I believe that the demon directly translates to the type of person everyone viewed King Shahrayar after he became vengeful to every woman he slept with. In The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon, the demon becomes hell-bent on putting to death whoever releases him from the jar emplaced at the bottom of the sea. This type of vengeance which the demon displays to the person who frees him is totally irrational because it is completely detached from the motive of King Solomon to put him in it in the first place. Also, this vengeance is very similar to the type of vengeance King Shahrayar had conducted on a daily basis toward each of his new wives, for they were in no way responsible for his former cheating wife’s behavior.

The fisherman was persistent in stating to the demon, “Forgive me, and God will grant you forgiveness. Destroy me, and God will inflict on you one who will destroy you” (35). This is one message that Shahrazad wanted to firmly cement into King Shahrayar’s conscience. The way the fisherman used his cunning to trap the demon back into the bottle was very similar to the continuous stories which gripped the King’s interest every night and kept Shahrazad alive for one more day. Despite the fisherman’s fears and better judgment, he elects to stick to his logic of forgive and be granted forgiveness in the end rather than pushing the demon back into the sea. For I believe he felt this was better than having to stand guard over the sea for the rest of his days in order to prevent another fisherman from potentially releasing this awful demon. This is very similar to  the rational for Shahrazad wanting to take the King as her husband in the first place – for she ultimately wanted to prevent another women being put to death after a night in the King’s bed. Much to the fisherman’s surprise, the demon did not kill him when he released him a second time. This led to another set of tales that ultimately led to another king being released from a terrible fortune imposed on him by his evil wife, which in turn led to a whole community of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Magians being released from the sea and delivered back to their former lives.

So ultimately, the stories which begin on The Eighth Night and end on the Twenty-Seventh Night have to deal with morality and salvation. And the overall relevant theme is that no matter what someone does to you, it does not justify the conduct of immoral behavior toward someone else when they bear no responsibility for the other persons transgressions.

1) I believe the stolen beef and then the Jell-O back at her pueblo at the end of the story signify the present state of existence of the woman as the “Yellow Woman” and then her normal persona. After she parted ways with Silva, she kicked the horse loose near the river and watched him disappear in the distance with the sacks of stolen meat swinging back and forth. The fact that she was also essentially stolen from her normal world by the ka’tsina bears significance here, for as the stolen meat goes, so does the Yellow Woman. She returns to her home and her normal family which is busy preparing the Jell-O upon her return.

2) Based on Arab-Islamic culture, the Al-Fargani father was a part of a world that was driven by male power brokers and had no real place for women outside the household. In this culture a man cannot live after his honor has been removed because no man will respect him. In this type of culture, it is regular practice to put one’s daughter or sister to death when she has been with another man outside of marriage. Her father tried to warn Leila beforehand that it was not her place to enter politics for these reasons but he was unable to sway her. It appears as though the whole stigma of the situation had gotten the better of him, and he was not able to take a power stance against the situation in order to attempt to bring about change.

3) What I believe is meant here is that the senator felt vulnerable as his death was slowly nearing. As he was forced to deal with this all-too-real reality, he became struck by the beauty of Laura Farina and resolved to embrace her love. This would prove to be at the cost of his own political reputation which became tarnished upon the revelation of his affair with her. But he cared more for her than he did about this reputation. The irony of the senator’s death is that he was not able to leave behind a name that was rendered in keepsake with the people because of the affair, and despite his indulgence he was not any less prone to his impending death.

1) Gregor seemed to only be close to his sister. While his mother appeared to also love her son, the fact that she was physically frail prevented her from being as close to her son as she might have been, particularly after his transformation. After Gregor showed his family that he was no longer human (and no longer fit to work either), his father brandished a cane and a newspaper and used them to force Gregor back into his room. Afterwards, when Gregor caused his mother to have a serious health concern related to a shocking gesture he made towards her, father attacked Gregor with the apples. This attack in return nearly led to Gregor’s own demise. Later, as the story goes on, Gregor is no longer cared for as he once was by his sister and he begins to stop eating as a result of his neglect. In the end, Gregor is holding his family back from being prosperous and the whole family clearly looks upon him as a burden. When this has become abundantly clear, Gregor dies and the family is relieved to be able to go on living a normal life again.

