In the text for day two: story six the author expresses humanity as something easily torn or broken. This essence of our life although resilient at times, can often be fragile. In the actual story we see several character’s humanity shattered or depraved by tragedy and ill fortune. The mother, Beritola, loses her entire family and becomes stranded on an island. Her humanity becomes so diminished and broken that soon her grips on her own self slip, and she becomes this ‘wild-woman’ feeding with the animals. We see a woman so devoid of human contact and a self of sense that she demotes her life to the wilderness and the will of fate even so far as to reject a lord’s offer to rescue her. The story conveys the effects of when our humanity is deprived and/or destroyed; we become empty shells of our former selves, lessened to primitive and primeval instinct.
During day two: story seven the story cultivates a stereotypical idea of woman and beauty. The seventh story introduced us to a woman trapped in golden bindings from none other than her God-given beauty and the inability to speak. The text describes how the beauty of Alatiel to be both a curse and a blessing. Although this grand attractiveness provides her with a means to survive after nearly dying at sea and further, she still lives a life imprisoned almost amongst these admiring men. These men lust for her on a daily basis it seems and she utilizes this for not only her own pleasures but to obtain what she desires.
The text portrays lust as something dangerously volatile and cause for destruction. This lust goes hand in hand with desire, which leads many men to their deaths in the text. The beauty of Alatiel plays the role of Death and misfortune in this story as it leads brother against brother and even nations against nation. These events might imply to a wider audience the evils generated from woman or more specifically the woe drawn from the sins of lust and desire.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment