Celestina Day 3

2. How do you explain Areusa and Elicia's comments about Melibea in Act IX? Is this mere jealousy or is something more going on here? (Or, you can comment about this entire scene within Celestina's house -- what does this scene reveal about this house and what occurs here?)

Areusa and Elicia don't say very nice things about Melibea during lunch. In fact, Elicia says: "Well, if she's lovely, then I'll be damned. She hasn't got anything at all lovely about her to look at - except to someone with diseased eyes ... She only has the sort of beauty you buy at a shop ... If she looks pretty it's because of the fine ornaments and all the make-up she puts on." Through a strong use of language, Elicia states that Melibea is no naturally stunning beauty, but, at least in terms of appearance, certainly knows how to use her wealth to her advantage. This could be seen as jealousy, but it's also a statement about social class and money. Of course upper-class women who don't need to work for a living and who have at their fingertips the funds for nice clothing, jewelry, and cosmetics will be able to look nicer than a lower class of women.

Areusa's comments reflect similar ideas of jealousy and class differences. And Areusa starts in on Melibea's body, it's downright cruel: "God's my witness, if you had ever seen her before you had breakfast, you would get so sick at your stomach you couldn't eat all day long ... Really, for a young girl, she has breasts as big as if she had had three babies already. They look just like two big gourds. I never saw her belly, but judging from the rest of her it must be as flabby as an old woman's of fifty." Both Areusa and Elicia's association of sickness with appreciating Melibea's beauty imply that it can't actually be that bad - between their disgust and Calisto's admiration, I am led to believe that both sides are exaggerated. Furthermore, Areusa's revulsion at Melibea's breasts and stomach reflect, surprisingly, a very contemporary idealized female body image: slender and streamlined. Considering that medieval women were most valued as baby factories, it is rather odd that Areusa would so hatefully deride these motherly elements of Melibea's anatomy. It could be that Areusa, a lower-class woman who is already pregnant, knows that having a child will incur financial difficulties and probably prevent her from working when she is about to have another mouth to feed. Furthermore, in her field, it is unlikely that she will be able to count on a husband to help support the baby. So it's likely that Areusa's comments spring from jealousy not of Melibea's looks or wealth but from Melibea's likeliness to achieve security in life. After all, Melibea, as an upper-class woman, will eventually be encouraged to produce legitimate heirs, receive care throughout her pregnancies, and be honored as a mother - all events that most women would love to experience, but that the lower classes may not have the means to reach.

Celestina Day 2

1. At the end of Act III we see Celestina preparing her thread with a potion for Melibea. How do we see her lack of confidence? What do you make of this?

I don't see a lack of confidence here; in fact, I see overconfidence. The lack of confidence comes afterwards. But first, she threatens the god Pluto, "Lord of the Infernal Regions Subterraneous, Emperor of the Court of the Damned [and so on]," that if he doesn't do her bidding, she will "savagely accuse [him] of continual deceptions; and [she] will with harshest words squeeze out [his] name for all the world to hear." Wow! So this old whore with peeling makeup is going to battle a bona fide god if things don't go her way? If this isn't a prime example of an overestimation of one's own powers and skills, I don't know what is.

Some might say that in this passage, Celestina's threats are idle and empty. Perhaps she is just saying these things to boost her own ego. But I think she is a little off her rocker, and that she means what she says. Also, she has played enough tricks in her lifetime to expect this one to work. As Celestina gets the prep work done, I believe that she is not lacking in confidence but that she is simply doing a thorough job, one that she feels will ultimately procure the correct result.

It is only after she comes down from the high of magic-making that the doubts start to set in. I have to say that, for Celestina's worldly character, this sudden self-doubt comes as a surprise after such powerful exclamations previously. What I think is that this self-doubt serves a dramatic purpose: of creating a fear in the audience (or readers, as the case may be) that Melibea and Calisto won't work out. Of course, in the end they won't, and so Celestina's fear is a kind of foreshadowing of the very end of the play, when things are bound to fall apart. But in the meantime, things have to get better before they can get worse, and so I think that Celestina's dread here simply serves the purpose of creating rising dramatic tension and establishing dramatic irony.

trick or treat?

The stories from these two days deal with trickery (not a new topic in the Decameron).
I'd like you to write your own questions for two of the tales and then answer them, keeping in mind the notion of trickery (for instance -- Why do you think it is such a common theme running throughout these 100 stories? What is it to trick, to be decieved, to 'succeed' at trickery, etc.?).

What comes of trickery - good or bad?

This question can apply to any of the tales, but I'll apply it to Day 8, Story 3, where Calandrino goes along picking up black rocks that he thinks will make him invisible. His companions (certainly not friends) Buffalmacco and Bruno think to have a good time playing around with Calandrino, but what of his poor wife? At the climax of the tale, Calandrino takes out his pointless anger on her: "Running in a fury at his wife, he laid hold of her by the hair and throwing her down at his feet, cuffed and kicked he in every part as long as he could wag his arms and legs, without leaving her a hair on her head or a bone in her body that was not beaten to a mash, nor did it avail her aught to cry him mercy with clasped hands." What a horrible description of domestic abuse! How graphic (and how interesting that it is told by a female narrator)! There is no way around it: this is a really brutal beating for no good reason. It is utterly stupid of Calandrino to take out his own anger on his faultless wife, but to me, it is just as bad that Buffalmacco and Bruno paid no regard to the potential side effects of their prank.

