 Boethius’s real predicament sets the scene for the argument of the Consolation. He represents himself as utterly confused and dejected by his sudden change of fortune. Philosophy’s first job—true to the generic aim of a consolatio—is to console, not by offering sympathy, but by showing that Boethius has no good reason to complain: true happiness, she wishes to argue, is not damaged even by the sort of disaster he has experienced. She also identifies in Book I a wider objective: to show that it is not the case, as Boethius the character claims, that the wicked prosper and the good are oppressed.