Literature be an extremely influential and useful tool in helping its audience to understand the implications of human nature and its sins. Examples of texts that achieve this feat are Dante’s Inferno by Dante Alighieri and One Thousand and One Nights. Within both, human beings (or their afterlife counterparts found in Dante’s Inferno referred to as “shades”) experience various negative and often painful situations brought on by the sinful actions of individuals. Dante’s Inferno and One Thousand and One Nights contain parallel themes, such as infidelity and justice, which address the consequences of human imperfections and failure. Infidelity is a theme found throughout both Dante’s Inferno and One Thousand and One Nights. In the first text, Dante -the protagonist and narrator of the story- first happens upon the unfaithful in the Second Circle of Hell found in Canto V. These individuals are facing punishment for eternity due to their lustful nature as human beings (Alighieri Canto V). The consequences of acting upon their lustful urges result in the adulterers eternally being thrust into an:
“infernal storm, eternal in its rage, sweeps and drives the spirits [shades] with its blast: it whirls them, lashing them with punishment” (Canto V, lines 31-33).
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Despite the fact that treason is not always associated with infidelity, it is notable to point out that seeing as treason is an act of betrayal, the individual that committed treason has been unfaithful to some entity. Dante lists this as the last circle in Hell, suggesting that committing treason, and therefore infidelity, against any other being is the absolute worst action that an individual could perform in his or her lifetime. As punishment, the traitors are frozen in a lake of ice for all
In analyzing this gradient of morality, it is useful first to examine a work from early literature whose strong purity of morality is unwavering; for the purposes of this discussion, Dante’s Inferno provides this model. It is fairly straightforward to discover Dante’s dualistic construction of morality in his winding caverns of Hell; each stern, finite circle of Hell is associated with a clear sin that is both definable and directly punishable. As Dante moves downwards in this moral machination, he notes that
There are many different kinds of sins being punished in Dante’s version of Hell. In the seventh level, three different kinds of sins are being punished each in their own separate ring. The usurers, the sodomites, and the focus of Canto XIV, the blasphemers. These sinners committed the act of blasphemy, also known as violence against God. Actions that qualify as blasphemy include burning religious texts, vandalizing churches, worshipping Satan, and other similar transgressions. Sinners who have carried out blasphemous acts were trapped on an unbearably hot, sandy beach. The souls were not only being burned from the bottom where they laid on the beach, but also being burned from “distended flakes of fire [drifting] aloft” in the air, so from
In Dante’s Inferno, those who never repented for their sins are sent there after death. Like the old Latin proverb says, “The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation.” (“Latin Proverb Quotes” ThinkExist) The punishments in his Hell are decided by the law of retribution, which according to Webster’s Dictionary is the total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny. (“Retribution” Merriam-Webster) Therefore, Dante creates a variety of reprimands for the three different types of sins: incontinence, violence, and fraudulence. These penalties can also be referred to as allegories because of their hidden moral meaning. The three best allegories in Dante’s Inferno describe the flatterers, fortune tellers, and suicides.
The second circle of Hell is home to the souls of those who were overcome by lust. Dante saw many well-known historical figures such as Cleopatra and Semiramis in this circle of Hell. The punishments for these adulteress souls were to be blown around in a stormy wind amongst the darkness within the Earth. The justified reasoning behind their punishment was so the sinners would have no control over their bodies, such as the desire to satisfy their pleasure
...ards monstrous figures and sympathy towards those who seem to be tortured unjustly. In his perverse education, with instruction from Virgil and the shades, Dante learns to replace mercy with brutality, because sympathy in Hell condones sin and denies divine justice. The ancient philosopher Plato, present in the first level of Hell, argues in The Allegory of the Cave that truth is possible via knowledge of the Form of the Good. Similarly, Dante acquires truth through a gradual understanding of contrapasso and the recognition of divine justice in the afterlife. Ultimately, Dante recognizes that the actions of the earthly fresh are important because the soul lives on afterwards to face the ramifications. By expressing his ideas on morality and righteousness, Dante writes a work worth reading, immortalizes his name, and exalts the beliefs of his Christian audience.
