Discussion Questions 9 — De France; Decameron
- The Tenth Story of the Tenth Day: Why is Griselda being tested?
Griselda was being tested to truly see her loyalty as a wife. Gualtieri pretends to divorce her and pretends to kill their children and even pretends to have a new wife come into their home just to test her loyalty. Griselda was passive through the whole thing and Gualtieri gives up and admits to Griselda that he was pretending the whole time.
2. Compare the frame tales in the Decameron, and The Thousand and One Nights. In each case, what is the reason for telling stories? Do the stories accomplish the purpose for which they are intended? How important is the relationship between the tale and the teller?
In the Decameron the stories are being told to help them forget about the plague that has been brought down on them. In The Thousand and One Nights, the stories are also being told to help someone ignore or forget an impending death. The stories in The Thousand and One Nights were being directed towards Shahrayar and putting off and distracting him killing Shahrazad just like in the Decameron where the stories were just that, a distraction.
3. In Laustic, what does the nightingale symbolize? Explain your answer.
In Laustic birds represent joy and hope, the married wife uses a nightingale to send out messages to her loved one. What I took from this was that she didn’t find Joy in her current loved one and was unhappy, because nightingales usually represent yearning and pain.
I agree it seems the wife in Laustic was not happy in her current marriage. To me it was truly a sad symbol to send the dead nightingale to her lover. As if the love she did have died as well and brings more yearning and pain.