This bit of trickery did not end well - it ended with a bloody act of violence against an innocent bystander. In the Decameron, many tales involving trickery pan out for the best. But although his particular tale does "work out" because everyone is reconciled at the end, the conclusion seems superficial and unsatisfying. For me, a tale that involves real physical damage to an innocent party taints the dubious element of "fun" in a deception. The moral of the story, I think, is that deceiving a fool is as good as indiscriminately taking an axe to everyone around him. An unstable person, faced with false information, will yield unpredictable results ... so remember, if you must trick, trick with care.

The Decameron Continues!

1. story 3.3: How does the maiden communicate with the man she desires? What can be said about the friar? Explain and use examples from the text.

The maiden, who goes unnamed, communicates with her crush through the gullible friar. She uses reverse psychology to make what she wants to happen actually happen. It's like witchcraft! By complaining to the friar that his friend had been harassing her, she actually got the friar to plant the idea in his friend's head. Even more importantly, she lets it become known that any potential advances from him would be both welcomed and reciprocated.

This text shows that the friar means well, but that he is not conniving enough to realize that he is being duped. Just as an over-the-hill prostitute thrives on caked-on makeup, so does the Decameron (as we know well by now) delight in painting the Church the color of lust and sin. But this tale is different. In showing the friar as naive and innocent, the Decameron still points out a flaw of the Church - but one of over-piety and a debilitating lack of worldliness. In many ways, this friar is just like the friar who, in the very first story of the Decameron, declared "Master Ciappelletto ... a saint." Taking what is said at face value, these two friars believe that what people say is what they mean - in essence, that speech is synonymous with truth. However, as the Decameron shows us time and time again, this is woefully far from the way things are. These friars need to poke their heads out of their confession booths and realize that the big, bad world out there is real un-pretty.

3. story 3.9: In beginning Beltramo didn't want anything to do with Giletta. How does his love for her in the end define how women were viewed? How does this compare to other strained relationships in the Decameron?

In the end, Giletta conforms to the role that society has set out for her: that of being a mother. It is only in this guise as a baby-making machine that Beltramo accepts her. Before, when she was defined by how she broke society's rules of conduct, Beltramo refused to see in her a suitable match. Imagine him marrying a lowly physician's daughter - and even more so, one who goes out on her own and does things like heal the king! The horror of a working woman! Granted, this was a lot more uncommon (and disreputable) back in the Middle Ages. It is not only her comparatively low social status but her threatening individuality and intelligence that drives away the man she loves. At the end of the tale, when she comes to him literally on her knees, dressed in ugly pilgrim garb, pleading her case desperately, that he will even listen. By losing everything that set her apart, she gets the guy.

It seems like Beltramo is a man who likes his woman beneath him, and there is no doubt that her strict adherence to his "ring and children" rule only emphasizes the male power in a marriage. By fulfilling the impossible-sounding standards he set out, Giletta does not impress on her husband how amazing she really is, but how much of a dishrag she is. I wish she could have just laid down the law to him and made him be with her! Now that would take a really strong woman. But by making pigs fly, Giletta shows that she is quite capable ... but only of following society's rules.

The Decameron, Days Two and Three

5. Story 3.1: In story 2.7 we read about a ‘mute’ woman who does not speak because nobody speaks her language. Here we read a story about a ‘mute’ man in a convent. What are the differences / similarities here? How do you read this ‘muteness’? How might this play into a politics of gender, power, etc. that may or may not be related to speech? Use specific examples from the story to support your analysis.

Whereas Alatiel is "mute" because of a situation over which she has no control - an act of God that leaves her shipwrecked in a strange land - Masetto chooses to be mute for his own advantage. Both main characters end up having a whole lot of sex, but Alatial, again, is a more passive participant whereas Masetto's whole goal in going to the convent is to have intercourse with the nuns. Alatiel, as a woman, is seen as helpless because of her inability to communicate with those around her. Masetto, however, a brawny male figure, uses false muteness as an end to a means. For him, muteness is not a disability but rather a tool. "The place is far hence and none knoweth me there," says Masetto. "I can but make a show of being dumb, [and] I shall for certain be received there." He consciously chooses to be mute because he knows he can get away with the disguise and also because it will give the nuns a sense that their secrets are safe with him. It's like having cake and eating it too! Masetto understands, in a crude way, that language used for effective communication will undermine his master plan. He has nothing without having secrecy on his side. So, by essentially removing the ability to use language to communicate the latest in nunnery newsflashes, he plays up how powerful speech can truly be.

