In Dante’s Divina Commedia, he takes on a journey with unforgettable characters, from the poets from antiquity, demons, giants, and finally too famous saints.
Dante’s and the character interaction with them are what make this story. They are the legs on which this work was able to stand for so many years as a masterpiece. It was the characters that I most enjoyed it this work, you find yourself loving and hating the different shades you meet during Hell, the penitents of Purgatory and the saints of Heaven. The most developed characters we find in Commedia are Dante, Virgil and Beatrice. Yet there are several minor characters that if one looks more closely are just as interesting as our main stars. One such minor character is my favorite Matelda, and also a perfect example of Dante’s brilliance in characterization.
Matelda is a minor guide that helps Dante after Virgil disappears, and until
Beatrice takes him to heaven (Cantos XXVIII- XXXIII). Although Matelda may look like a plain old static-stock character , her motives are pure, her actions consistent and she is plausible as a guardian angel type whose actions are moved by the Divine love in her.
Dante the Character at this point in the story is about to leave the world literally and to meet his love Beatrice (who actually yells at him for his sin, before taking him to heaven). He has been left by his faithful guide, Virgil
(which he doesn’t even notice at first has been gone for a few cantos) and finds himself in the hand of a loving and beautiful hands of Matelda.
Matelda is a perfect guardian angel for Dante at this point in his journey, and faithful to helping him during this transition. Are her actions consistent? Yes. all are in line with Divine Love. We see this trough her actions. We first meet her she is the lovely creature that resides in the Garden of Eden. At Dante’s request she explains all of his questions. She guides him through the Garden and then washes him clean and helps him to drink from the rivers of memories, all after he gets reprimanded by Beatrice.
All this is done out of Love, for it is ultimately Divine Love that motivates her, motives that are pure in guiding her charge. For example “Why are you so intent on looking only at those living lights? Have you no wish to see what comes behind?” This encouragement will help Dante to move forward to his goal.
Yet I think it’s her purity of motives that make her a static character because
Descending from the first to the second level of Hell, Dante witnesses the transition to greater agony and greater punishment for the damned. Overwhelmed by the sinner’s harrowing cries and the extensive list of seemingly innocent souls given to him by Virgil, Dante beckons for two lovers to approach him, desperate for some sense of comfort. The souls are known to be the historical figures Francesca de Rimini and her lover Paolo, forever trapped in the circle of lust due to their sinful adultery. Through her words spoken to Dante, Francesca shows how she feels she has been unjustly punished and is deserving of others’ sorrow, and Dante, despite his awareness that she is a sinner, pities her. A close reading of this passage is necessary to better understand Dante’s internal battle with showing compassion where it is not deserved and Francesca’s incessant denial of her sins.
Dante experiences a vision, at the age of 35, after experiencing traumatic events in his hometown of Florence. The events that are occurring in Florence at the time are associated with papal corruption and cause Dante to be forced into exile. Following the vision, which confirms to Dante that he has strayed from the right path in life, Dante begins his travel through the three realms, which contain the possible consequences following a person’s death. Dante’s journey begins on Good Friday, when he is escorted to the gates of Hell, moves to Purgatory and ends in Heaven. However, an escort accompanies him for duration of his journey. Virgil, who Dante has long admired, escorts Dante through Hell and...
Finally, Matt de la Peña shows the character’s motivation through dialogue. One day Dante finally confronts the narrator.
On the other hand, the Inferno centers on those who turned their back to their “creator” and “source of life” in the fulfilling of earthly desires, and are thus damned for eternity. In between these two extremes is Purgatorio, which deals with the knowledge and teaching of love, as Beatrice and others help outline love for Dante so he can make the climb to paradise and be worthy. For the reader to understand the idea of Dante’s love, one must understand the influence of Aristotle, Plato, and Dante’s “love at first sight” Beatrice in transforming his concept of will and of love in life. In his Divine Comedy, Dante gains salvation through the transformation of his will to love, and hopes that the reader will also take away the knowledge and concept of love he uses to revert to the right path of
goes to the places where he used to with his love. When he is at the
...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.
In conclusion, we can see that Dante presents the reader with a potentially life-altering chance to participate in his journey through Hell. Not only are we allowed to follow Dante's own soul-searching journey, we ourselves are pressed to examine the state of our own souls in relation to the souls in Inferno. It is not just a story to entertain us; it is a display of human decision and the perpetual impact of those decisions.
of the disgust that he as appeared at their party. He goes to speak to
His warning to Dante, is similar to several of the infernal custodians, who continually remind him that he should not be in the Otherworld,
When “Dante” speaks to “Virgil” near the beginning of Inferno, he understands that he is not yet like Aeneas and Paul (Dante 1.2.32). He says that, unlike these two voyagers, his travels cannot profit others because of his soul's state of habitual sin. “Dante” briefly explains his reluctance to begin his odyssey, saying, “if I consent to start this journey, / I fear my venture will be wild and empty” (Dante 1.2.34-35). In this section, Dante uses Virgil's characterization of Aeneas to provide a strong contrast to the character “Dante” of Inferno. According to Dante, Aeneas completes a heaven-sent mission in founding his city, because Rome eventually becomes the home of the Papacy and the Church. In direct opposition to the mindset, at the start of the Commedia, “Dante” perceives himself as a man astray from the True Path; he does not believe that his voyage can ever ultimately lead to salvation in the way that Aeneas's did.
For the ancient Greek doctor and philosopher, Eryximachus, Love’s potential for health and destruction were rooted in its divine origins. Good love “stems from the Muse Celestia” and “Common Love,” from “Polymnia” (Symposium 22). He saw these two loves as at the center of human/divine communication: “all the ways in which gods and men communicate with one another—are solely concerned with the perpetuation or the cure of love” (Symposium 23). Love provided the link, then, between the mortal and immortal beings. It was a common project that both humans and gods could work on. Eryximachus further articulated, “It is (Love) who makes it possible for us to interact on good terms with one another and with our divine masters” (Symposium 23-4). It is the element of life that transcends the human realm, giving the people a taste of the divine in their own lives.
When we are first introduced to Dante the Pilgrim, we perceive in him a Renaissance intellectual, who despite his intelligence and religiosity has lost the “path that does not stray” (I.3). Having thus lost touch with the tenets of orthodox Catholicism, a higher power has chosen for him to undertake an epic journey. (The devout are able to identify this power with the one Judeo-Christian God, while pagans and sinners often attribute the impetus behind the Pilgrim’s voyage to fate.)
...g by the fire, and thinks about him and their past together, and how she didn’t accept him.
“Midway along the journey of our life” (Canto 1) Dante the Pilgrim says at the beginning of his journey. Through out the comedy and the Pilgrims vision of hell, I believe he was truly on a journey of self-discovery. Dante encountered a guide to help him in his journey throughout the nine circles of hell. Going deeper and deeper into hell Dante realized many different sins that he could have committed in his life and realized the things that he did not need anymore. Base on the end of his journey I believe that Dante truly found himself and found a new person within himself.
... 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.