Purgatory’s Structure

723 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis of inferno by dante

The organization of purgatory follows the arrangement of the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice and prodigality, gluttony, and lust. Virgil states that the formation is mainly on the pretense of love. As stated by Virgil, “love must be the seedbed where all virtuous deeds must grow, [and] with every act that warrants punishment” (Canto 17 103-05). This means that love is present within everything both sinful and virtuous. Those of insufficient love were being punished as sloths in terrace 4. The prior three terraces (pride, envy, and wrath) expressed the love given to evil objects or goals. The next three terraces (avarice, gluttony, and lust) presented excessive amounts of love to inherently good. This was the reason for the terraces formation, but still it was unclear why they were not the same as hell’s circles. Then looking back it became a little clearer and a sequence showed. Purgatory focused on making worst sins like pride, envy, and wrath something easier to cleanse. Pride was seen as the dominant sin, first. So since purgatory was about getting closer to God the worst sin had to be first to go. Pushing back one’s pride is something that many would fail. This was a main reason pride (different types of frauds) was so close to the devil in Inferno. Many did not realize how serous their pride caused others around them to suffer. The next terrace of envy was presenting the sense of relying on others for help. Envy quality as a sin is to make the user neglect one’s own blessing want the life others. This was just as bad as pride, but just a little less important. Hell version of envy was the seventh circle of violence. Envy has the qualities of what hell gave violence: murder, suicide, blasphemy, sodomy, ... ... middle of paper ... ...unless in the mind. In conclusion, the organization of is to show that the worst sins have to be cleanse before any progress can be made. As a soul goes up, they slowly relieve themselves of each lighter sin. This idea mainly described by Dante. When he started purgatory, it was hard, but as he climbed, he became lighter. It was not because he was purging him of the sins, but the order in which he was freeing himself. He started with the worst (pride), and then ended with the easiest, but also the one that is most common to occur repeatedly (lust). Hell on other hand was all about which sin cause the most pain to others and oneself. That is why it stats with lust, which is not harmful unless act upon. Then the worst pride a sin that will always cause another person to become harm or worst killed. In all both were mirror images of the other flip upside down.

Show More
Related

  • Divine Justice In 'Sir Gawain And The Green Knight'

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    In most ancient literature some sort of divine justice is used to punish people's acts in life. This is that case with Dante's Inferno, where the Author categorizes hell in 9 circles. Circle 9 being the lowest sins and punishments as the circles decrease. From the time this was written to now in days many things have changed, and things are not seen the same no more. Back then sins like greed and gluttony were ranked as high sins but now people would probably rank those very low with other things like murder way on top. Yet the basic structure set by Dante remains.

    Read More

  • Divine Grace and Justice in Dante's Inferno

    1539 Words  | 4 Pages

    The purpose of the pilgrim's journey through hell is to show, first hand, the divine justice of God and how Christian morality dictates how, and to what degree, sinners are punished. Also, the journey shows the significance of God's grace and how it affects not only the living, but the deceased as well. During his trip through hell, the character of Dante witnesses the true perfection of God's justice in that every sinner is punished in the same nature as their sins. For instance, the wrathful are to attack each other for all eternity and the soothsayers are forever to walk around with their heads on backwards. Furthermore, Dante discovers that hell is comprised of nine different circles containing sinners guilty of one type of sin, and that these circles are in order based upon how great an opposition the sin is to Christian morality and the ultimate will of God. We see here how Christianity plays a major role in the structure of hell and the degree to which each sinner is punished. Lastly, we can look at the story and see the importance of the grace of God not only to Dante during his journey, but how it affects the souls in hell and purgatory as well.

    Read More

  • Dante's Sense of Irony

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first thing you would notice is the overall irony of Hell itself. As mentioned, most people have a view that Hell is very chaotic and in disarray. However, In Canto IV we find out that Hell is actually very organized. The structure of it is in fact “a great funnel-shaped cave… with its bottom point at the Earth’s center. Around this great circular depression runs a series of ledges, each of which Dante calls a CIRCLE.” (Alighieri 25). Most pictures you see of hell show images of very distressed people and demons running around in turmoil. They are usually all over the place and no sense of organization is apparent. There is also a map of hell that Dante has drawn in order to give us a clearer image of what Hell supposedly looks like (Alighieri 26). Through this we find that Dante has applied his use irony into the very structure of Hell. We also see that the people we thought were myths actually exist – in Dante’s eyes. Scattered throughout the book, we see several mythological characters that have indeed descended into Hell. On...

