Essay about Dante’s Version of Hell

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

The Inferno is a tale of cautionary advice. In each circle, Dante the pilgrim speaks to one of the shades that reside there and the readers learn how and why the damned have become the damned. As Dante learns from the mistakes of the damned, so do the readers. And as Dante feels the impacts of human suffering, so do the readers. Virgil constantly encourages Dante the pilgrim to learn why the shades are in Hell and what were their transgressions while on Earth. This work’s purpose is to educate the reader. The work’s assertions on the nature of human suffering are mostly admonition, with each shade teaching Dante the pilgrim and by extension the reader not to make the same mistakes. Dante views his journey through hell as a learning experience and that is why he made it out alive.

What goes around comes around. When sinners reach hell they are forced to experience the counter-suffering of contrapasso. For each sin, Dante gives a specific punishment relating to that sin. Some of these sins include violence towards self, violence towards God, sorcery, and hypocrisy. For the despicable lives they lived on earth, they are doomed to suffer relating consequences for all of eternity.

Dante’s descent into Hell in Inferno, the first part of his Divine Comedy, tells of the author’s experiences in Hades as he is guided through the abyss by the Roman author, Virgil. The text is broken into cantos that coincide with the different circles and sub-circles of Hell that Dante and Virgil witness and experience. Inferno is heavily influenced by classic Greek and Roman texts and Dante makes references to a myriad of characters, myths, and legends that take place in Virgil’s Aeneid, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Some of the most important references, however, are the most obvious ones that are easily overlooked simply because of the fact that they are so blatant. Dante is being escorted through Hell by the

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

   In The Inferno, Dante explores the ideas of Good and Evil. He expands on the possibilities of life and death, and he makes clear that consequences follow actions. Like a small generator moving a small wheel, Dante uses a single character to move through the entire of Hell's eternity. Yet, like a clock, that small wheel is pivotal in turning many, many others. This single character, Dante himself, reveals the most important abstract meaning in himself: A message to man; a warning about mankind's destiny. Through his adventures, Dante is able to reveal many global concepts of good and evil in humanity.

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.

Religious people always fear that they will not make it to Heaven or the place their God resides. The bible and other religious text give advice on how to avoid the pain of Hell. Dante Alighieri, a famous Italian poet, wrote about the physical description of Hell and the punishments each sinner would receive for their sins. Although The Divine Comedy chronicles Dante's journey from the depths of Hell to the glory of Heaven it contains a deeper meaning. Dante reveals the true meaning of the Inferno through his leading motif, his interactions between the sinners, and the intertwining of other literary works into the Inferno.

In Dante 's divine comedy, there are countless references to all forms of sins and the punishments of those who committed them. Dante goes into great detail when describing these sins and their consequences. Each punishment is perfectly fitting to the crime itself, so that the sinner desereves exactly what he is facing. Dante 's work teaches the reader that sin is to be despised, and yet simultaneously weaves his own symbolism and meaning into his book.

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

While every person has a different depiction of Hell, Dante provides fascinating imagery of his portrayal, so the reader can truly experience the

Dante's depiction of Hell is not meant to entertain but to change the behavior of his readers so that they will choose behavior which will lead them to the "city" of Heaven, rather than behavior which will lead to the dark wood and, eventually, damnation: A place is there below, stretching as far from Beelzebub as his tomb extends. . . . My Leader and I entered by that hidden road, to return into the bright world; and . . . we mounted up . . . so far that a round opening I saw some of the beautiful things which Heaven bears, and thence we issued for again to see the stars (Dante 52).

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

In Dante’s Inferno, Dante is taken on a journey through hell. On this journey, Dane sees the many different forms of sins, and each with its own unique contrapasso, or counter-suffering. Each of these punishments reflects the sin of a person, usually offering some ironic way of suffering as a sort of revenge for breaking God’s law. As Dante wrote this work and developed the contrapassos, he allows himself to play God, deciding who is in hell and why they are there. He uses this opportunity to strike at his foes, placing them in the bowels of hell, saying that they have nothing to look forward to but the agony of suffering and the separation from God.

Imagine a place where tyrants stand up to their ears in boiling blood, the gluttonous experience monsoons of human filth, and those who commit sins of the flesh are blown about like pieces of paper in a never-ending wind storm. Welcome to Dante 's Inferno, his perspective on the appropriate punishments for those who are destined to hell for all eternity. Dante attempts to make the punishments fit the crimes, but because it is Dante dealing out the tortures and not God, the punishments will never be perfect because by nature, man is an imperfect creature. Only God is capable of being above reproach and of metering out a just punishment. While Dante 's treatment towards the tyrants is fitting, his views on the