Preview

Dantes Inferno.

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1704 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Dantes Inferno.
Imperfect Punishments

Imagine a place where tyrants stand up to their ears in boiling blood, the gluttonous experience monsoons of human filth, and those who commit sins of the flesh are blown about like pieces of paper in a never-ending wind storm. Welcome to Dante 's Inferno, his perspective on the appropriate punishments for those who are destined to hell for all eternity. Dante attempts to make the punishments fit the crimes, but because it is Dante dealing out the tortures and not God, the punishments will never be perfect because by nature, man is an imperfect creature. Only God is capable of being above reproach and of metering out a just punishment. While Dante 's treatment towards the tyrants is fitting, his views on the inhabitants of the Ante Inferno and Limbo seem to be backwards and these poor people are doomed to suffer misguided punishments. Therefore, despite Dante 's best attempts to justly punish each sinner, he makes a few mistakes because he is not God and Dante is unable to unbiasedly judge each sinner.

If you were to attempt a journey through Hell, the first unlucky hellions you would encounter are the inhabitants of the Ante Inferno. The residents of this "not quite heaven, not quite hell" domain were placed here because while living, they chose to neither side with God nor with the Devil. By choosing neither good nor evil, these people sinned because they never chose to live by a set of Christian ideals. The punishment for these sinners is to constantly chase a white flag. The color of the flag symbolizes the blank and empty life the sinners led because they did not choose to follow God. The sinners are also bitten by wasps because in real life, they were never forced into any type of moral decision, so in the Ante Inferno, the wasps sting them and force them to chase the white flag. While the ordeal these sinners face seems entirely appropriate, their physical location in hell, or lack there of, is what makes their punishment wrong. This

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Dante the Pilgrim visits many different people while on his journey through Hell in Dante’s Inferno. Each one of these tormented souls are punished for their crimes against themselves, society, and God. Most of these personalities bring no surprise as they are robbers, murderers, and blasphemers. However, the amount of Church authority figures in Hell is staggeringly high. The ironic revelation is never fully dissected by Dante but the implications of this writing may cause the public to turn a leery eye towards the Church. Throughout Dante’s Inferno, the sights of “Holy” men rotting in Hell create a rift between the teachings of the church and the common citizens.…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The second circle of this hell is lust. Dante set up his hell with nine levels. each level has a different punishment for a different sin. the lower level you go, the worse the punishment gets. the easiest punishment is level one which is paganism and it descends and gets harder from there. Each level is designed to accommodate the people that will be in it and the punishments that are in each.…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dante’s Inferno depicts all the different types of major sins you can commit in your lifetime and the punishments you will endure thereafter. Dante had a system for these punishments that worked on the idea of divine justice. Basically, whatever temptations you succumbed to, you will be punished in a deserving manner based on how bad the sin was. Dante’s 9 circles were in order from bad to worse, 9 being the worst.…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dante feels hell is a necessary, painful first step in any man's spiritual journey, and the path to the blessed after-life awaits anyone who seeks to find it, and through a screen of perseverance, one will find the face of God. Nonetheless, Dante aspires to heaven in an optimistic process, to find salvation in God, despite the merciless torture chamber he has to travel through. As Dante attempts to find God in his life, those sentenced to punishment in hell hinder him from the true path, as the city of hell in Inferno…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In his poem, Inferno, Dante Alighieri meets the damned souls in hell. His mentor, Virgil, a well-known poet and a good friend of Dante’s, guides him through out their journey of hell and encourages him to farther question those souls damned in hell. Virgil also explains the structure of hell, how it is divided into circles and each circle is the place where those guilty of certain sins are being punished. Through out the poem, the souls that Virgil and Dante encounter, all try to justify their sin and they indirectly ask for pity. Here is where Dante the poem leaves the decision up to the reader, whether or not the punishment fits the sinner and the sin and whether or not they deserve pity. Two characters that Virgil and Dante encounter are Pier delle Vigne and Guido da Montefeltro. Pier delle Vigne was a famous Chancellor of the Emperor Frederick II, he is in hell because he committed suicide after being accused of treason. Guido da Montefeltro, on the other hand, was an important military general, strategists, and a politician. Guido is in hell because he was found guilty of false counsel.…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the Inferno, the circle of Hell is determined by the sins the person (soul) committed while still alive on earth. For their deeds, they suffer eternally according to Divine Justice. The people one sees in life can already have chosen their eternal fate. Their outward actions may determine which part of Hell they are sent to, if indeed they are fated to go there and if Hell is the way Dante puts it.…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Inferno” is an epic poem following the journey of Dante a mortal man who was guided through the many circles of Hell. Through his experiences he learns that divine retribution is pure justice of God; for all the punishment the tormented souls endure in Hell corresponds to whatever sins they have committed in life. Every circle in hell has an assigned punishment for the corresponding sinners within them. At the beginning of Dante’s journey he was horrified and felt pity and compassion toward the tortured souls he encountered. Through his journey Dante’s attitude changes from pity and compassion to ridiculing and wishing more punishment of divine retribution upon the sinners within the circles of hell. Through my essay I will discuss cantos V, VIII, and XXXII.…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dantes Inferno Essay

