Acedia Essay, Research Paper

Are you a victim of Acedia or a person with non-Acedic qualities? To recognize yourself, who you are, ask these questions to yourself: how honest you are with yourself, and do you think too much or do you feel too much. In “The Deadliest of the Sins” Robertson Davies describes the concept of Acedia and non-Acedia and prefers to be a non-Acedic person because they are enthusiastic and honest to themselves, whereas the people with symptoms of Acedia are “The wet blankets of life” and spiritless (89). According to him, non-Acedic people are cheerful, emotional, risk takers who enjoy life, live in the present and go by their feelings. On the other hand, Acedic people think too much, always complain, trap themselves in their own customs, become happier on the failure of others and seldom make mistakes because they never take risks or do experiments. Davies’ concepts of acedia are illustrated in Wharton “Ethan Frome” where Mattie is non-Acedic, Zeena is an Acedia victim and Ethan falls in between.