Comparison of behavior and its consequential rewards or punishments Term Paper

Comparison of behavior and its consequential rewards or punishments and how it is treated by the author, in Dante's inferno, Boc - Term Paper Example These already difficult circumstances were intensified by seven terrible waves of the Back Plague between years 1347 and 1400, which killed at least a third of the European population. On top of that, Western Europe was shattered by a long and exhausting war between England and France: the Hundred Year’s War. On such a dark background, full of sorrow and turmoil, the Church became incapable to maintain its position as a spiritual leader, as a source for relief and as a provider of ideas to help society to recover and rebuild itself. With epidemic and famine spreading everywhere and the church officials, which fell into corruption and hypocrisy, incapable of providing spiritual shelter as they previously used to, the people in Europe downgraded into some sort of cosmic insecurity. Thus, they started to screen their society for faults and wrongs, questioning the absolute power of the Catholic Church and trying to approach God not through priests, monks and other representatives of the Church, who became rich, greedy and corrupt, but through their own readings and interpretations of the Bible2. In England, John Wyclif3, distinct philosopher and theologian, criticized the wrongdoings of the Church and their corrupt ways to gain wealth and power. Therefore, the emergence of such new, progressive and obviously, heretic opinions were a clear evidence that change in scholastic and common thought was occurring. The great writers at that time could not, given the circumstances, remain indifferent to that complicated, yet fascinating scenery of the 14th century. Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio and Geoffrey Chaucer decided to incorporate all the main aspects of the 14th century society and religion in their works, creating elaborate mirrors of social conduct, behavior, spirituality and other main concerns at the time. In this paper, I will analyze and compare the relationship between behavior and punishment in Cantos III and XII from Dante's Inferno, Tale Nine, Day Two from Boccaccio's Decameron and The Pardoner’s Tale from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales are considered to stand for Chaucer’s masterpiece, in which he portrays the English society at the time, reuniting representatives from each social class who tell a tale in their own language, style and manner of thought. The Pardoner’s tale is told by a pardoner4 who introduces his story with a confession about the deceptive character of his occupation and he reveals secrets of his profession, explaining the fact that he was selling useless things as holy relics. Therefore, Chaucer presents the corrupt and immoral nature of such practices, which sold people fake hope and did nothing else but create more wealth in the name of the Church. The tales commences with the presentation of the main characters- three young men who were leading sinful lives. Their immoral behavior is generously described: they were men who liked to party excessively, spend time in bars drinking and eating in an excessive manner and worst of all, they did not see any wrongdoing in the way they lived: â€Å"And each of them at others' sins would laugh† (Chaucer 14). On top of that, they swore, cursed and used God’s name in vain, while indulging themselves in sexual activities with young dancers, singers and other women. This detailed description aims to present the three young men as