2) When Gregor first revealed himself after his transformation, he was surprised to see his weak and inhibited father standing before him with such authority as to poke and prod him back into the room. Gregor’s inability to work and provide put the responsibility on his father to again work. I really see this as the central theme throughout the book. My reasoning is that prior to the industrial revolution, the patriarchal figure within the family was probably the one with the most authority and prestige within the family. As Gregor, the son, became the central breadwinner of the family when he began to work and support the family, his father was relegated to an almost expired existence in which he could barely muster himself out of bed. As Gregor is no longer working and bringing home the bacon, his father again becomes the pivotal figure within the household and Gregor is resorted to being the invalid. This is of course the other metamorphoses of the story.

3) I believe Requiem as a political protest was quite effective, albeit the fact that it was not published until much later after the worst of Josef Stalin’s purges were over and new political leadership took hold. Part of the problem I believe with the purges, and any society which has dealt with a treacherous leader in its past, is that people need the passage of time before they can again feel like it is safe to protest against their oppression. As ferocious as Stalin’s purges were, society was left in a state of terror and shock for at least a generation. When Akhamotova’s message began to spread without repercussions, the effect must have been one to open up old wounds of people who have suffered dearly. All many people were left with questions, to which they naturally sought answers. Afterwards, people would expect actions to be taken to ensure that nothing like a murderous, tyrannical dictator and a system of terror could never happen again. In the case of the former Soviet Union, as quality of life began to suffer under a bankrupt system, and all these emotions described above became fully manifest, permanent reform came into being under the leadership of Gorbachev. The fact that this leader came about, as opposed to another one like Stalin, in my opinion can be directly attributed to Akhmatova and others just like her that were driven to no longer accept poor and unfortunate circumstances the rest of their lives.

4) I would interpret the underlying meaning to be one of deep reverence for the glory which was so emblematic of the ordinary life in ancient Greco-Roman times, where all of the gods and men under Zeus thrived. It is a nostalgic reference, probably even a Neo-Romanticism boast. In this context, the meaning of the phrase “You must change your life,” quite literally means that either an individual or society can benefit from big ideas and change.

1) I am inclined to believe that Felicite can be grouped as both a saint and a simple-minded servant. If I were to lean one way or the other, I would probably say Felicite was more of a simple-minded servant. But at the same time, I would venture to say that a saint would probably be more effective in their beliefs and in their actions if they were also simple-minded and not so much curious about thoughts or experiences outside the realm of devout holiness. Felicite did not appear to have a whole lot going for her at an early age, and this shaped her thinking. As a result, Felicite hung on to whatever it was she had been given. Felicite became Mme. Aubain’s servant and clung to that as a means of survival; she also clung to Virginie, and in her absence clung to Victor until his departure and death. She then clung onto Loulou even after the bird died by having him stuffed.

Felicite was not fortunate in life the way many would ever hope or dream to be. But she somehow had enough to live a life of devotion to Mme. Aubain. Mme. Aubain differed from Felicite of course in that she was widowed mother. She also had a house and was generally well off. It certainly seemed as though Mme. Aubain lacked the power to do much of anything herself. She first let her son go to a boarding school because she belived that would be the proper place for him since he lacked a father, and then later sent off Virginie to a Convent, believing she needed to be made “into an accomplished person” (528). And then she had Felicite do mostly everything around the house. So the key difference between her and Felicite was that Mme. Aubain was a societal figure as well as a mother, while Felicite was a person with great strength and resilience that was vital to ensuring Mme. Aubain could continue to exist as a societal figure and a mother. But what was common to both women is that they were entirely dependent on each other in their daily lives.

2) In Baudelaire’s poems, I primarily see women being looked at as object’s that appeal to men. I especially see this in the Invitation to the Voyage, where it seems that a man’s appeal to a women to embark with him on a journey to a land located at one of the four corners of the Earth would be much more splendid than if he were to go it alone. After this, I have much trouble penetrating the true meaning of his works with regard to women. It seems that he characterizes men with great jubilance when they are young and bold. Later in life, as they come near the end, as in the Song of Autumn I, he depicts man as frail such that “My spirit is like a tower whose crumbling walls The tireless battering-ram brings to the ground” (605). It seems as though both sexes are regarded as virtuous and appealing when they are young, and decrepit and worthless as they become old. Perhaps this is his perception of reality.

