The City of Ladies

        The tone Christine uses reflects her uncertainty and disbelief of the status of women. An example of this is when she says, "Og. God, how can this be? For unless I stray from my faith, I must never doubt that Your infinite wisdom and most perfect goodness ever created anything which was not good. Did You yourself not create woman in a very special way and since that time did You not give her all those inclinations which it pleased You for her to have? And how could it be that you could go wrong with anything? Yet look at all these accusations which have been judged, decided, and concluded against women." Her tone shows that all of these things she has heard men say will be challenged throughout the rest of her text. She says, "I considered myself most unfortunate because God had made me inhabit a female body in this world...I finally decided that God formed a vile creature when He made woman, and I wondered how such a worthy artisan could have deigned to make sure an abominable work." Her tone seems almost sarcastic. Nothing but negative things have been said about the status of women, how sad that she is a woman. "Sadness welled up in my heart, for I detested myself and the entire feminine sex, as though we were monstrosities in nature." She talks about how men badmouth women but "it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth." They all repeat themselves. They all sound the same. These "famous and notable men" couldn't all be wrong, could they? She goes on to say that even after seriously thinking about this she could not see these terrible qualities in women. But how could all of these men be completely wrong? She is criticizing society's view of women and questioning the integrity of these "famous and notable men". Her gullibility shows in that she seems to almost accept what others have said. The way she speaks seems to make her appear to be less intelligent than she actually is. By wording her statements in the introduction and her questions to the three ladies in this way, the point she is trying to make seems more dynamic. For example, instead of saying that to build a city takes great strength she asks the three ladies, "where would I find enough physical strength in my weak feminine body to realize such an enormous task?" While the beginning of this text seems to state terrible after terrible ideas of women, the female sex is defended when three women representing Reason, Rectitude, and Justice appear to Christine. They tell her to build a city and populate it with great women, to defend against these accusations being made by men. They first woman says, "for you know that any evil spoken of women so generally only hurts those who say it, not women themselves."