Literary Analysis Essay on the Seven Deadly Sins

Introduction

The society is engaged in a number of misdoings and social disorders. The seven deadly sins seek to explore and explain some of the underlying social disorders that are typically reminiscent of community challenges. The seven deadly sins- sloth, avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, and pride were all committed on Sunday during the twice-annual bake sale held at St. Mary's of the Immaculate Conception Church. The 'Onion Reporter' who is obviously the speaker in this text illustrates the deadly sins satirically and does manage to deliver the message of the 'deadly sins' or illustrate them effectively. The examples the reporter gives are sufficient as he seems to understand each sin, its classification and who does them. The reporters say: the sin of lust also reared its head at the bake sale, this gives the audience an idea of the sins being done. In addition, the mention of Catholic women who actively participate in the church as active 'doers' of the sins is particularly powerful, however in some contexts, narrowing down on women rather than the general congregation of churchgoers may be considered sexist. The statistics of the deadly sins seem eerily off as they are few (seven sins) and they are done 347 times. Additionally, the number of people who are seen to have done these sins are few. In my view, it seems the author counts the sin, the number of people who have committed the sin at the church and the number of times it has been done. It is assumable, that this was the arithmetic used to arrive at the statistics by the Onion reporter, even so, they would have been sufficiently less, though just by a small margin.

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The deadly sins are explained by classifying them into two categories, venial and mortal sins. Venial sins are those that are considered forgivable and have less guilt attached to them e.g. gossip. Whereas mortal sins are considered more grievous and damaging to the soul and usually carry a heavy price of penance.

For instance, gossiping to ruin someone's reputation is considered a mortal sin. Of the two categories, the reporter seems to give more weight to lust as it has the most satirical illustration of all the sins. As said previously, the author says, "The sin of lust also reared its head at the bake sale," (Tickle n.p). This satirical allusion to the sin of lust seems weighty as compared to the humorous manner in which the remaining of the sins are explained.

Even though all the sins were committed and depicted in a specific manner, one specific sin seemed to be overlooked; this was the sin of lust. Lust is the desire or wants for something or someone in an exact way. According to the passage, the sin of lust was largely due to the character-Melissa Wyckoff. She is a twenty-year-old redhead with a religious background. The churchgoers at the bake sale ignored their feelings but even so, the sin of lust still existed.

The seven sins, in summary, is a discussion of some of the obvious deeds in life that do not meet ethical standards. The sin of lust, however, emerges as one of the major sins in the society that continues to draw the society apart from each other. On other fronts, the seven sins are not clear to have been performed in the order in which they were discussed.

Works Cited

Tickle, Phyllis A. Greed: The seven deadly sins. Oxford University Press, 2004.