3) The key difference is Chidam and Chandara’s devotion to each other was partially superficial. They both were highly desirous people by other potential partners out there. Whenever a life event did not seem to add up in their life and possibly hint of an occurring scandal, they were quick to act out toward each other. In essence, there was a lack of mutual trust between them, and they may have used manipulative psychology in an attempt to keep the other spouse from committing adultery.

After Radha’s murder by her husband, Chidam weighed his love for his wife against that of his brother and decided to implicate his wife in the murder. Although clearly in a bind, Chidam’s love for Chandara wavered. And Chandara never forgave him for this. In the end however, Sita’s love for Rama was unyielding, and she aimed to prove her faithfulness to him despite his perceived callousness toward her. Rama and Sita went on to live a long and happy life together. Chandara of course met her end at the gallows.

4) In Easter 1916, I see a lament being given to all the sacrifices made in a long struggle for Irish Independence. It is said that “Hearts with one purpose alone, Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble a living stream” (851). The hearts with one purpose alone are the figures carrying out the movement for independence, and they conduct their struggle with nonstop pursuit against the British authority, the living stream. But this struggle has its vices; “Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart” (851). Surely there is a better way, for as Easter 1916 goes on, “And what if excess love Bewildered them till they died” (852)? Perhaps this poem was meant to make future revolutionaries think before they act? That would be my interpretation.

1) I did not see any evidence in Tartuffe that would lead me to characterize the work as being anti-religious. I instead would say Tartuffe was a work meant to draw attention to perceived wrongs which occur at the hands of men of the Church. The belief was that unscrupulous individuals of the Church were all too often acting out under their moral presumption to do what is right in the eyes of God, but the result of their actions to the questioning observer appeared to indicate that these actions were related more to self-serving machinations.

My reasoning is apparent because Madam Pernelle and Orgon were two individuals who were totally swept away by Tartuffe’s image of righteousness. The others in the story had apprehensions about Tartuffe, but their beliefs could not sway Orgon or Madam Pernelle until it was almost too late. In the end, Tartuffe got what was coming to him, and everyone in the story grew more aware of the potential for wolves that lurked in sheep’s clothing.

2) I interpret Hugo’s Satan to be one who has fallen into the abyss, and no matter what he has done to try and absolve himself of his actions or transgression, he keeps falling further and deeper, and God’s light keeps setting far off into the distance. He is even depicted as flying towards the light for ten thousand years. This was part out of will, part out of necessity as he had no physical location to stop and perch. This seems to mean that despite one’s actions in life, if that person were not judged to be moral in the afterlife, they will be forever punished for not making better choices while they were alive on Earth.

Hugo’s account seems to revolve around Satan himself, and not around the various worldly figures we saw throughout history that Dante observed suffer eternal damnation in Hell. We never saw the Devil trying to get out of Hell, but rather a steady decent towards him of all who perished to Hell after death, And we saw the Devil placed at the center of Earth, whereas Hugo demonstrated that he could only continue to fall further and further into the abyss.

3) In To Sylvia, we see a narrative directed at the author’s young girl who sadly died at a young age. She brought much joy to the author in her life, and he cannot bring himself to bear with the thought of such a young girl, with all the joy in her eyes in anticipation of life ahead, being robbed essentially before those dreams are fulfilled. In The Village Saturday, the author counsels a young boy of the joy ahead of him as he will soon enter into adolescence and adulthood. The author advices him to not agonize over experiencing every little joy too soon however, as everything will come with time. The message seems to be as if the author almost envies the boy, because he wishes himself he could undertake life’s pleasures all over again. What we see in both of these poems is an embrace of worldly adventures and experiences, and not an emphasis on enjoying what paradise in the afterlife has to offer those who live life righteously in accordance with strict Christian practices.

