullfighter which is why she reacts so violently when the topic is brought up; when she, Marco and others talk about the priests and missionaries who have raped the villagers and the nuns, she is sickened. An interesting thing to note though is that snakes are not the only time she comes face to face with her fear of what is masculine. One could easily argue that a bull is very much associated with men. In that case, when she goes into the ring, she is confronting her fear head-on. She is haughty when she bullfights. People often commented that it was lucky the bull never tore her apart; in fact, the man sitting beside her ex comments during one fight: ‘if you weren’t here, she wouldn’t be taking as many risks.’ Therefore, it is obvious that the bullfighting is meant to make a statement towards men.