Alatiel, on the other hand, wants to use speech to communicate with those around her, but cannot. After being shipwrecked, she and her ladies try to explain their situation to the first men to rescue them, but "perceiving that he understood them not nor they him, they made shift to make known to him their misadventure by signs." Signs might get the job done, but they don't give the same full and wholesome sense of understanding that language does. Later in the tale, when Alatiel meets up with Antiochus, it is his comprehension of her language that makes him so attractive to her. After all, he is conventionally the least attractive of her bevy of mates: he is old ("a man in years") and low-status (he is a servant to Osbech). I imagine that his back would give out if he tried to sweep her off her feet. Nevertheless, the wheels of love are greased because Antiochus is "urged by love and know[s] her tongue (the which was mighty agreeable to her, as well as it might be to one whom it had behoved for some years live as if she were deaf and dumb, for that she understood none neither was underst[oo]d of anyway)." For Alatiel, initially a chaste and honorable woman, her inability to communicate conventionally (i.e. through speech) with those around her forces her to find other ways to communicate: namely, through sex.

The Decameron!

I would like you to choose one quotation that interests you from three different stories. Why does this draw your interest? How do you "read" this quotation (the "analysis" or "interpretation" question)? What does this quotation have to say about themes within the tale? About the tale as a whole?

Day 1, Story 2: Abraham the Jew, at the instigation of Jehannot de Chevigne, goeth to the court of Rome ...

The theme of this tale is to show how God's continued goodwill towards those who sin repeatedly serves to strongly reinforce his benevolence. Because one might logically expect God to rain down punishments on bad boys and girls, the fact that he doesn't goes to show just how "benign" he is. When Abraham returns from his trip to Rome, where he saw that all the Papal clergy behaved in ways totally unsuitable to their stations, he states that nonetheless that "your religion [Christianity] continually increaseth and waxeth still brighter and more glorious," so "meseemeth I manifestly discern that the Holy Spirit is verily the foundation and support thereof, as of that which is true and holy over any other." This seems to me such an ironic thing to say. Why abandon your religion because another one is more corrupt? It would be illogical to do so. However, when Abraham argues his point - that a religion so corrupt at its core can still maintain a geographically impressive hold on so many pious citizens - I had to admit that he had a point.

But as a Jew myself, I still would have been happier if he didn't convert. It's funny to me that this little fable almost corrupts the Jewish commandment to study Torah. The idea of "Talmud Torah" (studying the teachings of the Torah) is not just to study the stories, but to debate and discuss them in order to truly understand what happened, why, and how to apply those moral lessons to your own life. It's ironic that Abraham uses this intrinsically ethical and logical principle of Talmud Torah in order to basically abandon the roots of this way of thinking - and in doing so, he is showing his Jewish-ness more than ever (although in a flawed way, because he's taking the logical argument too far). He's using the tools of one ideology to sway himself in the direction of another ideology. It's like getting from one tree to the next by climbing from one branch to the next, until the branches intertwine and you are no longer in the tree where you started - but how would you have gotten to the second tree without the support from the branches of the first?

Within the tale, Abraham's conversion is meant to show how that despite the Papacy's terrible reputation, God's benevolence on the Vatican's sinners allows them to still make a positive impression on a good man, and ultimately convert him to their cause. However, I also believe that Abraham's conversion is meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Because the Church is shown in such an ugly light not only in this tale but throughout the entire Decameron, readers are not supposed to feel that Abraham is better off Christian. Rather, they might get a chuckle out of his twisted logical arguments. So in the end, could it be that Abraham - who is not a sinner except by dint of his religion - gets the short end of the stick because God is busy giving a break to those who sin more than him?

Day 2, Story 3: Three young men squander their substance and become poor; but a nephew of theirs ...

On day two, the seven ladies and three men tell stories of wild success despite difficult burdens. Pampinea goes further with this story to show the important role of luck in making this transition from threadbare to throned. But it seems to me that fortune's whims, however benevolent they may turn out to be, still manifest themselves initially in this story through sinful lust and misleading disguise. During the course of the trip from England to Rome, the abbot "called to Alessandro in a low voice and bade him come couch with him. Alessandro, after many excuses, put off his clothes and laid himself beside the abbot, who put his hand on his breast and fell to touching him no otherwise than amorous damsels use to do with their lovers; whereat Alessandro marvelled exceedingly and misdoubted him the abbot was moved by unnatural love to handle him on that wise." Eventually the abbot strips down to show that he is actually a she, with nice perky breasts to show for it. How could such standard no-no's as lust, sodomy, and concealment of true identity be the very elements that ultimately lead Alessandro to glory?

It seems to me that the theme of sight (and the lack thereof) within this tale - the three brothers eyes being opened by poverty and, conversely, their obliviousness to finances when they are in wealth; seeing the abbot's true identity versus not knowing who she is - all go to show that luck is blind, and so the decisions that might seem so bad are actually the ones that will pay off for the better. After all, isn't Lady Fortune traditionally depicted with a blindfold on?