    Read More

  • Dante's Inferno and The Afterlife

    1808 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the first punishments we observe comes from the fifth circle of Dante’s hell, the wrathful and the sullen, as the author expresses his thoughts of the fitting consequence with each sin. This portion of the text begins in the seventh canto and in it the punishment of those who lived in wrath are discussed, when Dante and Virgil first enter the circle they see a marsh containing people who endlessly beat upon each other the idea being that because they lived their lives in wrath they will live out their eternity with pure hatred for any soul they may encounter. Also addressed in this circle is the punishment for those who lived their life in a sullen manner, ignoring the goodness that the world around them contained. “‘Sullen were we in the air made sweet by the sun; in the glory or his shinning our hearts poured a bitter smoke. Sullen we begun; sullen we lie forever i...

    Read More

  • Juxtaposition In Dante's Inferno

    1536 Words  | 4 Pages

    The first being that there was a certain construction to his hell. The shape, first and foremost, was with a cone. Being largest at the top and getting smaller and smaller as you went down. Of course, the farther you went down, the worse the sins. When taking into consideration how I would construct my own hell, I decided I would follow this same format. The people who committed the worst sins would sit in the bottom on hell, in like a pit. The people that committed sins that were the least offensive would be at the top of the cone, where it’s the widest. As far as the actual geography of hell, I don’t think I would follow Dante’s schemata exactly, although I would draw a couple ideas from it. One thing that I would keep the same is the fact that the punishment of the sinner would reflect the sin that he or she committed while on Earth. The thing that I would change would make hell a lot more personal. For example, the sin committed would deal with the person directly. What the person feared or dreaded the most would be the punishment inflicted upon them. Depending on the severity of the sin. For instance, someone simply lied, then the extent of their own fear wouldn’t be as severe as it would if they had killed

    Read More

  • Punishments In Dante's Punishment

    1555 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Dante's Divine Comedy - Close Reading of Canto V of the Inferno

    917 Words  | 2 Pages

    The geography for each circle of Hell's misery is distinctly arranged to coincide with the sin of the sinners contained within. In Canto V, we are taken to the prison of those souls who were unable to master their own desires. These are those who "betrayed reason to their appetite" (1033), allowing the lust of flesh and carnal things overcome their God-given human reasoning. It is here that we see a dark and deafening Hell, full with the roar of the anguish of the condemned dead. Dante sees a great whirling storm of souls that are forever tossed and battered on their "hellish flight of storm and counterstorm" (1033). It is conveyed to us that each soul's path in the whirling cyclone is all but steady, blown about in a constantly changing torment with no direction or destination...

    Read More

  • God's Just Punishments and the Inferno of Dante

    439 Words  | 1 Pages

    This notion of the suitability of God’s punishments figures significantly in the structure of Dante’s Hell. To readers, as well as Dante himself (the character), the torments Dante and Virgil behold seem surprisingly harsh, possibly harsher than is fair, Dante exclaims this with surprise. He doesn’t actually wonder who decided on these tortures. He knows it was god. What he is questioning is how these punishments are just, since they don’t appear to be just from a human’s point of view which views each punishment together with its conjugate sin only superficially. For example, homosexuals must endure an eternity of walking on hot sand, and those who charge interest on loans sit beneath a rain of fire. At first glance, each one seems too terrible for any sin. However, when the poem is viewed as a whole, it becomes clear that the guiding principle of these punishments is one of balance. Sinners suffer punishment to the degree befitting the gravity of their sin, in a manner matching that sin’s nature. The structures of the poem and of hell serve to reinforce this correspondence.

    Read More

  • After Life Beyond The Horizon: The Ancient Greek Belief of the Afterlife

    1674 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...d God(Rudd 8-11). Keep in mind the punishments are still getting worse as they go down to the bottom of hell. These punishments are to stay in a river of blood or get shot, get souls trapped in trees and only talk when bleeding and having harpies eat them, very weird and the last one is burning sand and raining fire. Dante may have chosen to give the seventh layer these punishments because he saw it fit because since they harmed themselves god or others they will be harmed forever in hell.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Dante's Inferno

