Decameron Blog #2

In the seventh story, Alatiel is arranged to be married to a sultan, but is lost on the way and is forced to be with numerous different men who love her before she returns to her arranged husband.  This story says much about desire, and gender.  When Alatiel meets Pericone, she rejects his sexual advances until she becomes drunk and gives into him.  As Boccaccio writes, "When she felt what it was like, never before having felt the horn men use to butt, she repented of having rejected Pericone's previous advances; and not waiting a second time to be beckoned to such sweet nights again, she often invited herself - not with words, since she did not know how to make herself understood, but with actions" (Boccaccio 132).  Gender wise, it was expected for a woman to be chaste and pure for her husband.  Therefore for Alatiel to be intimate with any man that was not her husband, this would be completely immoral.  However, Boccaccio uses this scene to show that desire is inside all of us, and it cannot be repressed.  Lust is a natural feeling and one should not eschew them, and rather should fulfill them.  Just like Alatiel, Massetto is mute, too.  Both of them have a hard time articulating what they want and think verbally.  However, the main difference between Alatiel and Massetto is that Massetto chooses to be mute to gain sexual advances, whereas, Alatiel does not have a choice but to be mute because of the language barrier.  Just like the previous story, Boccaccio is showing how actions speak far more than words.  By Massetto not speaking to the nuns and physically agreeing with their actions, he holds the power.  Therefore in a way, this means that silence gives Massetto the power in the story because it attracts the nuns even more.  The nuns often state how he lacks wits, but in actuality it is the nuns who are dumb because Massetto is clearly lying.  Overall, I think that both of these stories show that lust cannot be assuaged in any way, and that power comes from silence.