The Name Of The Rose Essay Research

The Name Of The Rose Essay, Research Paper

Umberto Eco has an interesting and fascinating style of writing ashe, in great detail, tells of a series of crimes and unbelievablemurders in a wealthy Italian abbey in the year1327. A monk, Williamof Baskerville, and his assistant, Adso, are assigned the challenge ofdecoding the numerous secret symbols to unravel the mysteries.They will have to explore the unusual labyrinth of a library to solvethe crimes. The two monks have a lot of logic, wit, curiosity, andintelligence and find themselves up against a clever enemy, amurderer with all the appearance of the Antichrist. The original reason for William.s being asked to come was toinvestigate the death of Adelmo, a young monk, who hadapparently committed suicide. The abbot had heard of William.sgreat knowledge and invited him to come and try to figure out thereason if or how this young monk had been killed. The abbotinstructed him to bring a novice with him because the abbey had noone extra to spare. William had previously met a young monknamed Adso during his travels and wanted him to come along sothat he could later learn from William. The two traveled to the abbey, high on top of a mountain.When they arrived, the abbot showed his appreciation by preparinga large dinner in their honor. They were then informed of the detailsof the death of Adelmo. His body had been found at the bottom ofa cliff on the side of the mountain. It was assumed that he hadcommitted suicide, but they had no way of proving this hypothesis.If he had jumped, the only possible window would be from thelibrary. This would be nearly impossible because entry to the librarywas forbidden to everyone except the librarian, and the assistantlibrarian; not even the abbot was allowed in this place. This explainswhy William was asked to come and investigate the death. If hedidn.t jump, who killed him and why. Another variable added to thiswhole problem was that someone had brought up the fact that thesigns of the Antichrist were possibly being acted out. The Book of theApostle said at the first sound of the trumpet came the hail, andAdelmo.s body was found in the snow after a hailstorm; which waslater found out from the abbot. Later that day, William and Adsohad a brief encounter with Severinus, the herbalist. They asked himmany questions about the abbey and what kinds of herbs he grew.They were trying to find out what, if any, herbs Adelmo may havegotten his hands on in order to kill himself. The only herbs thatSeverinus knew about that had that kind of power and that he hadin his infirmary were still in their respective cases that had never beenopened. After discussing this briefly, they asked Severinus to givethem a tour of the Aedificium. Severinus took them up onto the second floor of the Aedificium,the Scriptorium. There they meet many copyists, scholars, rubricators,and the head librarian. They were also introduced to an old, blindmonk named Jorge. They talked to Malachi, the librarian, about thebooks in the library. They had a very detailed talk with all of thepeople in the Scriptorium on the topic of laughter, which brings outthe worst in some present, Jorge especially. He mentions that theAntichrist is on his way to the world because certain signs had beenlurking around the abbey. He says, . He is coming! …….Do notsquander the last seven days!. At supper they were invited to the abbot.s table to eatwith Jorge; Alinardo, another older monk believed to have gonemad; the abbot; Malachi, the librarian; and Berengar, the assistantlibrarian. After dinner they went back into the church for Compline,the service before bed. They noted that Malachi had come in froma different door than all the rest of the monks. They then concludedthat there must be an alternate entrance( an ossarium ) somewherethat he passed through the Aedificium to get out of the library. The next day they discovered something very gruesome. Theywere in the opening services when they noticed that Venantius wasmissing. During the service, a few swineherds came rushing in, whichwas very unusual, and went straight to the abbot. He rushed outsideas the swineherds told all the other monks what had happened.They had seen legs sticking out of a barrel of pig blood and assumedit was a monk because of the sandals on the feet. When the monksheard this, they all rushed out to the courtyard to see for themselves.When they got there, the abbot was having two of the servants pullthe corpse out of the barrel. The blood had distorted the face butnot like it would have if the person had drowned in the pig.s blood.This was just as the Book of the Apostle said that at the secondtrumpet, a third of the waters would turn to blood. The abbot instructed that the corpse of Venantius should betaken to the infirmary to be made ready for burial. William and Adsowere instructed to go along to look at the body to see what mayhave killed him, if it had not been his being drowned in the blood.They then found that a few of the fingers on the right hand wereblackened at the tip and that his tongue was also black. Severinus,the herbalist, told them that there had been no bruises and no bumpon the head. They then again asked what kind of poisons Severinuskept in the infirmary. Severinus hesitated and quickly changed thesubject. Later on in the day, the abbot took the two aside and askedthem what they had found out about the two deaths. William toldhim their information about the death of Adelmo an