ENGL 2300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Purgatory
Document Summary
Story is not realistic but metaphorical: dead to them is a person. Dead is under a tree (line 484): they nd coins under the tree and they kill each other for the gold instead of going after death, extreme irony. Adam and eve eat from the tree and death comes to the world: both stories are a symbolic fable. Description of the old man (line 429): he longs to die and pictures it as a reunion with his mother, says he remains old because no one will take his age. Talks about two things: exchanging someone with their youth for his age and to simply die. Every part of his body is wrapped up except his face: a swaddled infant, a wrap that dead people were put in before going in the co n. Wants his old age swapped with youth: he doesn"t necessarily want to die, he wants to be reborn (christianity and the afterlife)
