Author: Jenk Lancheros

120 days of sodom by Marquis de Sade was completed in 1785. Context on childhood: Marquis had a dysfunctional family, his parents were separated due to his father abandoning his mother and marquis was taken care of by his uncle who had licentious manners. From an early age Marquis was exposed to malicious behavior and was known to grow up to be rebellious. As someone who has always been so intrigued by psychology we see how dysfunctional families and a lack of proper love at an early age can affect the way a kid grows up to be and how highly the chances of that someone will grow up with evil attempts because of lack of a good childhood and a good role model to look up to. Marquis grew up to do horrible things such as rape, murdering and torturing people but went especially in detail about the Women. He would describe them by their appearance which would dehumanize the women. This reminds me of the storyline of “The Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez. Richard’s father was abusive towards his mother and due to the conflict at home he left to live with his uncle who was misogynist and taught Richard how to be a creeper and spy on women through their windows. This spiked an interest on becoming a stalker and influenced richard into later having evil sexual desire to rape and torture women. In the book the men are often excusing their horrible actions by saying it’s the way they are made and their nature. The book itself is incredibly disturbing and sickening but from a psychology point of view I find it very interesting and brings up a lot of resemblance with other well known psychopaths. Marquis has a very planned out way of doing the things he does he goes into detail about his victims age, the order they come in and what he does to each of them. Yet again another trait we see in psychopaths. Marquis does all this to fullfil the pleasure of having control over the men and women he rapes and tortures and even though hes able to grasp the fact that what he is doing is horrible he has no empathy and feels no remorse. I believed that the entire book was focused on Marquis’ sexual fantasies. He talked about coprophilia, Urologia, and other sexual obsessions. 

The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic text that was discovered in the 1970s. In the Gospel of Judas we hear a different perspective apart from the original well known story of how Judas “betrayed” Jesus. Just like the Gospel of Mary of Magdala through these two texts we are getting to see two new perspectives on people who have been looked down upon by the church. This gives me a lens to see further than what is already written and pushes me to question everything because there’s always two sides to every story. In the Gospel of Judas, Judas is shown as Jesus’ closest companion. Judas understood Jesus’ lectures and teaching on a closer and more personal level than maybe any of the other disciples mostly because of the tight connection he and Jesus had. It drove him to be more connected to his teachings and guide him through his spiritual journey. This in a way reminded me of the term “teachers pet” we can refer to Jadus being in a way the teachers pet. In the text Jesus shares secret knowledge such as the nature of God. In the original texts about Judas it is said he betrayed Jesus by leading the men to arrest him but in this revelation Judas is depicted as helping Jesus by handing him over because it was necessary in order for Jesus to complete his plan of dying on the cross to bring salvation to his people. The disciples start questioning Jesus and his teachings especially after Jesus makes it clear that human will ever come close to accessing 

Johnathan Swift wrote a satirical proposal in 1729 called “A Modest Proposal” in this text he joked about bettering the economy and fixing the lack of food resources by selling the children as food to the rich. In the beginning he brings up how these kids are born into families that can’t make a living for themselves and force these children become money hungry and suggest that they will grow up to be thieves or even leave family behind in the search for a better life. Indicating that all these children who are born into poor families will have nothing to contribute to society leaving them to be insignificant. This in a way reminded me of how bad the resources are for homeless people here in America and how once someone can’t work or contribute to the economy it’s as if they are no longer viewed human and are stripped away from any human rights.  It also brings up the fact that all this somehow comes around to being the mothers fault. From the text of A Modest Proposal: “It is a melancholly Object to those, who walk through this great Town, or travel in the Country, when they see the streets, the roads, and the cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an Alms.” (Page 3)

Here in this quote we see how women are once again shamed for trying to make a living and talks about the many children who are seen following along the mother begging for money. It describes the state in which these children are in and gives us a better visual of the type of poverty there is. Jonathan highlights the big problem that is being faced and the lack of social awareness by the richer upper class. Obviously we can tell all that this text is being satire and used to mock the lack of empathy towards the poor and criticize laws and the policies that have been set up.  Although Swift proposes something so morally outrageous as cannibalism it really helps us readers fully understand the gravity of the issue going on here about poverty and how the system has failed to show simple empathy for anyone but the rich.

The Gospel of Mary of Magdala was discovered in the late 1800’s it focuses on inner spiritual knowledge which we know goes completely against churches beliefs that in order to gain this spiritual knowledge one must do so by following church practices such as studying the scriptures, praying and seeking God’s wisdom. All of this is done by coming to church therefore giving the church power. This revelation threatens the power that the church would hold if society started becoming aware of their inner spiritual knowledge. This idea is a common belief in Gnosticism. Apart from threatening the church’s power this threatens the disciples ego’s. Judging to why Mary’s gospel was neglected and not “lost” we can guess that the disciples hated and envied the thought of a woman being closer to Jesus than any of them were. Peter, in particular, questions Mary’s authority on multiple occasions. Apart from this gospel Mary of Magdala is only mentioned early on as a prostitute and even heard of being possessed by demons. This makes me question how true and reliable this information about her is. What if due to the jealousy the disciples felt they invented these horrible things about Mary? This text gave me a new perspective of biblical views. Coming from a strict catholic family the texts opened up my eyes to question if gender roles really do play a big part in what we read and the readings we can trust. The Gospel of Mary of Magdala challenges traditional Christian narratives. It is the first time that we hear about a prominent female disciple of Jesus. Just like the Gospel of Judas this text gives us a different and more positive take on who Mary of Magdala was, instead of being portrayed as a shameful sinner the text highlights the close relationship with Jesus and her role in early Christianity. After reading Mary’s gospel it leaves me wondering how many times this has been done throughout history and how many women throughout our time have been portrayed differently due to sexism.  

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