Speaking to the priest near the end of the story, Luisa describes ...

[cmoore54]

Speaking to the priest near the end of the story, Luisa describes lust as themost horrible of all sins. Do you think that we are intended to agree with this assessment? Why or why not?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Luisa says of don Apolonio: I realized he was fighting to be the man heonce had been, and yet the resurrected self was not the same, but another (paragraph 90). What differences do you see in him before and after his resurrection?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[sierramartinez]

Answer to Question 1

• Ones instinct is to feel that there are more horrible offensesmurder, rape, and treason, for instance, come immediately to mindbut the story does a very good job of reinforcing Luisas view of the matter, especially if we define lust properly, not as a neutral synonym for the sexual urge (which is, after all, a natural instinct, without which all life would cease), but rather as an obsessive desire that reduces its object to just thatan object, a mere instrument of gratification, without any regard for her own feelings or desires. It is indeed horrible that don Apolonio is ready to entrap and degrade an innocent young girl, one for whom he has previously felt the tender affection of an uncle for his niece, in order to briefly extend an existence that by this point has no other dimension or purpose than its own continuation.

Answer to Question 2

When he calls out to Luisa upon her arrival, she refers to the dear voice (par. 10), and shortly thereafter she says that I began to nurse him and I felt happy doing it (par. 17). We come to understand the basis of her affection for him as she describes his reminiscences of his earlier life, especially his great love for and lavish treatment of his late wife. After his marriage to Luisa, this tender side of his nature disappears without a trace, totally swallowed up by his monomaniacal satyr-like obsession with her body as the force that keeps him alive.

[cmoore54]

Thank you!

[sierramartinez]

Always glad to help...