Celestina Day Three

ch7 It is clear that age plays a major role in determining someone's wisdom. Celestina is older than all the characters and therefore holds a major advantage over them. She knows how to get what she wants out of people and can do it against many odds. Celestina uses her connections with certain characters to benefit herself, and despite being a prostitute is respected and called "Mother" by them. All the characters want to get something and feel they can with Celestina's help, after she had lied to them in grandiose ways or tricked them unknowingly.

ch8 By saying this, Sempronio gives the message that the outer appearance of anything cannot be a tool for real judgement. Although something could appear to be good, it may not have the qualities in actuality that attracted you to it in the first place.

ch11 Because of Celestina's role in Calisto's romance with Melibea, Calisto is anything but a captive of love. Melibea is the one who is captive. Before Celestina came into the picture, Melibea wanted little to do with Calisto. Calisto is the perfect example of all that men do wrong to women, such as putting them on a pedestal, and selfishly pursuing them. The novel has an interesting way of delivering its message, using higher authority figures to show the wrongs of society while the servants and whores are wise and philosophical.

Celestina Day One

1. The opening scene in Melibea's garden gave me a good idea about what the plot would consist of. Love, lust, the difference between the two, and comedy. He claimed to be in love at first sight with Melibea, basing these feelings only on attraction and lustIt was more racy than any other piece of literature of the same time period that I have read. The comedy is very clear, as the characters exaggerate their words and give each other a hard time. The scene in Melibea's garden was right on point in establishing the comedies, truths, and oddities about romance at the time.
2. There is a very long scene in which Sempronio and Calisto talk about women, in which Calisto largely puts women on a pedestal. He bosses Sempronio around, but Sempronio seems to be much smarter, perhaps to further display Calisto's ignorance. The subject matter for comedy is not much different than a modern television show, or movie. Calisto is to Jerry Seinfeld as Sempronio is to George Costanza, comically speaking. The two men discuss women in lengthy conversations, remarking on differences between them. There may be better characters to liken them to, as Calisto is the hopeless romantic, seeing beautiful women as angelic creatures, while Sempronio is his realist servant, trying to talk him down from such delusions of grandeur.