1) I believe some of what Machiavelli testified to in The Prince, which was based on his own personal observations of great leaders, holds true and likely always will. To demonstrate, I will refer to The Way Princes Should Keep Their Word (1613-1615). Here, Machiavelli claims that “the masses are always impressed by the superficial appearance of things, and by the outcome of an enterprise … [and] the few have no influence when the many feel secure” (1615). In present day politics, this mentality plays itself out all the time. Most people are happy for instance when their current and near-term needs are being met by government. This is why many are not disturbed by significant national debt which each year continues to grow and translate into IOU’s that will one day need to be repaid. People would rather not see their services cut than think about how they are going to deal with them down the road. And many politicians cater to this mentality of short-term gratification because it is what most of the people want. Not many politicians step forward and say that they are willing to run on a platform of cutting spending drastically or significantly raising taxes to pay for the level of services that the public demands. This is an easy way for politicians to avoid big issues and get elected, whereby they receive handsome salaries and perks that many in the public could only dream of.

2) I honestly cannot recall women’s hair being a key topic of discussion in many of the books or stories that I have read. I am going to go out on a educated limb however and speculate that what women’s hair represents is beauty and power. We see all over modern popular culture women who are very powerful, and a significant degree of their power is derived from a female star’s appearance; consistent with most of these stars is long, beautiful hair. If we are to take a part of the world where women notoriously have little or no power outside of the household, we will see also barely any female hair at all. I spent a year of my life in Iraq, and rarely did I ever see a woman who was not concealing all or the majority of her hair underneath traditional garb. And I spent an entire year of my life in Afghanistan without hardly seeing a single Afghan woman at all from the local area.

3) It would appear to me that the flowers which are to be desired are acquired only where the Aztec Warriors go to battle with their enemies. The flowers which are not desired are found only where those that do not seek battle tend to gather. As far as songs, I believe this is the spirit which describes the warrior clad with many of the “good” flowers which have been obtained as booty during prior successful battles.

1) Early on in this story, Dioneo tells the group gathered around him that the Marquis of Saluzzo, Gualtieri, did not wish to take a wife and implied that he was wise for this. It became unfathomable for his followers however to accept this, so at their behest he chose to take a wife of humble upbringing from a neighboring village. This led me to believe that Gualtieri did not have high regard for a woman of the more noble class in his village. After marriage his wife, Griselda, is put through a very difficult time by Gualtieri for a period of some twelve years. Gualtieri had long since given away their two children, and his horrific treatment of Griselda had finally reached the culminating point when he said he planned to divorce her and marry another woman more comparable in stature to himself. Griselda never wavered or showed and visible signs of scorn toward Gualtieri, and accepted whatever he told her or decided on her behalf. In the end, Griselda was in fact being tested by Gualtieri to see if she had what was needed to make him happy. What Gualtieri feared was losing his tranquility which he enjoyed before he was married once he had taken a wife. Griselda showed him however that she was not troublesome in any way for him and would do whatever he asked without bringing on any underlying scandals. In the end, this is what Gualtieri wanted, and he chose to show his people this example as a way for them to look to when choosing a wife.

2)  All I know for sure in comparing the frame tales from The Thousand and One Nights and the Decameron is that the stories are all rather diverse, but seem to all have a quality of being able to “pull” the reader (or listener)in. Also in common is a need in both of these overall stories for the fictional character that tells each of the frame stories to pass time by telling them. Beyond this, I do not really see a real way of “connecting the dots,” so to speak, in the tales which are told and those that tell them. But for the ascribed purposes I have already mentioned, the stories accomplish their goals without question in my opinion.

3)  The nightingale is clearly a symbol of the heart, and in the case of Laustic it represents all that can be obtained by the second knight from his neighbors wife whom he loved, but could no longer stay in touch with. Since this was all that he could keep of her, he put it in a sealed casket and carried it around with him everywhere. Prior to his receiving the nightingale from the neighbors wife, the nightingale was killed by the husband of the wife and thrown at her chest. This left blood, and it is symbolic of her broken heart.

