AUCA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

AUCA - Essay Example As the author puts it, Florence was a no gone city. Death almost became inevitable to all those who contracted the plague. Dead bodies spread all over the city until churches ran out of space for burying the dead bodies. The solution was to adopt mass graves. Neighbours avoided each other for the fear of contracting the diseases. In fact, some citizens decided to leave the city. It was simply devastating. However, Boccaccio’s choice to introduce his work by this vivid eyewitness account leaves a lot to question especially that the rest of the characters are fictional. In my view, Boccaccio’s decision to introduce Decameron with an eyewitness account was to give the narrative its setting, both time and place. It was certainly written in medieval period and in Florence. This eyewitness account was also to justify the reasons for his characters to leave their city and base their stories in another place. In addition, this eyewitness account serves to add credibility to the author’s stories. For example, it would have been very difficult for him to set grounds as to why the seven women and the three men had to leave their Florence into another city. Furthermore, since this society was traditionally patriarchal, it would have been so hard for Boccaccio to convince his readers the reason as to why the men decided to give up their powers so that they could be ruled by the women. Therefore, the eyewitness account served to exemplify how the plague affected the social set-up of the society such that there was even a reversal of gender roles. The story revolves around Saladin, an Islam sultan and Melchizedek who was a wealthy Jew. Saladin was both generous and easy to lead his people into war. This attributes caused his treasury to run short of money. Saladin only option was to approach Melchizedek in the hope that he would bail him from bankruptcy. Unfortunately, Melchizedek was miser and he would hardly lend Saladin