Praise Of Folly Analysis

In the novel “Praise of Folly” written by Desiderius Erasmus, the reader is presented with Folly-gender being a woman. Folly makes it very clear to us the readers, that without her many things would not occur, or would fail such as the likelihood to marry, keeping the marriage going, as well as having children and raising them happily. The reason marriage is allowed to continue on a blissful note, and not resulting in divorces, is because folly permits the partners to overlook the characteristics of the other individual that are perceived as undesirable. Folly works on the platform of passions and drives, which she sees as making life that much more tolerable and worth living, as opposed to wisdom which is said to be governed by reason. This

While pointing out that men are attracted profoundly to the foolish beauty of women, as well as women being able to do manipulate men using this power, it just comes to show that Folly is the main source of what pleases men-as well as it being the major power for women. This comes to play with marriage and how “without me no society or mortal union can be pleasant or lasting,” men are able to tolerate women and all their wrongdoings by sustaining it by perceiving it as a joke or illusion. Without doing so, the relationship of a marriage wouldn’t survive or remotely last without ending in divorce. Being that men weren’t blinded by that foolish beauty, and all the folly infused into the foundation of a marriage, then so many of these relationships would fail because men would actually know what their wives were up to and what bad actions they have taken- such as cheating on them. But while there is an arrow pointing at the sexism of men for a while, it does spin back to women once again about how they use their foolish beauty power to blind men into their wrongdoings because even though this what makes marriages last and once again folly is making is seem like it is a good thing- in retrospect it makes women look like the criminal and man like the victim of the life he lives in with the wife he decided to wed. Also regarding children, women wouldn’t have them if they knew how

Presenting it in a very twisted fashion. Women are seen as the foolish creatures whereas men as the wise, but is that really the case when you look at it in a different angle? The statement is strictly ironic since these “wise” men can easily be manipulated by these beautiful “foolish” women, and their acts. So since these women are foolish ones, how is it that they can control these men who are supposed to be the wise ones? When presenting it this way, one can perceive the men as the actual fools as opposed to the women being the stated fools. Why is folly confusing us, and making women look bad when even she is a woman? So going back to the original question “since the male was born to be in charge of things, he has been given a tiny scruple more of reason, we consults as best as he can” we are presented as to why it isn’t the best that he can, because if he really had that “more scruple of reason” then he would be able to deflect that trickery or foolishness that women provide- but ultimately he does not. But swinging back to the beginning, Folly is highlighting the fact that without her, nonetheless, things such as marriages, continuation of that relationship and having children and creating families would not transpire if not for her, but her points directed towards sexes are contradicting and ironic- because at the end of