Inferno, published in 2013, is the fourth mystery thriller in the Robert Langdon series, authored by writer Dan Brown; characterized foremost by its many puzzles and historical influences, the book features a sub-plot concerning the philosophical thoughts of overpopulation and its potential solutions. Through his narrative technique, the author manages to create a thoroughly convincing conceivable tale, impelling the reader to disregard its fictionality whilst enticing the same into a suspension of disbelief. Initially, through his narrative techniques and plot points, the author fashions a supposable story rich in mesmeric material. This story, Inferno, begins with Professor Robert Langdon waking from a headwound, unable to recollect his …show more content…
As the story picks up one is with professor Landon introduced to a vast conspiracy seemingly connected to Dante Alighieri’s 14th century masterwork, Dante’s Inferno, spanning some of the antiques finest cities and helmed by a shadowy figure donning a plague mask declaiming the ailments of the ‘decease called mankind’ upon the earth. The central story, with its many twists and turns, is through a myriad of vivid and detailed descriptions of both places, people and proceedings made wholly immersible. In his titular fashion of mysteries and revelations, the author leads one from mystery to mystery, each answer provoking another question and each revelation more profound than the last; further adding to the immersion by steadily keeping the readers focused and attentive. Even though the enjoyment of the story itself is solely subjective its dramaturgical structure, authentic settings and discovery-based narrative evokes within the reader an air of …show more content…
Exempli gratia, much of the story is told through the mind of professor Langdon, by which the many moods of the tale are given shape and imparted. Through his mind one is made aware of his feeling of dread, disbelief, joy and so forth; perfectly setting the stage for acts and events in such a way that the reader stays within the authors intended frame of mind. The aforementioned urgency of professor Langdon's undertaking coupled with this, his emotional state and retrograde amnesia, in contrast to his normally eidetic memory, leads to a series of misapprehensions critical to the story; further augmenting the reasonability of the
In the true crime/sociology story, “Best Intentions: The Education and Killing of Edmund Perry” the author, Robert Sam Anson had provided an immense amount of information from reportings about Edmund Perry’s death and life before he died. Anson has developed Edmund’s character and experiences through reporting that I have related and connected to. Information reported by Anson has helped me find a deep connection towards Edmund Perry’s home environment, junior high experiences, and personality at Philips Exeter. Themes such as hopes and dreams, loyalty and betrayal, journey, and family ties are intertwined in the story and becomes blatant. The congruences between our lives have better my understanding of the story and Edmund’s life.
Inferno is only a piece of a much larger story written by Dante Alighieri. The entire story is called the Divine Comedy, which is composed of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Together these three pieces tell the story of Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise; something that is easily discernible through reading the titles of each part. Dante wrote these poems somewhere around the year 1300. Originally written in what Dante referred to as Latin, there have been many different translations of his Divine Comedy. This has cause some variations in small details of the text, but the main story has stayed the same. Dante was highly involved in some political conflicts at the time which influenced some of his writing. The one thing that influenced Dante more than anything else in his writing was love. His love for the love of his life Beatrice was never ending. It was completely amazing how much he loved her. Now especially in Inferno it would definitely seem like love does not play a major part in the story. It does, love is the main reason the journey is imparted upon in the first place. A major but very overlooked theme in Dante's Inferno is love.
...ntence. Some critics read the title of Faulkner's novel as a challenge to the reader, in that, as "a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing," the book defies traditional literary understanding. Faulkner ends the novel with Benjy howling, fulfilling the line from "Macbeth," but after that has an image of order. The form of narrative, and not the content of life, is the only chance for order in the world. A new framing device of literary technique replaces the conventional teleological frame. The novel moves from Good Friday to Easter, from the innocence of Benjy's opening section to the omniscience of Faulkner's (or Dilsey's) concluding section. While Perry Mason and Benjy's howl seemingly signify nothing, the precision of authorial control reveals the deep material of the past in each novel from which we can attribute meaning.
In Bierce’s “One of the Missing”, the protagonist, Jerome Searing, is expose to fear when he is trap under a building that has collapse on him. His evolution, from perfectly sane to completely crazy, is clearly visible.
He reacts to the inscription by crying out, “Master, I said, these words I see are cruel” (Dante pg.14). By this he shows his fear of the unknown because he does not yet know exactly what he will witness during his descent. One of Dante’s truest displays of fear occurs when he sees the angels. The angels deny the travelers access to the city. Virgil even appears startled and confused by this.