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The strength in Dante’s imagery in this quote is not so much that he uses elegant vocabulary, but more that he structures the words in a blunt, straightforward way that enunciate the draconian punishments and make them more intense. The imagery in the inferno is honest and the reader is fully exposed to the horror of the punishments.…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dante's Inferno

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages

    References: Alighieri, D. (2006). The divine comedy: The originals. Hayes Barton Press; Raleigh, N.C.Retrieved September 15, 2011 from http://myeclassonline…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dante Inferno

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Amidst a world that is constantly new, changing, and terrifying, the comforting voice of reason explains everything to Dante the pilgrim and the reader. He describes the geography of the place, why sinners are punished according to their sins, why we see what we do - in short, Virgil always provides the reason why things are the way they are. This is essentially the role of rationality in a philosophic sense of the world. As we know, Dante was a student of philosophy, so he was well familiar with philosophers' tools to explain the world. Virgil therefore symbolizes human reason in a very didactic sense.Viewed in this frame of reference, then, we can see that Dante's placement of Virgil in the Divine Comedy reflects his struggle to reconcile these two views. First, Virgil's separation from Paradiso is absolutely essential. That Virgil doesn't accompany Dante into heaven shows that Dante the writer believes that his two views must be kept separate. Classical reason, symbolized in Virgil, has no place in the revelation of Christianity and must remain autonomous. Dante hopes to avoid the conflict by keeping the two separate in his mind - as separate as Virgil and Beatrice are from one another. irgil also represents the best bridge between Dante's conflicting ideas of classicism and Christianity. In his 4th Eclogue, Virgil wrote of the coming of a little boy who would restore order and bring about happiness. In hindsight, it is eerily reminiscent of the story of Christ, but there is no way Virgil could have known about Jesus at the time of his writing. The 4th Eclogue has intrigued scholars for centuries, and Dante was no different. Virgil's message was prophetic, he thought, which made him the most "Christian" of the pagans. Virgil, as a pagan poet possibly predicting Christ's birth, represented for Dante the closest link between his conflicting fascinations with Christianity and classicism.…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dante Essay

    • 664 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In our world and Dante’s violence, greed, and treachery or treason are all viewed similar and are punished in similar ways. For example, someone who is guilty of greed in today’s society is not punished by a law but is punished mentally by the community. In Dante’s Inferno, they are placed deeper into hell and are punished mentally and physically.…

    • 664 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    <br>This evil is evident in the right wing of The Garden of Earthy Delights, which can be used to portray scenes from almost all of Dante's circles of Hell. Fire is seen in much of the painting, which can be symbolic of death. Fire is one of the only elements man can create so fire can also be seen as a symbol of mortality. Virgil said, "I come to lead you to the other shore, into eternal darkness, ice, and fire." (Canto III: line 87) This quote shows the connection of fire and Hell. Fire can also be representative of the Holy Spirit and this relates to Dante who ties religion into the Inferno. Fire is the background of much of the top of the painting. Virgil said, "Eternal fire burns within, giving off the reddish glow you see diffused throughout this lower Hell." (VII: 73-75)…

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dantes Inferno

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In his Divine Comedy, Dante strays from his path and becomes lost in a dark wooded area. The Roman Poet Virgil is sent down to the lost Dante to guide him through the circles of hell and towards his end destination of Paradise. In the first canto The Divine Comedy of Dante’s Inferno the two main characters Dante and Virgil and made apparent. Dante Alighieri develops his character Dante, into a man by the end of the comedy. In the beginning Dante is fearful; however his guide Virgil, encourages Dante to show courage on this journey. Dante’s and Virgil’s characters are developed in the Divine Comedy, however the characters are each developed differently. Virgil is used more in the development of Dante’s character. Dante’s character on the other hand is developed over the entire comedy with the help of the author and Virgil.…

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Inferno

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In Dante’s Inferno, Dante narrates his descent and observation of hell through the various circles and pouches. One part of this depiction is his descriptions of the various punishments that each of the different sinners has received.…

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In The Inferno, hell is in a spiral shape, and is divided up by the seriousness of the sin committed. The sinners are stuck in their location in hell where there punishment fit the crime that they committed. At the top of hell is where what Dante considered the least sinful people belonged. This is the home of the people who suffered from lust, and gluttony.…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays