She told him... about the sounds and smells of the countryside and the freshness and cleanliness of everything in the country. She said he should live there and if he did he would find out that all his problems were city problems. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay - Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) Rural areas in Western literature are pure and good, dating back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis. They represent spirituality, beauty and often an escape from the troubles of a sinful world. In Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, the citizens of Florence flee their plague-ravaged city for the solitude and safety of the countryside. In the Confessions of Saint Augustine, the narrator experiences his most significant spiritual awakening in a garden in Milan. At the beginning of the Decameron, Boccaccio describes the plague raging in Florence: Large quantities of garbage were evacuated from the city by officials specially appointed for this purpose. , all sick people were prohibited from entering and numerous instructions were given to protect the health of the population, but in vain. (I. Intro) This passage describes the vast presence of sin in the city. “Officials” can be interpreted to mean clergymen, “sick people” can mean criminals, and “many instructions” can mean the work of the Church. “All in vain,” however, signifies the continued presence of sin and ugliness in the city despite the efforts of the Church. However, several young citizens of Florence meet in a church and physically leave it, for a getaway to the countryside, which is, above all, "at a certain distance from any road". (I. Intro) There the young men and their beautiful companions wandered slowly through a garden, conversing on pleasant subjects, weaving beautiful garlands for each other from the leaves of various trees, and singing love songs. (I. Intro) Words like “fair,” “pleasant,” and especially “love” contrast sharply with earlier descriptions of Florence. The vision of the “young men and their beautiful companions” conversing is pure and chaste, somewhat prelapsarian. The emphasis is placed on natural aspects through the mention of “garden”, “garlands” and “leaves of various trees”. In the introduction to the Third Day, the new garden they arrive in is directly compared to the Garden of Eden: They all began to argue that if Paradise were built on Earth, it was inconceivable that it could take any other form , nor could they imagine any manner by which the beauty of the garden could possibly be improved. In this passage, Boccaccio seems to assert that paradise is indeed accessible on earth and that the countryside is the manifestation of human perfection. The beauty found in the description of the garden seems almost impossibly perfect, but Boccaccio asserts that it is real. The perfect garden is even created without God's help in the fifth story of Day 10. In this story, Dianora asks Ansaldo for a May gift. garden in January, which she says is impossible. Ansaldo, however, enlists the help of a magician, who creates "one of the most beautiful gardens that has ever been seen, with plants, trees and fruits of every kind imaginable." The description matches the gardens in the framing story almost exactly. The creation of a garden without divine intervention once again demonstrates Boccaccio's religious skepticism, which permeates his vigorous text. While the characters of the Decameron can exist in the garden which symbolizes.