Journal Entry

The context in Belfagor is set in the standard European “three context elements”. The three contexts begins with explaining who the man is, such as “a holy man, whose life was well known to those who lived at that time”, explaining what the mission is the main character is to do. He explains this with that each prince wanted to know how to live free from scandal and the plan was to send someone to the human realm to figure out how to accomplish this struggle. The turning point in the story is when decide to send the chosen one, who would then, “with this money he was to go into the world and, disguised in the body of a man, he was to take a wife and to live with her for ten years. Befagor was the chosen one and he soon changes his name to Roderigo. He finds a wife to marry, but the turning point comes when the wife, Onesta, tries to dominate Roderigo in everyway. Since he loved her very much, he is patient and forgiving. The actions of the main character is that he is pushed over by his wife and does not stand up for himself. He is struggling because he loves his wife, but she is corrupt and ruins his life. Roderigo becomes bankrupt and servants refuse to stay with the house for more than a few days. He has to go into hiding and becomes a devilish individual. The moral of the story that money can not make you happy and is often times corrupt or makes people corrupt. In the beginning we get the idea that the wife is the problem because she keeps spending all the money, but by the end we realize is Roderigo’s fault just as much because instead of being part of the solution, he further escalades the problem because he never draws the line for his wife. One of the reversals in the story is when the peasant comes to save the girl, Roderigo does not this he has any importance because he has no money but in fact he is able to cure the sick young lady. The reversal is that Roderigo flews aways because he would rather live in Hell than return to tell his story because he was so ashamed of his actions. The resolution is that life is not about how much money you make that makes a difference, it is more about who you are and how you contribute to make this world better. The part of the story that I liked most was the moral, yes money can buy nice expensive things, but that’s not what life is about. Life is about caring about other people, what goes around comes around.