I believe Dante learned on his journey through Hell that people will be held accountable in the afterlife for their actions taken on Earth. Dante learned that one can be banished to Hell in the afterlife for reasons as simple as not becoming baptized to carrying out an act of betrayal of one’s fellow man. The level of punishment one will have to endure in Hell is dependent on the degree of the sin one partakes in, and this corresponds directly with the various circles of Hell. In order to avoid this fate, one should live their lives righteously according to Christian virtues. But what is more important in Inferno is that Dante wishes to relay a message to fellow Italians. This message is that the layers of deceit and unrest, which helped lead to the downfall of ancient Rome and contribute to the more present day (circa, Dante’s lifetime) city-state infighting, stem from excessive wrangling on the part of agenda driven Roman and Italian charlatan’s. Inferno attempts to put leaders and ordinary citizens on notice that continued greed and disunity will lead not only to continued strife, but also eternal damnation. This is evident in the many different Greek era, early Christian era, Roman era, and Italian figures that are of historical significance whom Dante witnesses suffering in Hell.

What I learned personally from reading Inferno is that Dante provided the reader with an in depth portrayal of one man’s vision of Hell. Although there were some sketchy observations about causes which led certain individuals to Hell in the afterlife, I think the message that actions of an individual which serve to harm another individual are wicked and indeed deserving of punishment. But ultimately what I learned after reading the journey is how little I understand about ancient and Italian history emanating from the middle ages. As I tried to examine each minute footnote for greater understanding of who an individual was that Dante observed in Hell, my mind was left with more questions than answers about what it was that I thought about a particular aspect of this reading. All I ultimately know is I have more reading to do on this subject. And if Hell is anything like Dante suggested, it is a really bad place to spend eternity.

1) Shahrayar was under the impression that an act of promiscuous sexual behavior on the part of his wife and slave girls would not happen to someone of his social stature. After not only his wife’s adultery but that of his brothers as well, the two brothers ventured alone in sorrow until they had their encounter with the demons mistress. From her they brothers took away that a woman will do as she pleases in life and there was not anything a man could do to restrain her actions. This was the lead up to Shahrayer’s resolve to have his wife and slave girls killed, and that from that night forward Shahrayar was to sleep with a different women every night and have her killed the next day.

I believe this resolve manifested itself because Sharayer continued to have the desire of a woman in his bed, but he did not wish to experience the pain of her eventual betrayal at a later point. For a king such as Shahrayar, I suppose this makes sense because his rasp on power meant that nothing he ruled or dictated could be challenged. So if his will was to have a woman killed, who or what was there to say he was wrong or should be prevented from doing this? The vizier’s daughter, Shahrazad, seems to have been the answer to this question. For she took it upon herself to skillfully prevent not only herself, but any other woman as well, from being put to death thanks to her own skilled intuition in use to interrupt Shahrayar’s wayward actions.

Finally, male egos in macho societies are frail. But the point is that when left unchecked, either by a more dominant or controlling influence, or in Shahrazad’s case a more passive one, there is not a stop on the emotional reaction to this sort of uncontrolled behavior which reacts to a frayed ego.

2) I see one main difference between the two different tales being told. The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey and The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife seem to tell a story of how men and women are not really working together but are instead divisive toward one another. If you take The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey, and substitute the Ox and the Donkey for opposing gender roles, you see how the one gender acts to work against the other gender at their expense for a personal gain. Then in The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife, we see how a secret held from one spouse leads to the wife elected to having her husband dead rather than not knowing what the secret is. The merchant resolves to control his wife by beating her later, and this works in his favor to resolve the matter. These were both stories told by Shahrazad’s father.

Shahrazad’s long story however of the Merchant and the Demon seems to tell stories that are progressively more strange to the demon than the prior one told. This seems to parallel the story of Sharayer’s wife and his slave girls cheating on him, which was worse than Sharayar’s brothers story of his wife cheating on him. The gist of all of this is that after Sharayar’s brother finds out about his brother’s misfortune, he forgets his troubles and is happy again. After the Demon hears the three Old Man’s tales, he seems to no longer be troubled by the death of his son at the hands of the merchant. With the merchant being saved by the three Old men, he is free to return home to his family who love and miss him. And what Shahrazad might be trying to convey to Sharayar is that it is okay to forget about what his wife did to him so that he may no longer keep slaying every woman that lays in his bed.

