Examples Of Allegory In Dante's Inferno

“The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation” (Think-exist, par. 5). This quote from a Latin Proverb emphasizes the importance of recognizing sin and striving to live life in a more honorable manner. Dante Alighieri portrays this message in his infamous three-part poem, The Divine Comedy. The Italian poet takes the audience on a journey through the stories of Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Heaven (Paradiso). Starting in the Inferno, Dante chronicles the expedition he himself experiences, under the faithful guidance of the Roman poet Virgil, as he travels through the nine circles of hell to reach heaven. Though an imaginative and gripping story, through the detailed descriptions of punishments, settings and characters, the poem ultimately serves an allegorical purpose by depicting one man’s desperate journey from confusion and depression to salvation. In essence, an allegory is a story with both a literal and symbolic meaning. While Dante tries to escape hell, Alighieri basically
This is shown when it reads, “In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray/Gone from the path direct…” (I. 2-3). This line not only conveys Dante’s disorientation, but on a deeper level reveals how he is a middle-aged man who has fallen of the “direct path” of God. The description of the forest as “gloomy” symbolizes the dark place he is in his life. Additionally, when Dante writes, “That forest, how robust and rough its growth, / Which to remember only my dismay/ Renews, in bitterness mot far from death” (I. 5-7), expands upon his state of depression. The growth of the forest represents the increasing sin in his life and the entrapment he feels because of it. Dante is frightened and alone as he yearns for a way back to leading a righteous, godly life. Alighieri uses his life to show the audience how easily humans become trapped in