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.