erything a paradise is supposed to have. This is another attempt to show how the church was living high on the hog while the common man was suffering below. The author points out how the church bends the rules to their advantage by the items the monk drew up for the abbey. It also goes on to tell about the fashion of the day there and how silly it really was. After all this Gargantua begat his son on his wife, Pantagruel. The childbirth of this mammoth takes the life of his mother. The story to me reflects the importance of women at this time because of only mentioning the death of his mother once. There is not even the slightest care that she died by her husband or anyone else, I feel this points out how important women were in French society, not very. After the birth of Pantagruel he is sent to Paris like his father to educate himself, where he receives a letter from Gargantua. In this letter Rabelias gets his point across of the view of the intellectual elite towards culture, and education. He goes on to explain what was going on in these fields during the renaissance. As the story continues Pantagruel and his teacher, Panurge, are approached by an Englishman seeking knowledge. They agree to sort out some of the mysteries of the world at a debate in the morning. Panurge and the Englishman communicate by only gestures and not words. Rabelais has the two characters foolishly communicate by sticking their fingers in their ass, and pissing vinegar. The author once again is blasting the foolishness of the education of the time. I feel he use’s these expressions to demean the educated by making even their language seem stupid and useless. After the debate is over the characters feel like they have accomplished a great deal, when as a reader you feel as though you have just wasted five minutes of your life listening to them prove nothing, a point well taken from the pen of the author. As Pantagruel enters i...