3) Absolutely not. In the First Circle of Hell, Virgil describes how all who are there are people who have not sinned, but are there anyhow because they have not been baptized. As he puts it to Dante, “[for] this defect, and for no other guilt, we here are lost,” and that “[Virgil himself is] a member of this group” (1224). Among this group were not only men and women, but infants as well. It is certainly hard in my mind to find an infant deserving of hell because the infant was not baptized. What is also unfortunate is that many dwellers in this region of hell were there since the time before Christ reigned the Earth with his Good News. So this implies that there are people in hell who never even had the chance to become baptized because there was no Christianity to observe while they were alive.

It then become apparent later that many of the inhabitants of the most dark regions of hell are simply there because they were guilty of sodomy. No matter what anyone’s perception of sodomy is in the present day, I am not sure that if sodomy is considered to be a sin that it is worthy of the deepest regions of hell that are in the same neighborhood as those regions observed for murderers.

1) If we were to compare Rama to someone like Achilles, Rama would probably lose to Achilles as far as appeal and glamour goes. If I had to take a crack at the reason why I think this might be, I would say it is due to the fact that people (at least in the U.S.) have an attraction to the type of person or personality that just does not take much maltreatment from others. Achilles is the equivalent of a “Type-A” personality in The Illiad. He was also selfish and emotional by comparison to Rama. Rama, to be considered perfect, had to essentially live his life as being “devoted to truth,” of dharma, and one who strove to “[earn] fame and heaven” by following the will of his father (730-31). Rama’s unquestioning faith however led him without question or disgust to turn down the crown and live in conditions unworthy of a king in the Dandaka forest for a period of fourteen years. In America, acceptance of this turn of events would not earn someone the prestige of heroics; rather, this might lend someone the title of “pushover.” This is especially true in my opinion because the words itself were not conveyed directly to Rama from his father, but rather from queen Kaikeyi and delivered on her whim. But as the story of Rama goes on, it is clear that his prowess in battle is no less than those of Achilles.

We then see in book 2 that Rama is resistant to the wishes of his mother, Kausalya, for him not to go to the forest and stay with her. Rama states that to do so would be inconsistent with dharma, as “[the] commands of the guru, the king, and one’s aged father, whether uttered in anger, cheerfully, or out of lust, should be obeyed by one who is not of despicable behavior, with a view to the promotion of dharma” (731). Rama further reminds his mother after making this declaration that it is his mothers duty to follow dharma in the only way a woman can, in the caring service of her husband. Therefore, we see that what makes Rama (as well as anyone aspiring to strive to the teachings of dharma and the implied order of Hinduism) perfect in his own right is possession of the wherewithal to remove all personal feelings and gratification in favor of embracing the prevailing greater good and the encompassing social order

2) In The Bhagavad-Gita, Arjuna tells the preserver god Krishna that the fighting which is about to take place on the battlefield is an abomination because all fighting seeks to do is kill another’s kinsmen. This in turn leads to a “disorder in society that undermines the constant laws of caste and family duty” (767). To this lament, Krishna responds that Arjuna’s thoughts emanate from a superficial, or flesh basis. Krishna proclaims that what instead would serve to undermine society is human inaction, whether that be from the warrior in battle or the lowliest of servants, because, “[he] who fails to keep turning the wheel here set in motion wastes his life in sin, addicted to the senses” (773). What Krishna tells Arjuna to fight instead is the enemy of desire in all its human sensory forms. This leads to a level of attained righteousness as well as recourse in following the willful dictate of one’s leaders. This leads man to become “free from sin,” and one who “easily achieves perfect joy in harmony with the infinite spirit” (776).

Achilles in The Illiad differs in his outlook to the teachings of The Bhagavad-Gita, specifically when he plans to leave with his ships and return to his home of Phthia rather than fight. Achilles plans to do so for the perceived slight inflicted upon him by the Greek warlord Agamemnon, because the fight was not worth dying for, and because he wished “to have and to hold” a wife to enjoy life’s riches with (209). By comparison to the Hindu teachings, Achilles as well as Madea demonstrate some very personal and contrary emotions toward the royal or established orders they are a part of. This leads to the conclusion that the will of the leaders appointed above these Greek characters does not represent some preordained justness that is without reproach. This stands in contrast to the caste driven message beholden by Krishna in The Bhagavad-Gita.