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

In Dante’s Inferno, part of The Divine Comedy, Canto V introduces the torments of Hell in the Second Circle. Here Minos tells the damned where they will spend eternity by wrapping his tail around himself. The Second Circle of Hell holds the lustful; those who sinned with the flesh. They are punished in the darkness by an unending tempest, which batters them with winds and rain. Hell is not only a geographical place, but also a representation of the potential for sin and evil within every individual human soul. As Dante travels through Hell, he sees sinners in increasingly more hideous and disgusting situations. For Dante, each situation is an image of the quality of any soul that is determined to sin in

Circles six through nine are those who have committed a more serious, heinous crime than those in one through five. “For Dante, the most serious crimes are those of betrayal.” (Pg 788, Chevigny) Circle six is the introductory of lower levels. The theme of this level is heresy. Those who have questioned or attempted to stray from church reside here. The people of level six are in tombs that are on fire. This is a slight preview of the hell we think of today. To question the Christian faith and to knowingly and openly think that there is no afterlife, but instead believe that the soul dies with the body is the best to describe their punishment. People become aware of a heaven or hell the moment they die. And once that hit that moment, it’s too late to decide whether or not there is such existence. For that reason, they are forever stuck in their tombs (or modern day caskets) and live in constant sensation of being burned.

In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, punishments are often presented in the form of symbolic retribution. The punishment a sinner receives in hell is proportional to the severity of the sin committed. In this representation, sins are revealed in their true nature, as what they truly are. In the modern world, there are actions that be can observed in others or see in ourselves that would be offensive or in someway be potentially harmful to someone else. For instance, these actions can be so small that may not even give much thought them, for example actions such as gossiping. These sins could be more serious offences, such as not contributing in a group project or even spoiling a movie for someone else. Using the model of symbolic retribution found in the Inferno a better understanding can be gained of sins in the modern world.

Dante’s The Inferno is his own interpretation of the circles of hell. The people that Dante places in hell tried to validate their offenses and have never seen the injustice of their crime or crimes. They were each placed in a specific circle in Hell, Dante has nine circles in his hell. Each circle holds those accountable for that specific crime. Each circle has its own unique and fitting punishment for the crime committed. There are three different main types of offenses; they are incontinence, violence, and fraud. These offenses are divided into Dante’s nine rings of Hell. Each of these rings has a progressively worse punishment, starting with crimes of passion and

Inferno describes Dante’s point of view of Hell when Virgil takes him through a tour of Hell. It has nine circles which are classified by punishment. Sins that each person has committed during their life is what decides to which circle they belong. Dante tries to give us a sense of how Hell looks like to encourage us to make better decisions about our life. Having an understanding of how the afterlife works can encourage us to commit fewer offenses and think better before acting. Contrapasso is “the idea that a sinner’s punishment in the Inferno fits the crimes they’ve committed on Earth”.

In Dante’s Inferno, Dante is on a journey through hell in which he sees the different versions of sins and what consequences come after the immoralities. The person who commits a sin usually has to suffer in some way that would show revenge for the law of God. Dante threatens the people and tells them that they basically have nothing to look forward to except for having to suffer being separated from the will of God. Since these works were written by Dante, he had the power to judge others and decide how they will be punished for their sins. These visions that he had could very well be all false prophecies and may not be believed by every person. One thing that Dante did was to give enlightenment to sins that people did not know and made people

Dante's Inferno explores the nature of human suffering through a precautionary light. As Dante and Virgil move through the Inferno, Dante sees what has become of people who overindulged in things such as, lust, gluttony, violence, and bribery. Few of the punishments described in the Inferno have a direct correlation to the sin that the souls committed while they were living. Rather, they are a representation of what happens when we commit those crimes against ourselves and others. We create hells for not only ourselves, but those who we have sinned against. These hells are almost impossible to come back from as most of these sins cannot be taken back or undone. Some of the punishments that were clear representations were the punishments of

