Preview

Eight From The Heptameron Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
215 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Eight From The Heptameron Analysis
The Story Eight, from the Heptameron, was told by a lady named Longarine to a group of people stuck on the side of the road. The tale exposed a husband’s deceitful intentions to his adoring wife and ended with, “the husband was branded as a cuckold without his wife having done a single thing to disgrace herself.” (1645) After the fable was completed two names were mentioned by the listeners, “Ladies, it strikes me that if all the men who offend their wives like that got a punishment like that, then Hircan and Saffredent ought to be feeling a bit nervous.” (1645) This sentence alone makes the reader assume that Longarine told that particular story because she knew that Hircan and Saffredent were unfaith to their wives. She even admitted that

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Members of the clergy, and the towns people, see Hester as a criminal and source of scandal, a scandal that affects not only her personally, but the community as a whole. In this Puritan culture, marriage is viewed as one of the foundations of social order, and a crime that violates the bonds of marriage threatens order itself. The demand for punishment of Hester's crimes is evident in the words of some of the female spectators, who feel she has not suffered enough, that the civil authorities "should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead" (p. 162). The female spectators were very cruel when it came to Hester, even though she had only sinned once they thought it was not enough to just let her…

    • 131 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A shocking story about a young women committing adultery in a such strict community. This event occurred in the seventeenth-century Boston.The young women who committed the sin is Hester Prynne. Hester Prynne had committed this sin with a Puritan minister named Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester’s real husband in disguise is Roger Chillingworth. Roger Chillingworth had sent Hester to America while he stayed behind in Europe but was supposed to follow Hester. The result of Chillingworth not following Hester was a baby girl named Pearl.…

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The reaction to Harry Bailey’s disapproval of pilgrim Chaucer’s ‘romantic’ tale is may be an unconscious desire causing him to have a homoerotic fantasy. Even though Sir Thopas’ gender identity is unclear in the tale, it appears as though Harry Bailey is looking for something else, possibly more erotic than what pilgrim Chaucer is giving him. For example, Harry Bailey was promised a story about romance, “For oother tale certes kan I noon, / But of a rym I lerned longe agoon” (Chaucer 708-709) yet it appears that this particular style of a romance tale is not what Harry Bailey is looking for. Wood writes, “The story of ‘Thopas’ has sexual imagery enough to accord with what the Host might expect from a presumed lecher, but the tale is devoid of any sexual encounters - imagery remains imagery” (389).…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As she stood on the scaffold she held, Pearl, the child she bore because of her sin. Hester endured this horrible punishment, but where was her partner in all of this? Mr. Dimmesdale was standing beside the magistrates watching all of this silently, not wanting anyone to know that he was also a part of this crime. Yet, what if his name was spoken and revealed? Would his punishment have been this severe? At the end of the novel, when Dimmesdale reveals he also shares Hester’s sin many citizens afterward still did not believe that such a godly man would do this. In the novel it reads, “ ...spectators of the whole scene…denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast…Neither, by their report, had his dying words acknowledged… the slightest connection, on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had… worn the scarlet letter” (Hawthorne 285). They simply remained ignorant and refused to state that they saw the scarlet letter upon his breast. Many townspeople believed that his confession of the transgression was not a confession, but rather a passionate sermon on this subject. However, if Hester would have confessed it would have been easy to believe because women were seen as weak and the main culprits of adultery.…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Becky Cress, William’s wife and Mary Norcom, James’ wife were women who could not control their husband’s actions. Since both Becky and Mary suspected that their husbands were having a sexual relationship with their servant, they insisted that the servant left the house immediately. Even though Rachel and Harriet were removed from their master’s household, their masters continued to visit them at their new home trying to have sex with them. When Mary had Harriet sleep with her so her husband could not and so she could “protect” Harriet, Harriet said, “she whispered in my ear, as though it was her husband who was speaking to me, and listened to hear what I would answer.” (140) When Mary confronted her husband about the issue, he did not stop his sexual overtures. After Becky heard William trying to kiss Rachel in the cellar, Rachel said, “she had caught him & he wd deceive her no longer, but William denied any wrongdoing and Becky left in tears. These verbal confrontations apparently did not alter William’s behavior; he continued to force himself sexually upon Rachel.” (140) These two wives show that they had no power over their husband. They confronted their husbands about the situation and all they did was deny their behaviors, which lead to Becky and Mary not undertaking any actions to put their husband’s sexual overtures to an end. If Becky and Mary really wanted their husband’s sexual relationship with their servant to end, why didn’t they remove their husband from the…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My Hester is an adulteress! She hath betrayed me in the most extreme way! How could she have done this to me? Is it my own fault? Didst I cause this myself wedding a wife of such youth and beauty like herself? Who am I to take her into my heart only being a man of knowledge and deformity? Is it so, that I have brought my own misfortune upon me, by bringing in my Hester, one that felt no love for me; While in such youth a real true love is so desirable? So it should be I knew the day we stepped down the church’s steps that it was the scarlet letter I saw in our future together.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hester was forced to confess her sin to the world, unlike her counterpart Dimmesdale. She was forced to be truthful and accept the punishment and stigma; “Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin” (chapter 5, page 54), This quote demonstrates how the Puritan Community placed all of the blame and burden of the sin of adultery on Hester. She was forced to accept all of the shame that…