Everyone has a different perception of what really is heaven and hell and where people end up in the after life. Some people are not even religious and have their own personal thoughts about what is next after death. The Inferno or to be more precise “Hell” can be described and defined as a place where people end up after death in the natural world, when people have not followed God’s ways and laws of living. It is has been depicted throughout the years of time that suffering in hell is horrific, gruesome, and unimaginable. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante portrays the protagonist as he is guided by his ghostly friend Virgil the poet through the nine chambers of Hell. The transition from one circle to another is very shocking and graphic at what he witnesses through each circle. Dante uncovers where each sin will lead people to once the sinners souls face death. He faces many trials and tribulations through the beginning to end of the Inferno. Dante felt impelled to write the Inferno because he was going through his own personal struggles at the time. In a way he was extremely depressed because he was exiled out of Florence, and the love of his life Beatrice died. While Dante was in exile for so many years, it allowed him to write some of his most significant works of literature that people still read to this day.
Alighieri, Dante. “Inferno.” The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Middle Period, 100 C.E.-1450. Ed. Paul Davis, Gary Harrison, David M. Johnson, Patricia Clark Smith, John F. Crawford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 678-848. Print.
“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.” This maxim applies to the poet Dante Alighieri, writer of The Inferno in the 1300s, because it asserts the need to establish oneself as a contributor to society. Indeed, Dante’s work contributes much to Renaissance Italy as his work is the first of its scope and size to be written in the vernacular. Due to its readability and availability, The Inferno is a nationalistic symbol. With this widespread availability also comes a certain social responsibility; even though Dante’s audience would have been familiar with the religious dogma, he assumes the didactic role of illustrating his own version of Christian justice and emphasizes the need for a personal understanding of divine wisdom and contrapasso, the idea of the perfect punishment for the crime. Dante acts as both author and narrator, completing a physical and spiritual journey into the underworld with Virgil as his guide and mentor. The journey from darkness into light is an allegory full of symbolism, much like that of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which shows a philosopher’s journey towards truth. Therefore, Dante would also agree with the maxim, “Wise men learn by others’ harms; fools scarcely by their own,” because on the road to gaining knowledge and spiritual enlightenment, characters who learn valuable lessons from the misfortunes of others strengthen their own paradigms. Nonetheless, the only true way to gain knowledge is to experience it first hand. Dante’s character finds truth by way of his own personal quest.
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.
Inferno follows the story of Dr. Langdon and Sienna Brooks as they travel through Florence trying to stop a mad man from setting loose a disease that could wipe out huge amounts of populations as a way to solve the world’s overpopulation problem. This disease being later shown to be a vector virus that make’s 1/3 of humans actually sterile instead. Langdon however has no memory of anything and has to retrace his steps in order to stop the possible outbreak. Many of the places told in the story all have to deal with significant areas within Florence herself. Florence is the breeding ground of the world’s most famous artists and have inspired books and even video games alike. From the Boboli Gardens to the Florence Baptistry.
In Dante’s Inferno, the punishment for a sin is the representation and reflection of the sin itself. The law of Dante’s Hell is symbolic retribution, which means that the specific attributes of the sin--how it was committed, by whom, and its effects--are concretely embodied in the specific nature of the punishment. This paper will attempt to show, by going through the geography of Dante’s Hell, how the sins in Dante’s Inferno are related to their punishments.
The Inferno is a very captivating narrative poem by the poet Dante which describes his imaginary journey towards finding God after falling asleep in the middle of his real life journey. The relationship between God and man is depicted clearly in The Inferno, The Divine Comedy. It is clearly shown that God does not associate with the evil or those in between good and evil. Though we see that God has hope for some who were once lost but can be redeemed and he sends his angels to guide those who get lost trying to find their way like Dante (Auerbach, Erich, 1961).In this significant journey, Dante first encounters a dark place in the woods and is guided by the shade of Virgil who appears to him in the woods. Dante says,
Dante’s work Inferno is a vivid walkthrough the depths of hell and invokes much imagery, contemplation and feeling. Dante’s work beautifully constructs a full sensory depiction of hell and the souls he encounters along the journey. In many instances within the work the reader arrives at a crossroads for interpretation and discussion. Canto XI offers one such crux in which Dante asks the question of why there is a separation between the upper levels of hell and the lower levels of hell. By discussing the text, examining its implications and interpretations, conclusions can be drawn about why there is delineation between the upper and lower levels and the rationale behind the separation.
David Lummus. Dante’s Inferno: Critical reception and Influence. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.stanford.edu/dept/DLCL/cgi-bin/web/files/lummus-inferno-influence.pdf. [Last Accessed e.g. 10 December 13].