Central to “Inferno” is the concept of contrapasso, the idea that the punishment one experiences in Hell is the reversal of one’s sin on earth: gluttons are forced to consume filth against their will; prophets and soothsayers have their bodies disfigured to turn their heads backwards; adulterers are forever forced to couple with their lovers; it is a poetic, medieval take on Exodus’s reciprocal punishment of “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (King James Bible, Exodus 21:24). Within Canto XIII Dante meets those who have committed suicide: those that have taken their lives are “reborn” into bleeding, deformed trees upon which harpies feed and onto which harpies nest. There they remain forever, subject to all forms of abuse--and completely unable to abuse themselves again (as they did in life). While Dante’s intent may be to illustrate the justice of God’s punishment for sins done on earth, the forest of suicides found in Canto XIII questions the punishments delivered by God through the words and actions of the unfortunate souls found in this level, the words of our guide, Virgil, and our the words of our protagonist, Dante.

In Dante’s Inferno, Dante narrates his descent and observation of hell through the various circles and pouches. One part of this depiction is his descriptions of the various punishments that each of the different sinners has received.  The various punishments that Dante envisions the sinners receiving are broken down into two types. The first type he borrows from various gruesome and cruel forms of torture and the second type, though often less physically agonizing, is Dante’s creative and imaginative punishment for sins. The borrowed torturous forms of punishments create a physical pain for the shades, whereas the creative punishments are used to inflict a mental and psychological suffering. However, it is possible for the creative

Hellish symbols in short stories In description of Hell authors may refer to classical religious symbol of last destination for sinners and imaginary place of their punishment as it was in Dante’s “Inferno”. It also could be a metaphor of psychical or physical assay for author or his main character in real life such as identity crisis, deprivation, addiction or being physically in dangerous place or company with bad influence. However in hellish symbols and attributes exists common features.

In Dante's view the next circle of sin consists of acts of fraud. He classifies these sinners as seducers and panderers, flatterers, simoniacs, fortune tellers, grafters, hypocrites, thieves, evil counselors, sowers of discord, and counterfeiters or falsifiers. These are the souls who in life betrayed the confidence of another. They preyed on other people solely for gain and knowingly deceived without concern for their victims' psyche or physical being.

The two men first encounter when Dante is lost in the woods and runs into a lion, leopard, and she-wolf. From there Virgil guides him through the gates of hell and their journey begins. The two encounter many people they know and see the punishments for each sin committed. Hell is divided into nine circles, which they must go through in order to get back to where they came from. “The path to paradise begins in hell.”

“The Christian church … conceived of hell as a place where the good were separate from the evil, and the deeds on earth were weighed and judges.”(Bondanella XXXIII) Hell is a place that was created as a punishment for those people who died with mortal sins and did not ask for forgiveness. In this case Dante’s hell in the Inferno is divided into three sections and nine circles. These circles within hell were based off of the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Along with the seven deadly sins Dante’s Catholic religion also influenced him in his choices about who to put and where to put people in Hell. According to his beliefs, if you were not a Christian, you automatically went to Hell. (Trotter) As well even though Dante's hell affected all people no matter their religion, the representation of how Hell

When you think of Hell, what do you see, perhaps a burning pit full of criminals and crazed souls? Or maybe you’re like Dante and have a well organized system of levels in correspondence with each person’s sins. In Dante Alighieri’s epic The Inferno, Dante and his real life hero, Virgil, go on an adventure through a rather elaborate version of Hell. In this version of Hell numerous thoughts and ideals are brought to the attention of the readers. Through Dante’s use of both imaginative and artistic concepts one can receive a great visual impression of how Dante truly views Hell, and by analyzing his religious and philosophical concepts the reader can connect with the work to better understand how rewarding this work was for the time period.

As Dante travels deeper into the pit of hell he finds much more horrific places which climaxes in the fourth ring of the ninth circle, Judecca the lowest part, of hell were people go who betrayed their benefactors. These people spend eternity completely