    • 2044 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Oh, Arthur!” cried [Hester], “forgive me! In all things else, I have striven to be true! Truth was the only virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good-thy life-thy fame were put in question! Then I consented to a deception. But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side! Dost thou not see what I would say? That old man!-the physician!-=he whom they call…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Scarlet Letter” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is based off the early colonial age of New England, where religion played a huge role in shaping society and life. Throughout the book, sin was a constant factor that plays a role in Reverend Dimmesdale’s life. Committing one of the unforgivable sins, adultery, with Hester, he lets his guilt control his life. However, it is better that Dimmesdale doesn’t confess his sin because it leads to Dimmesdale having greater influence over the community, and it helps him understand who he is in the process.…

    • 886 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Wife of Bath

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Wife of Bath’s fifth and final husband stood out among the others, as she married him for love rather than for money. They met at her fourth husband’s funeral and were married soon after, though she was twice his age. The Wife also mentions the abuse her new husband relinquished; he once hit her so hard on the ear that it caused her to become partially deaf. The deafening blow was delivered due to the ripping of pages out of Jenkin’s book of the sad fate of disobedient wives. Angry that her husband would read such things to her every night, she ripped three pages out and slapped him across his cheek. Out of anger, Jenkin hit her, causing her one ear to become deaf. She then made a dramatic show over it, causing her husband to feel remorse. He then burned the book and agreed to let…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The male storytellers within the Canterbury Tales’ have resorted to coping with their adulterous wives in ways that give insight to their psychological complexity. The first story alluding to the unfaithful wives is by the Miller. In his story, he makes a joke of adultery and is more concerned with silliness and absurdity of the story than the fact the wife was cheating. His middle school humor is out of place when compared to the Host’s original description, yet it duly distracts him from his wife’s faults. Similarly, the Reeve’s wife is committing adultery, yet he copes contrastingly to the Miller’s almost sarcastic outlook. He is instead angry and lashes out at others in the party, especially the Miller. “‘Do evil and be done by as you did’…Thus…

    • 249 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Canterbury Tales

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Choose one of the storytellers and his/her tale. What was the underlying motive for the storyteller telling his/her tale?…

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Jewelry

    • 448 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This story gives a perfect example that everything is not always what it seems to be. Madame Lantin was beautiful, charming, shy and "saintly" but also unfaithful. Lantin did not see this because she did not portray the image that she could be so deceitful. She took care of things at home, finances, never complained, and remained to be the ideal wife, lover and friend. Lantin feel in love with her for her simplicity and that love grew stronger with time. Because Madame Lantin never deviated from her normal behaviors or appearance, her infidelity went along unnoticed. I can understand how he could have been so clueless for so long. There were no clues and everything seemed good and blissful on both parts.…

    • 448 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even though these facts are presented, the author manages to hide some information, as for example that the husband was cheating on her with her secretary, when he first describes the husbands in the stories as ‘’decent clean-living men, working hard at their job’’. But, at the end of the story, Cyril, her husband, told her that he was ‘’going to be late home’’ that night, giving us the hint that he was staying with the secretary. And after that, ‘’Miss Pultery, the secretary assistant, came sailing past her down the corridor on her way to lunch (…) just exactly like a queen in the beautiful black mink coat that the Coronel had given to Mrs. Bixby’’.…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the Canterbury Tales there are many memorable characters throughout the variety of tales. However, the most memorable character comes from The Wife of Bath. Here the audience is introduced to the Wife of Bath a woman with a stronger character development than most past female roles in literature. What makes her a controversial character is that she has been married five times and uses biblical scripture in order to strengthen her arguments throughout her spoken autobiography. She is defined by her sexuality and has controlled all of her past husbands through her sexual and verbal power. What makes her memorable is that unlike past tales in literature the Wife of Bath is not submissive in fact it is the men that play the submissive role.…

    • 335 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays