The Seven Deadly Sins

The Seven Deadly Sins are sins that are so sever that only complete submission to god and service to him in order that he person who committed them would be able to enter heaven. These sins are pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. In each blog set there are examples of at least one of the Seven Deadly Sins, though in Dr. Faustus they are all present and paraded before him. The five pieces I have chosen to look at for this entry are Dr. Faustus, A Modest Proposal, The Wife of Bath Prologue, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Lanval.
In Dr. Faustus, the main character is guilty of nearly every one of the seven deadly sins, with the exception of sloth and gluttony. He is very industrious in his studies and interest in accumulating knowledge. He is very guilty of pride, because he is so proud of his accomplishments in the academic fields. He is guilty of envy because he is envious of the knowledge the Lord and the Devil possess. He is guilty of wrath and lust because he is very vengeful to a high ranking duke and the pope himself; he is lustful because he takes his pleasure in many women rather than entering the holy bonds of marriage.
In A Modest Proposal, Swift is making commentary about the social inequalities in Great Britain and the lands under her control during the seventeenth century. He comments on how gluttonous the wealthy, with are while the poor Irish children starve, beg, and die in the streets. But Swift is also of one of the seven deadly sins in writing “A Modest Proposal; the sin of wrath. Wrath in his writing includes the ironic, satiric way in which he rails against the British government for the treatment of the Irish in the way he uses his false logic in suggesting that the poor Irish Catholics sell their infant children to be fattened up and eaten by the upper classes. This is a naturally repulsive idea, but he words his wrath in such a way that it appears to be a sane, sensible solution.
In The Wife of Bath Prologue, the Wife of Bath is guilty of three of the seven deadly sins: gluttony, pride, and lust. She is guilty of gluttony in that she love her fine meals, and she has the girth to show for it and dress, flaunting he fine clothing on what is suppose to be a humble pilgrimage to the shrine in Canterbury. She is guilty of lust because she has had more than one husband; in fact, she has had five and would welcome a sixth if she could find one. She is guilty of pride because she is not ashamed about her life, her choices, or her multiple marriages, though by the standards of her time period; she should have been begging for mercy.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, both the Green knight’s wife and Sir Gawain are guilty of the sin of lust, but more so the Green knight’s wife than Sir Gawain. She is guilty of lust because she commits adultery in her pursuit of Sir Gawain. He is just as guilty because he allows himself to be drawn in by her, stopping just short of physical sin with another man’s wife. Gawain is also guilty of pride in that he becomes boastful in the beginning when the rest of the knights shrink from the challenge to the beheading game proposed by the Green Knight. His pride leads him to the troubles of the travel and places him in the position to sin with the wife of the Green Knight’s wife.
Finally in Lanval, the title character is guilty of the sin of sloth. Lanval is described as the least of Arthur’s knights; Arthur even forgets to pay Lanval on occasion! Because he is thought of so little of he leaves in order to seek her fortune, although he even takes to this in a very slothful manner; falling asleep near a river. His sloth continues as he is now supported by his Fairy Queen bride. He is so slothful that when he gets himself into trouble with King Arthur’s wife, he becomes depressed, wanting to do harm to himself until his bride saves him from execution.