Decameron day 5

8.8 Passion is celebrated at the end of this story, almost in a comical way. Both of the people in the couples end up having relations with each other’s husband/wife. This is extremely comical in nature, as everyone in the relationships has cheated on each other. At the end they decide that they should embrace their fiery passions by being able to express love to each other. The story ends with funny line saying that from that day on both the wives had two husbands, and the husbands both had two wives. The couples find out about their infidelity, and just decide that they should just live all together, continuing their combined love.

7.3 Desire, and lust within it, drives all the main characters actions during this story. Everything that he does through the story is only to achieve his desire of being with a woman who was married. He goes as far as to befriend the father just to ask to be the godchild of the wife’s unborn child. After he gains the trust of the husband, he furthers achieves his desire of becoming a friar just so he could get close with the wife and force his love onto her.

All About My Mother

4. I think this film makes a very profound statement about women, love, and their varying forms and identities. Throughout the film there is a constant skew of accepted or general gender roles. Each woman in the story takes a very existentialist approach to their life in a way. Lola and Agrado, whom both identified as women, though were transgendered. Lola actually goes on to father two different children, and even remain married to Manuela. Manuela takes on a very dominate yet gentle role, sheltering Rosa; raising Rosa’s child, and her own; and constantly flees from the many difficult situations, to do what is right. Even Huma breaks the typical roles, as an older woman who is having relations with another woman. Finally Rosa represents a very interesting character. A woman who helps the prostitutes, is a nun, and ends up having a relation with another woman, who fathered her child. I think this entire story skews the black and white views people have about sexuality to push people to understand that this are not polarized, and love is ambiguous.

5. I believe the mother in the film is all of the collective women who tie together to create a living story of love, loss, and finding happiness. Each one gives to the situation a certain charm and elegance that continues to refine the story and further tie people together. The speaker of the title in my opinion is Manuela’s son Estaban, who almost narrates how him own father, Lola, brings people together in this extremely unconventional story.

Decameron #4

5.8 This story shows an interesting perspective of power that is unused in any other story. I believe that rather than any single gender holding the power, it is mutual and equal. Both parties seem to suffer from their actions which I believe prevent a hold of power. Both the man and the woman battle for the power, but there are key points in the story which point to the woman holding the power. Firstly, the man kills himself, which can be considered as a feminine action. Although I don’t see a huge hold of power by either gender in this story, the woman may be considered to be the major power holder in the relation.

6.10 Cipolla uses his wit to escape a difficult situation. He uses a response which can be understood in two different ways. The people who hear this initially understand it literally, which they take it ask a joke, but after Cipolla escapes, they realize that he in fact had given them a severe insult.

Decameron #2

2.7: In this story woman are treated as nothing more than a prize or trophy to won by men, who in turn completely determine and rule the women’s lives. We see this idea in the text as the daughter is continuously passed through the hands of many different men, almost like a piece of property as opposed to a real person.

Women in this story are given the image of frail and unknowing, needing a man’s guidance in making any of the most trivial decisions. I think this story, even though it is overwhelmingly masculine, has a feminine undertone to it, criticizing the machismo society that they live in.

2.9 This story is almost comical in the gender switching nature of it, and this is not the first story of the Decameron that we see this in. The young wife in the story adopts the outward look of a young male, going as far as to cut her hair and take on a life style like a sailor. She continues to pass off as a man, skewing the line of gender in this time.

I think this idea of gender swapping something very important, seeing as it is returning for another story in the book. As a male she is actually able to learn about the deception of what went on and find her own justice. I think this may be showing how people based intelligence strictly off gender, and when they were presented with someone who “appeared male” they trusted the person, and allowed them to do more than any female.

The Decameron blog 1

“I have committed so many offences against God during my lifetime, committing one more against him now will make no difference”

I find this quote to be almost evilly genius. With this being said, Ser sets the stage for how he plans to outwit the friar and gain his reconciliation. I think how he fools the holy man, and several other of his crimes prove to how the people of this era were so convinced that the sheer fear of god would prevent any crimes or false witness. Ser takes this as a challenge and  takes advantage of the faith, and fear, of the other people. I feel like this story almost criticizes the idea of blind followship.

“…I saw there no holiness, no devotion, no good work or exemplary life, or anything else among the clergy…”

This quote is very interesting, pointing out the extreme flaws and corruption of the roman Christians of the time, yet the jew still ends up converting. I think that interpretation is kind of comical, the jew decided that because Christianity has been able to spread so well, even with the extreme corruption, must mean that it is the true word of god. This story both criticizes and defends Christianity, almost like a passive aggressive attack, pointing out how Christianity won the convert, but lost with integrity.

“… and when they discovered the rings were so much alike that they could not recognize the true one,  they put aside the question of who the true heir was and left it undecided…”

In this quote in the story about the merchant, the merchant was able to cease the fighting between his children about the true heir by almost eliminating the ability to discern the truth. Of course, this applies to the main theme of the story with “which religion is true,” but in this story, rather than an attack on any specific religion, we get a feeling of tolerance and acceptance of all beliefs. I think this story points out that no matter what a person believes with religion, all theories are the same, based off a common idea, and it is impossible to tell which is true.

Talk to Her

There seems to a prevalent relation in the film between the ongoing story line and the familiar fairytale Sleeping Beauty. Alicia and Benigno represent the classic Sleeping beauty and Prince Charming throughout the movie. Alicia is in a mysterious “sleep” and the only person to come for her to save her from it is her prince Benigno. He awakens her with his “kiss” which happens to be getter her pregnant and her having the baby.

Following what was previously stated, I find something very interesting presented in the movie, one line that is said by Marco. When asked by the landlord about Benigno, all Marco says is that he is innocent. Marco is saying that Benigno is innocent of rape, because he sees that the way the “relation” between Alicia and Benigno was. Benigno felt that him and Alicia had a relation, one with communication and mutual love. His “rape” was an act of love to Alicia, not violence, or abuse. It is interesting to see how Marco realized this during the film and was willing to claim Benigno’s innocence.

Run Lola Run

The film Run Lola Run was a very interesting premise of a woman who seeks to save her criminal boy friend from being killed by a crime boss. Gender roles play a couple interesting roles in this movie, especially in Lola family. A typical patriarchal family is represented in Lola’s family because her father is the only one who works, yet the movie continuously works against this gender role. Lola spends the entire movie saving her boy friend, rather than him saving her. This also ties into the fairy tale aspect of the film. The movie presents itself with a “damsel in distress theme”, with Lola as the prince and Manni as the damsel, Lola actually has to save Manni. Several times throughout the movie, the guard at the bank also makes comments about Lola being a “princess”, this in combination with the game/quest that is going on reminds me of the knight stories were the knight needs to run to the immediate aid of a “fair young maiden”