The 3rd work you have to choose between Decameron, Heptameron, Tales of the Heike May, Hamlet
1ST Draft Paper: How each portrays attitude toward authority.
Many of the works in The Norton Anthology of world literature volume A,B, and C demonstrate acts of power and authority. Even in the world we live in today, we have a president and the representatives in other words the council. In the works “demonstrate how each portrayed authority differently in their societies.
Genesis 1-4 from the creation to the murder of Abel is a work that demonstrates a demanding and expected obedience from his people. God the creator asked for something or set a rule it was to be obeyed if not you were punished. For example, “ Let there be light and there was light. God saw light and that was good, and god divided light from darkness” (Genesis, pg. 152). This proves that whatever he said needed to be done. If it wasn’t done, he wouldn’t be too nice and there would be consequences. His power came across to be very strong and for the most part people made sure they listened but Eve. God didn’t want anyone eating from the trees in the garden “ The Serpent said “ you shall not be doomed to die for god knows on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened to good and evil. This tricked eve into eating the apple and she also convinced her husband to eat the apple as well. God came and said” I commanded you not to eat and you have eaten”. He punished Eve and Adam for this, “ I will terribly sharpen your birth pangs, in pain shall you bear children”. This demonstrates that God was her ruler and for her not obeying she was now punished by suffering through birth and obeying her husband’s request. God was a fair ruler as long as you listened your life was peaceful but If you went against his orders, he would punish you.
Religion has been authority for many people in this time. This idea that a god rules and everyone prays to the god through good and bad. They go to the god for guidance and depend on the god for leadership. After death there is heaven or hell, and many believe that throughout life the decisions that are made determine the afterlife. In the poem inferno is about him experiencing life to salvation. In the poem Inferno Virgil says “ Philosophy, for one who understands, points out, and not in just one place,” he said, “how nature follows – as she takes her course – the Divine Intellect and Divine Art; and if you read your Physics carefully, not many pages from the start, you’ll see that when it can, you art would follow nature, just as a pupil imitates his master; so that your art is almost God’s grandchild” This demonstrates the idea of God being the ruler and allowing Christianity believe that the divine is natural and this idea if you follow God naturally it will lead you into heaven. In another quote in the poem Inferno “At which I said: “And after the great sentence – o master – will these torments grow, or else be less, or will they be just as intense?” And he to me: “Remember now your science,
which says that when a thing has more perfection, so much the greater is its pain or pleasure.
Though these accursed sinners never shall attain the true perfection, yet they can
expect to be more perfect then than now.” This is about religion taking the lead on good and bad in your life. What is considered to be sinful in the eyes of God and the bible. If you only listened to your physical desires, you were punished. Religion being the power in your life and believing In your god is what gave some hope in the afterlife.
