3. Story 2.7: What do you think this story has to say about femininity? Gender? Desire? Lust? What might the message be for a wider audience? Use specific examples from the story to support your analysis.
This story takes the cultural standard that chastity is a normative feminine trait and turns it on its head. Traditionally, men are depicted as the aggressors, the sensual predators, or at the very least the sexually accepted gender. Women, we are told, are shy, sexually fearful, and the object of desire more so than the subject. However, in this story, the sexual dialogue is described as more of a game between the sexes. Initially, neither the nuns nor the peasant are overtly sexual towards each other, it is in fact the peasant's trick that allows for the 'dialogue' to occur. What allows the otherwise sexually frigid or oppressed nuns the ability of sensual thought it the peasant's 'inability' to speak or hear. Their route into sensuality is through a conduit that physically cannot pass on his own account of the story or, potentially, even understand enough to. In that aspect, this story portrays the stigma that sexual women have to bear in a patriarchal society. Ultimately, this sexual freedom, although certainly scorned by the Church, gives nothing but rewards for the peasant and the convent, which Bocaccio perhaps intended for us to read positively. Therefore I would say Bocaccio is suggesting to the general reader the importance of a certain lightness of attitude towards sex as well as the dismissal of the grave religious associations tied into sex.
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.
The educative process that Andreuccio undergoes is the most basic learning which all of us undergo. He learns from his mistakes and alters his behavior in future situations that resemble previous missed opportunities. With that being said, naturally we should find repetition in the text if it is to be supported. We do, a number of times, primarily with the image of Andreuccio falling from the primary action of the plot and being trapped in a space where he is unable to interact with other characters. This imagery connotes inferiority, deception, and gullibility and is representative of Andreuccio's character throughout the story. There is a definite progression, however, and not every of these "falls" are described the same way. The first fall, in which Andreuccio falls into a public toilet, is the most foul and pitiful of the falls. This fall follows his asinine bragging with his gold florins in the public market, and his subsequent gullibility in falling for the girl and being ignorant of the disrepute of a place with a name of "Evilhole", which perhaps represents a certain karmic retribution for his character flaws. Andreuccio reacts to this fall like a child, shouting and bashing at the door of his deceiver until he is threatened with death and must flee from the mafioso. Andreuccio's second fall lands him abandoned at the bottom of a well. At first it seems his foolishness is to blame again for allowing himself to be lowered into a well by two strangers, but he is being lowered to be cleansed. This cleansing can be read as a kind of education. For when he is stuck in the bottom of this well, instead of reacting as he did in the first fall, he remains silent while two police hoist him up. If he had spoken like he had in the beginning he certainly would have been suspected of something and perhaps arrested, but instead he grasps the edge of the well as he is being pulled and the police run in fear, he is rejoined with his friends, and continues on. The final fall in this vignette is his fall into the cardinal's tomb. He acts foolishly, again! His companions drop him into the tomb and they end up leaving him there just as they did in the well. Using his knowledge from his previous experiences, he doesn't shout, as he realizes this will get him hanged, and instead waits. Finally other grave robbers come, and he uses his knowledge from the well to instill fear in them. Ultimately his actions gain him great wealth, which can serve as a metaphor for a wider audience to act with guile and learn from your mistakes instead of being over trusting and getting yourself harmfully tricked.
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