Interpretations Through Boccaccio's Allegory, The Decameron

Interpretations through Boccaccio’s Allegory, the Decameron

Chaos struck all-over Europe in the 14th century; no social class or individual was immune from this bizarre mysterious death. Historians estimated that this unidentifiable disease killed a total of one-third of Europe’s population by the 1350’s. Now in today’s society scientists classify the unidentifiable disease as the bubonic plague also referred to as the Black Death. During 14th century European-society, there was no logical medical knowledge; instead, people resorted to supplementary explanations, such as God punishing the sinners, or other religious groups outside of Christianity misbehaving (Black Death 1). In this time period, oral tradition was still common among the illiterate,

The Black Death was already precedent throughout Egypt, Asia and northern Africa prior to its arrival via boats in 1347 Sicily Italy, which later by the mid-1350 spread throughout almost all of Europe. Boccaccio’s resident resided in Florence Italy, where he wrote the Decameron from the years 1348-1353 A.D.. Uncoincidentally the composure date overlaps with when the bubonic plague infected Florence. Boccaccio was a wealthy merchant who produced other literature prior to the Decameron reflecting moral attributes of Italian society. The content in the Decameron is not religious-base writing, nor propaganda, because this author reveals no signs of exterior influence to write this text; instead, Boccaccio used the epidemic and tragedy as inspiration for his writing. As stated by historian Massimo, Boccaccio’s shares “…the purpose in writing is to offer some solace…to those who stand in need of it”. (Massimo the Representation of Collective Death in the Decameron). Boccaccio does not mention any after-effect or personal theories about the plague but only brief insight on a potential causation, this identifies that Boccaccio did not create the Decameron for solving, discussing, or discovering the mystery behind the Black Plague. While also in Boccaccio’s work, he does not mention anything personally related to him, the effects on his

The simplified storyline of the Decameron is about ten wealthy people, seven women and three men aborting from their city-homes in an effort to avoid the mysterious death by changing their location to the countryside. Over the course of ten days, Boccaccio discusses their daily activities, through his writing-style technique frame-narrative, each individual character tells a tale every day. As stated in the introduction by Boccaccio, “…most passed away from this life without anyone there to witness it at all; there were very few who departed amid the pious wailing and beloved tears of those close to them, far from this, most took up the custom of laughing and partying while their loved ones died (Boccaccio 1). In an emergency, loyalty for some is broken and people adapted to selfish fend for themselves attitude. The characters actions correspond with the Boccaccio’s passage stated above because the ten characters also leave everything behind, including loved ones to reside in the countryside and spend their last days on earth having fun. Arguably, the characters are acting immoral; something that goes against the typical catholic religion view but during a time of crisis circumstances may change. Another unique part that stands out from the Decameron is the equality among men and women,