    1248 Words  | 3 Pages

    As mentioned above, the structure of Hell is determined by the sins people commit during their lifetime (the specific morals people disobey) and how ‘bad’ these sins are considered to be (within their respective divisions). The sins being described in The Inferno abide by the rules written for the Catholic religion in The Bible, which is why The Inferno is often viewed as a religious text. This explains why Aristotle and Dante would disagree on a few key points of what it means to be virtuous. Aristotle is adamant about not having excess nor deficiency and rather finding a middle ground (mean), whereas Dante abides by the virtues laid out in The Bible. Hell usually personifies what would be considered excessive rather than deficiency in Aristotle’s code of ethics because of its background in the Catholic religion. One example of this exists with humility. In the Catholic context, humility stands a virtue that is praised in The Bible (and therefore Inferno) whereas in Nicomachean Ethics humility is a vice to be looked down on. This continues to be the case with many different excesses and virtues for

    Read More

  • Analysis of Dante's Inferno

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    Each contrapasso is well thought out and devised to try to show that each sin is different, yet equally punishable in the afterlife. The contrapassos, and therefore the circles of hell, are placed in manner of a sin’s severity, or at least in Dante’s eyes. Sins of the flesh, animalistic sins, and sins of passion are not as harshly punished as sins of reason, calculation, and cruelty. Dante believes that human reasons separates man from beast, and to abuse such a gift from God warrants an unimaginable pain. Thus the deeper in hell you travel, the more thought out sins are punished and the less desirable the punishment.

    Read More

  • The Hierarchy of Happiness in Dante’s The Paradiso

    1331 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...e consequences of what he was writing. However, up until The Paradiso Dante’s themes go together beautifully, with his imagination of Hell and Purgatory perfectly complementing his Western philosophical background and his Catholic theology. So Dante probably knew what he was doing when he made the hierarchy. It seems like the most likely reason Dante used it is because it would have been very boring to read 33 cantos about a heaven with no difference between the level of humans. It probably would be incredibly boring to read and difficult to write for Dante. So it is possible that the hierarchy is simply a literary device intended to spice up Dante’s poetry. No matter the cause, it seems as though Dante’s hierarchy of happiness is a creation that should be left behind when studying philosophy, as it contradicts many of the things on which philosophy itself is based.

    Read More

  • The Weakness of Human Nature in Dante's Inferno

    2210 Words  | 5 Pages

    Dante's "Inferno" is full of themes. But the most frequent is that of the weakness of human nature. Dante's descent into hell is initially so that Dante can see how he can better live his life, free of weaknesses that may ultimately be his ticket to hell. Through the first ten cantos, Dante portrays how each level of his hell is a manifestation of human weakness and a loss of hope, which ultimately Dante uses to purge and learn from. Dante, himself, is about to fall into the weaknesses of humans, before there is some divine intervention on the part of his love Beatrice, who is in heaven. He is sent on a journey to hell in order for Dante to see, smell, and hear hell. As we see this experience brings out Dante's weakness' of cowardice, wrath and unworthiness. He is lead by Virgil, who is a representation of intellect. Through Dante's experiences he will purge his sins.

    Read More

  • Dante's Divine Comedy - Symbolism in the Punishment of Sin in The Inferno

    4191 Words  | 9 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Life After Death

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    One way in which death can be viewed comes across the Catholic religion. The Catholic believers look life after death in a prospective of three different worlds, such as Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise according to the deeds committed during life. If a person during his or her lifetime committed any sins, this person’s next world will be the Hell. The traditional view in which people refer to hell can be found in the book written by Dante Alighieri, “La Divina Commedia”. The book states that the formation of Hell was given by the crash of Lucifer (the angel that wanted to be better than God) from the sky onto the earth. Crashing on the Earth in Jerusalem, his head formed an upside down cone inside the Earth. This is where is located the Hell. In the Hell, people pay for their sins with different penitences (12-13). For instance, a person that committed homicide will freeze in a lake frozen by the breath of Satan (XXXIV canto). If a person during his or her life commits any sins but asks for forgiveness, then he or she will go to the Purgatory. The purgatory is represented by an island with a mountain (23). One source states that “Purgatory is very similar to Hell; the main difference is that one will eventually be released from torture. The souls that go in the Purgatory are tortured with fire. These souls remain in purgatory until they become sufficiently purified to enter heaven”(2). For example, if a soul in the purgatory asks for forgiveness and pays the punition with some tests, the soul will be released and moved immediately to Heaven (2).

    Read More

More about Purgatory’s Structure

Open Document