Piers Plowman 8-9
The book is still confusing, albeit just slightly less confusing than was before.
The introduction of Piers Plowman was interesting, especially because the book itself is named after him yet we don't meet him until this late in the book. Although, the introduction of Piers is slightly underwhelming because he doesn't turn out to be all that great of a person. What is kind of interesting is the fact that Piers does not seem to have a noun attached to his name; it's just a regular name. He doesn't seem to be the embodiment of some sort of idea. Piers himself seems to be somewhat misguided, self-centered, and even a little bit pretentious. When asked where Truth is, he says that he doesn't know where it is even though he clearly does, since he's supposed to be Truth's long-time servant. Then, he brings famine onto the beggars and the poor because he gets frustrated at them. When he realizes what he did, Piers tries to tell Hunger to leave, which is also very rude considering that Piers was the one who told him to come in the first place. Piers then also asks Hunger for advice on what to do with the poor, which again seems strange because he literally just asked Hunger to leave. This behavior struck me as somewhat belittling; from what we know Piers himself is just a man, not an embodiment of a value or an idea, so who is he to act like he knows what's best for the beggars? Piers also doesn't seem like the best person. From what we've seen, it kind of feels like Piers just does good things for the praise, not because he actually wants to be good and do these good things. That's kind of shady.
One question that I had was what kind of relationship does Piers have with Hunger? Piers seems to be just a human, but somehow he and Hunger have a relationship where Hunger just comes at his beck and call? Hunger even listens to Piers when Piers tells him to leave, which I personally think is very peculiar.
The introduction of Piers Plowman was interesting, especially because the book itself is named after him yet we don't meet him until this late in the book. Although, the introduction of Piers is slightly underwhelming because he doesn't turn out to be all that great of a person. What is kind of interesting is the fact that Piers does not seem to have a noun attached to his name; it's just a regular name. He doesn't seem to be the embodiment of some sort of idea. Piers himself seems to be somewhat misguided, self-centered, and even a little bit pretentious. When asked where Truth is, he says that he doesn't know where it is even though he clearly does, since he's supposed to be Truth's long-time servant. Then, he brings famine onto the beggars and the poor because he gets frustrated at them. When he realizes what he did, Piers tries to tell Hunger to leave, which is also very rude considering that Piers was the one who told him to come in the first place. Piers then also asks Hunger for advice on what to do with the poor, which again seems strange because he literally just asked Hunger to leave. This behavior struck me as somewhat belittling; from what we know Piers himself is just a man, not an embodiment of a value or an idea, so who is he to act like he knows what's best for the beggars? Piers also doesn't seem like the best person. From what we've seen, it kind of feels like Piers just does good things for the praise, not because he actually wants to be good and do these good things. That's kind of shady.
One question that I had was what kind of relationship does Piers have with Hunger? Piers seems to be just a human, but somehow he and Hunger have a relationship where Hunger just comes at his beck and call? Hunger even listens to Piers when Piers tells him to leave, which I personally think is very peculiar.
Comments
Post a Comment