Boccaccio’s The Decameron contains diverse stories about love, betrayal, murder, and secrecy. Although these may seem to be whimsical tales meant for entertainment, Boccaccio used several themes expressed in these stories to make statements about the power structures that oppressed both men and women at the time. He used the idea of violence, both interpersonal and self-inflicted, as well as frequent instances of adultery to show the effects of this oppression on people.
For a group of mostly light-hearted tales, there is a great deal of violence that occurs between characters. Much of the violence in these stories is characterized by conflicts between men. All of these conflicts are created over the issue of a woman’s affections, and the violence that follows serves to objectify a woman’s love and attraction.
This violence is often done to achieve two purposes: to assert the man’s masculinity, and to assert his ownership over his female relative. In the first story of the fourth day, Prince Tancredi kills Guiscardo, his daughter’s lover, because he had made love to “that which belongs to [him]” (335). Tancredi creates a conflict with Guiscardo because of his idea of ownership over his daughter. This is reminiscent of conflict two warring kingdoms might have over a …show more content…
Roussillon catches his friend unawares and impales him on a lance “with murder and destruction in his heart” (389). Roussillon furthers this metaphor by taking a trophy of sorts after the murder. He cuts open his friend’s chest and tears “out the heart with his own bare hands” (390). This terrible episode of violence is caused by Roussillon’s jealousy over his wife’s love for Cabestanh. The similarity between the acts here and a battle scene serve to reduce the wife’s love to an object that must be won through displays of masculinity and
For a group of mostly light-hearted tales, there is a great deal of violence that occurs between characters. Much of the violence in these stories is characterized by conflicts between men. All of these conflicts are created over the issue of a woman’s affections, and the violence that follows serves to objectify a woman’s love and attraction.
This violence is often done to achieve two purposes: to assert the man’s masculinity, and to assert his ownership over his female relative. In the first story of the fourth day, Prince Tancredi kills Guiscardo, his daughter’s lover, because he had made love to “that which belongs to [him]” (335). Tancredi creates a conflict with Guiscardo because of his idea of ownership over his daughter. This is reminiscent of conflict two warring kingdoms might have over a …show more content…
Roussillon catches his friend unawares and impales him on a lance “with murder and destruction in his heart” (389). Roussillon furthers this metaphor by taking a trophy of sorts after the murder. He cuts open his friend’s chest and tears “out the heart with his own bare hands” (390). This terrible episode of violence is caused by Roussillon’s jealousy over his wife’s love for Cabestanh. The similarity between the acts here and a battle scene serve to reduce the wife’s love to an object that must be won through displays of masculinity and