Katia Aguilar Suarez
Ben Garceau
Humanities Core H1AS
November 23, 2022
Heartless
There's a never-ending change in what is considered normal in society. There is a constant need to keep up and especially for authors to continue to engage their audience. The author of the Decameron, Boccaccio found something that would keep his audience entertained during the midst of a plague. The Decameron is a book written in Florence, Italy separated into 10 days and 10 authors wrote stories for each day. The book is filled with multiple stories with different themes and writing styles. I took a particular interest in one of the stories, Day 5, Story 8 written by Filomena. The story is of a nobleman named Nastagio who is deeply in love with a woman and includes a ghost story. The woman Nastagio loves is a noblewoman daughter of Paolo Traversaril that has no interest in him and is even cruel towards him. Nastagio tries so hard to impress her but he eventually gives up and moves into the forest. In the forest, he encounters a spectacle by ghosts, where a knight and his dogs are chasing and attacking a woman begging for her life. This scene is a recurring event of a man who was so deeply in love with a woman who didn't care about him and eventually decided to punish her for being so cruel, so he is torturing her in the afterlife. This sparks an idea in Nastagio that continues the rest of the story. The theme for day 5 is “Happiness counteracts sadness: Love conquers all.” In the Decameron, readers will go through various emotions and judgments from the stories. In Day 5 Story 8, the overall story relates to the larger theme of the day using imagery and symbols to interpret a story of karma, cruelty, and justice.
Filomena uses imagery to describe a story of karma and cruelty. In the story, on page 160, it says, “ Behind her, he saw a swarthy knight, his face contorted with anger, come riding on a black courser. He held a sword in his hand and was threatening her with death in the most terrifying and abusive language.” The author here describes the ghost spectacle that Nastagio witnesses in detail. The knight was once a man deeply in love like Nastagio, who was treated poorly by the woman he loved. He eventually committed suicide and took on the task of torturing his lover in their afterlife to get revenge. He believed this was karma and just. Also, on page 162, it said, “No sooner had she been cast down there than it was ordained for punishments that she was to flee from me, and I, who once loved her so dearly, was to pursue her as my mortal enemy rather than the woman I once loved. And every time I catch up to her, I kill her with this same sword with which I slew myself. Then rip open her back, and as you are about to see for yourself, I tear from her body that cold, hard heart of hers…” This helps express how the spectacle was able to install fear in the viewers. The viewers were afraid of being tortured in the manner the woman was. Many of the viewers and the people that heard about were women who then decided they need to change their way of being. The woman's heart was described as “cold, hard” because she felt no resentment towards him even after his death, and this is the reason the knight took “revenge”.The woman who once was so cruel was receiving the same treatment back, this resonated with Nastagios lover, who became fearful of the future if she didn't change. In addition to scaring others, this helped depict the interpretation of karma in the story. It better shows the principle of being treated based on how you treat others.
Additionally, Filomena uses symbolism to interpret justice and revenge in the story. On page 162, it said, “In a short space of time, as the justice and power of god ordain, she rises up as if she has never died... ‘Now it just so happens that every Friday around this hour I overtake her in this spot where I slaughter her in the way you are about to observe.” Though the spectacle is a ghost story, since the characters aren’t alive, they performed a story of justice. The characters being alive but having a connection to the real world is a symbol of being stuck in the past. The knight continues to reminisce on the past and is not resting. This is also a parallel to Nastagio who is stuck trying to impress who does not love him and will not move on. When the knight is finally receiving justice (in his own way) after the cruelty he suffered from his lover he is content and suggests Nastagio do the same since they have similar stories. Also on page 163, it says, “Among those who had been the most terrified, however, was the cruel young woman loved by Nastagio, for she had seen and heard everything distinctly, and she recalled the cruelty with which she had always treated him, she realized that what had happened applied to her more than to anyone else there…So great was the fear engendered in her by this spectacle that to prevent a similar fate from happening to her, she transformed her hatred into love, and seizing the earliest opportunity,..” This also shows the overall interpretation of justice or satisfaction. Nastagio from the beginning is trying to find any possible way that the woman he loves would finally love him back. After his multiple attempts to suffice her and earn her love and being treated so cruelly by her. Her finally loving him back and showing the slightest bit of attention seems just and fair to Nastagio. This is not justice the usual way, this justice here is righteousness and moral principles. Nastagio and the Knight received what they ultimately wanted in the end, which made it seem fair to them. While the women suffered and had to give in to other desires. Nastagio’s lover never actually loved him but gave in due to fear installed in her. She doesn't have a happy ending, on the other hand, Nastagio does, and that is where his love conquers all.
Overall, the author uses figurative devices for her readers to interpret such as revenge, cruelty, and fairness. The literary elements help the author write their storyworld for the readers to connect and understand. This story does not necessarily ask the audience to reflect on the stories constructed but it does leave the audience thinking about it. The characters at the end all have different endings. Nastagio gets what he wants, which is to be with the woman he loves, while the woman has to marry Nastagio due to fear. This story changes the cruelty and the future decisions other characters spectate because by the end like Paolo Traversaril’s daughter they fear what is to come. It makes the audience think and compare ideas like marriage, mannerisms, how you treat others, and morals in Boccaccio's time to our modern time.
Work Cited
Boccaccio, Giovanni, and Wayne A. Rebhorn. The Decameron. W.W. Norton and Company, 2016.