Sinners in this section are punished for their lust. The punishment that they have to endure is to be ripped apart by vicious winds (Dante 41). This circle has people included in it that shared a mere kiss with a married person. One lady that is being punished in this section fell in love and kissed her husband’s brother while reading a steamy romantic book (Dante 43). The sinners in this circle are unjustly punished and there should be more fitting punishments. Along with more fitting punishments there should be different levels of punishments based on how severe of lechery was committed. Dante had a lot of different reasons for putting the lustful sin in this order. One reason that he had for doing this is because of self-pity for himself. His love for Beatrice would have placed him in this circle and he realized this. He placed this sin really low on the scale because he knew he was prone to committing this sin. Dante’s own personal experience influenced his decision to put the lustful as only the second circle in the organization of
Moreover, Dante, the narrator of the Inferno, has succeeded in not only telling the frightening story of the Inferno, but also pointing out the importance of the relationship between human’s sins and God’s retribution, using the monsters as the symbols for each kind of sin and its punishment throughout the progress of the story, which teaches his readers to be well aware of their sins through the literature – a part of humanities; the disciplines that teach a man to be a human.
Dante Alighieri presents a vivid and awakening view of the depths of Hell in the first book of his Divine Comedy, the Inferno. The reader is allowed to contemplate the state of his own soul as Dante "visits" and views the state of the souls of those eternally assigned to Hell's hallows. While any one of the cantos written in Inferno will offer an excellent description of the suffering and justice of hell, Canto V offers a poignant view of the assignment of punishment based on the committed sin. Through this close reading, we will examine three distinct areas of Dante's hell: the geography and punishment the sinner is restricted to, the character of the sinner, and the "fairness" or justice of the punishment in relation to the sin. Dante's Inferno is an ordered and descriptive journey that allows the reader the chance to see his own shortcomings in the sinners presented in the text.
Dante’s The Divine Comedy illustrates one man’s quest for the knowledge of how to avoid the repercussions of his actions in life so that he may seek salvation in the afterlife. The Divine Comedy establishes a set of moral principles that one must live by in order to reach paradise. Dante presents these principles in Inferno, where each level of Hell has people suffering for the sins they committed during their life. As Dante gets deeper into Hell, the degrees of sin get progressively worse, as do the severity of punishment.
Seeing as this work was written by Dante, and the journey is taken by Dante, he has a unique opportunity to judge his fellow man and decide how they will be punished. He also gets to place his enemies in hell, forever besmirching their names for generations to remember. Perhaps unknowing to Dante, that is worse than any of the punishments that he placed his enemies in. The reality of The Inferno is unlikely and therefore these punishments are nothing but a fictiona...
Dante Alighieri, 14th century Italian poet, wrote The Divine Comedy with many allegorical meanings behind it. He is famous for three books: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. These books are about how Dante travels to the three stages of the afterlife. He ventures down to Hell and Purgatory with Virgil, and finishes in Heaven with the help of Beatrice. Through all these stages, Dante has to get back on the right path, or the True Way and be one with God. Throughout Dante’s allegorical journey, he has experienced many obstacles and met many different people and their situations.
Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with many questions and thought provoking dialogue to interpret. These crossroads provide points of contemplation and thought. Dante’s graphic depiction of hell and its eternal punishment is filled with imagery and allegorical meanings. Examining one of these cruxes of why there is a rift in the pits of hell, can lead the reader to interpret why Dante used the language he did to relate the Idea of a Just and perfect punishment by God.
Inferno, the first part of Divina Commedia, or the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, is the story of a man's journey through Hell and the observance of punishments incurred as a result of the committance of sin. In all cases the severity of the punishment, and the punishment itself, has a direct correlation to the sin committed. The punishments are fitting in that they are symbolic of the actual sin; in other words, "They got what they wanted." (Literature of the Western World, p.1409) According to Dante, Hell has two divisions: Upper Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of incontinence, and Lower Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of malice. The divisions of Hell are likewise split into levels corresponding to sin. Each of the levels and the divisions within levels 7,8, and 9 have an analogous historical or mythological figure used to illustrate and exemplify the sin.
... Moreover, such belief in human reason signifies Dante's hope towards a bright society and the pursuit of God’s love as the other part of self-reflection. In conclusion, a great deal of tension and contrast between “dark” and “light” in The Inferno helps us to explore Dante’s self portrait—he fears dangerous desires and sinful darkness, but shows much courage and hope towards life since he nevertheless follows his guide Virgil to dive into horrible Hell. As shown in Canto I, such emotional reaction to dark and light symbols lays a great foundation for developing Dante’s broad and universal traits as his journey progresses.
If only Dante’s development stopped here, he would remain grieved but personable, but the final circle of Hell, and the despicable people in it drive him towards an emotional stance that borders on sinister. He still feels intensely towards the inhabitants of Hell, but in the final circle, he temporarily adopts an attitude of frustration and damnation. George Santayana elaborates on this new Dante, saying he feels "...that good is dishonored if those who condemn it can go scot-free, and never repent of their negligence… and that the everlasting shrieks and contortions of the damned alone will make it possible for the saints to sit quiet, and be convinced that there is perfect harmony in the universe" (98). In this circle, where sinners are