Piers Plowman: Passūs 3-5
Passūs 3-5 deal more with the marriage of Mede and who she should marry. The king wants her to marry Conscience but Conscience doesn't want to, and so a debate begins over this. The narrator wakes up and then has a second dream about the confession of the Seven Deadly Sins. Passus five was definitely the most confusing one and I'm really not a fan. One part that specifically confused me was: "And alle the Rome-renneres for robbers of byyonde Bere no sylver over se that sygne of king scheweth, Neyether grotes ne gold ygrave with kinges coyne, Up forfeture of that fee, who fynt hym dygnere" (A.5.109-112). This is a quote said by Reason, and I'm guessing he is directing this toward Robert the Robber, but I really don't understand what point he is trying to make. Maybe he is trying to say that when you steal from the king it doesn't matter how sorry you are for your crime because you still can't take back what you did. A sin is a sin and the king's coins will follow you all the way to your grave. The plot just completely changed in Passus five by starting a different storyline which is why it is hard for me to follow.
I've defined "the mystery in the story" as when the author withholds information from the audience in order to make them think more deeply and analyze the text. The plot itself doesn't have not be a mystery as long as the text portrays things that are unknown. Although this book is without a doubt confusing, it doesn't necessarily fit that well into my definition. Yes, the whole plot is beyond strange, but the mystery is taken away by the author using nouns as names. There is no characterization to figure out because the characters ARE their names. Their actions are predictable because we know all about the characters just from what people call them.
It's weird to think about how long ago this was written and how today we are comparing it with the work of Poe's The Purloined Letter and Doyle's The Valley of Fear because they definitiely do not fall in the same category. In first two novels we read, we collected evidence alongside the detectives and other characters in the story. However, in Piers Plowman, we collect evidence by analyzing the text and trying to figure out why the author made the choices he did. For instance, although he gave the characters assigned personalities that correlate with their names, he likes to highlight the possibility that a word can mean more than one thing: "There arn two maner of medes, my lord, by your leve"(A.3.218). The word mede is up for debate as to whether or not it means a bribe or a donation, a bribe being sleazy money and a donation being charitable. It's interesting to analyze and try to decide if the author used nouns as names to help us or to confuse us further and overthink the connotations of the words. I'm still set on the idea that using nouns as names took away the mystery, because I think it's pretty clear that Mede is meant to mean a bribe. Overall, the plot has been getting a bit easier to follow, but I got completely lost in Passus 5. It's really frustrating because I'll think I understand some parts just to find out in class that I completely missed a huge point in the story.
I've defined "the mystery in the story" as when the author withholds information from the audience in order to make them think more deeply and analyze the text. The plot itself doesn't have not be a mystery as long as the text portrays things that are unknown. Although this book is without a doubt confusing, it doesn't necessarily fit that well into my definition. Yes, the whole plot is beyond strange, but the mystery is taken away by the author using nouns as names. There is no characterization to figure out because the characters ARE their names. Their actions are predictable because we know all about the characters just from what people call them.
It's weird to think about how long ago this was written and how today we are comparing it with the work of Poe's The Purloined Letter and Doyle's The Valley of Fear because they definitiely do not fall in the same category. In first two novels we read, we collected evidence alongside the detectives and other characters in the story. However, in Piers Plowman, we collect evidence by analyzing the text and trying to figure out why the author made the choices he did. For instance, although he gave the characters assigned personalities that correlate with their names, he likes to highlight the possibility that a word can mean more than one thing: "There arn two maner of medes, my lord, by your leve"(A.3.218). The word mede is up for debate as to whether or not it means a bribe or a donation, a bribe being sleazy money and a donation being charitable. It's interesting to analyze and try to decide if the author used nouns as names to help us or to confuse us further and overthink the connotations of the words. I'm still set on the idea that using nouns as names took away the mystery, because I think it's pretty clear that Mede is meant to mean a bribe. Overall, the plot has been getting a bit easier to follow, but I got completely lost in Passus 5. It's really frustrating because I'll think I understand some parts just to find out in class that I completely missed a huge point in the story.
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