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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 6 page essay that presents two tales from Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. The writer focuses on two stories told by Pampinea, one of the women sojourners, and argues that these tales represent views of sex and gender that differed radically from the conventions of that time. No other sources cited.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khpamdec.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
Chaucers pilgrims, Boccaccio pictures a group of travelers who entertain one another via storytelling. While this was a society that strictly controlled sexuality and subjugated women to male authority in
all things, one of the travelers, Pampinea is a woman of very independent mind. By looking specifically at the stories that she relates on day two (novel 3) and day
three (novel 2) of the journey, one can see that Pampinea utilized her opportunity at storytelling to relate tales that questioned both the gender assumptions of that era and
the manner in which sex should be regarded. Pampinea begins her story on the second day of the journey by relating that a knight by the name of Tedaldo,
who was quite wealthy and left his three son a considerable fortune. However, the sons were not prudent with their inheritance and spent money freely. They "indulged every desire, maintaining
a great establishment, and a large and well-filled stable" (Boccaccio, 2001). Pampinea goes into elaborate detail in conveying how they squandered nearly all of their fathers wealth before "poverty opened
the eyes which wealth had fast sealed" (Boccaccio, 2001). Realizing that they were on the brink of destitution, the brothers unceremoniously packed their belonging, and exited Florence for England, where
they established themselves in a small house in London. Pampinea then relates how the brothers scrimped and saved and started rebuilding their fortunes. Through frugal living and then lending money
at exorbitant rates, the brothers prospered. When their fortunes improved, they returned to Italy and, one by one, purchased some of their formers estates, and others as well. The
brothers married. However, Pampinea soon makes it clear that the brothers did not learn a lesson from their former bankruptcy. They were all three "heedless...of the teaching of experience and
...