1. To understand Shahrayar’s madness, one must have lived during this time period where there was great male dominance. Does Shahrayar’s murders made sense to me? Well, personally I would never do this if I ever got cheated on. Obviously, Shahrayar’s tremendous male ego was the reason he could commit murder after murder just to protect himself from being cheated on again. He would rather kill his wives after the first night than give his wives enough time to cheat on him. Shahrayar was making everybody else pay for something that his first wife did to him. Male ego’s in mocho societies could be frail but in this case I believe Shahrayar went to the absolute extreme.
2. In the story of the Merchant and His Wife, it is thought that the merchant’s wife is in control when the merchant overhears the dog and the rooster it reminds him that being the man you have much more physical power than a women. In a sense, the man should be the one with power telling the wife what to do. In The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey, this story is about trying to save someone when the real thing that happens is that they steal their position. This can happen in a lot of situations in life, whether it is in the workplace or on a sports team, or pretty much anything where there are more than one position higher and lower. The Merchant and the Demon is relevant to that of the Merchant and his Wife, where the demon has all the control over the merchant.
3. In this story, Dante creates an imaginative correlation between a soul’s sin on Earth and the punishment he or she receives in Hell. The Sullen choke on mud, the Wrathful attack one another, the Gluttonous are forced to eat excrement, homosexuals must endure an eternity of walking on hot sand, and those who charge interest on loans sit beneath a rain of fire. This provides many of Inferno’s moments of spectacular imagery and symbolic power, but also serves to shine light on one of Dante’s major themes and the perfection of God’s justice. This texts states the infinite wisdom of divine justice. The punishment in the story is perfectly given due to the sin that they have committed. I believe that is that is the right answer to this question.
I agree with you in that it was his male ego, but that he really went to the extremes. Although, it was a different time, in which male dominance was preached. I like the answer of the Dante’s question, in that it is a symbol of God’s justice, definitely. Good job.
I agree about his ego and him going overboard and murdering the women was his way of taking control of the situation so that he could no longer be treated like that,