Hieronymus Bosch's Seven Deadly Sins Analysis

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.

    Hell is said to be the worst place to ever exist, and it is greatly feared about on earth and in the minds of people. “Hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them and swallow them up,” this illustrates personification in giving the flames of hell the live ability to hold and swallow us. It portrays how we will be consumed by our own sins if we do not act on them to better ourselves. If we let our sins pile up they will weigh us down and we will eventually be brought down to hell to pay for our wrong doings.

Emerging from this middle area is a tall brick church. The dark stoned walls give a European look to the landscape, and seem somewhat reminiscent of the Dark Ages in Medieval society. In the stained glass window rests a cross, symbol of Christian faith, corrupted by a snake-like creature. The combination of the church with a historically recognized sign for evil is quite a strong image. It seems as though

The next three rings and sub-rings of Hell are composed of violent crimes against both ones self and others. The sixth ring is reserved for the heretics who are engulfed in flames. This symbolizes the problems that they tried to create by challenging the Christian church and its practices. The seventh ring has three sub-categories consisting of violence against people and property, suicide, and those against god, nature, and order. The sinners that were violent against people and property are punished by being immersed in boiling blood, which is equivalent to the level of violent crimes they committed. The punishment for suicide is being planted and growing as a tree, when a branch is torn off the person feels the equivalent pain of having an arm or leg taken off. This is a fitting punishment because in their life the only relief from suffering was through killing themselves and in hell they live with that agony similarly to the way people on earth are suffering over the deceased. The third and final sub-ring of the seventh circle holds those against god, nature, and order. They are punished by either walking, sitting or lying on flaming sand while hot ashes fall from above. Their position is based on their lack of respect for what they offended. The last ring in this group of violent

Betrayal will always end in chaos. In Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, society is betrayed by rebels attempting to save banned books. This betrayal ultimately causes chaos and conflict against society itself. No one reacts well to being betrayed; the disloyalty of family, co-workers and/or one’s community leads to more distrust, disloyalty and eventually chaos. Specifically, no one living in a dystopian society reacts positively to the act of betrayal. Bradbury’s main character Montag, is betrayed by his wife and his society, leading to his distrust and ultimate betrayal of his own co-workers and community. The spread of distrust and betrayal in this novel leads to the chaos that eventually destroys Bradbury’s dystopian society.

In Dante’s Inferno, the author Dante Alighieri described the journey of his fictionalized self going through Hell. Dante describes all nine circles as grisly and grave. Gustave Doré’s paintings relate the most to Dante’s descriptions. Doré’s paintings of the Inferno are dark and mysterious, which is how Dante explains Hell in his story. Doré does not use color in his paintings; all of his painting of the Inferno are black, white, and in some shade of grey. His paintings reflect the mood that Dante was trying to interpret in his story. This is why Dante would choose Gustave Doré to illustrate Inferno.

It is expected for arguments to arise when writing about controversial topics. Many times the meaning of a book is not as obvious as the author intended, which may lead to problems. Other times, books are challenged because they contain sexual or inappropriate material. When Kurt Vonnegut released Slaughterhouse-Five critics were quick to judge his peculiar way of writing. Although Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse-Five was oftentimes misunderstood, interpreted as inappropriate, and judged for the peculiar point of view, critics seem to appreciate and accept one aspect of it: the structure of the book.

The Seven Deadly Sins is a major aspect to the religion of Christianity. Religion in the Middle Ages was exceedingly important and the central character to the lives of the people living in this time era. In early fourteenth century, Robert Manning of Brunne wrote a poem of an educational text informing people to avoid the seven deadly sins. Sometime later, in the late 1500s, Edmund Spenser wrote a book entitled The Faerie Queene and in Book 1, Canto 4, Spenser discusses the Seven Deadly Sins as the two characters, Redcrosse and Duessa, embark on their journey to the sinful House of Pride. Spenser has a unique way of which he alters to readers an artful conception of such a broad aspect

As Virgil leads Dante through the layers of Hell, they come across evildoers who are trapped in the personification of their own sinful personalities. Their tortures are extreme versions of their sins on earth. Dante imparts his own moral standards to the reader by portraying a hierarchy of evil that corresponds with his disapproval of the sin. As the pair of observers descends farther and farther into the pits of Hell, the punishments they see grow less and less bearable. While the evil in the first layers of Hell is simple, sometimes invoking pity in Dante, the lower levels of Hell punish souls for more complex and condemnable sins. It would be interesting to see a system of political justice based upon Dante's values.

The concept of hell can be viewed as three distinct underworld concepts in the Old and New

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.

Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, tells the story of the devastating effects of war on a man, Billy Pilgrim, who joins the army fight in World War II. The semi-autobiographical novel sheds light on one of history’s most tragic, yet rarely spoken of events, the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany.

Dante had his fair share of the real human experience, whilst traveling through hell in Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy”. Characters in literature have been popularized since this masterpiece to favor sins as a type of personality trope. The lazy bum, the angry husband, or the prideful peacocks; the list goes on and on. The cause and effect of these traits have served well to teach generations of readers, the ideas and meanings of our actions as humans. Although it is rare, some works leave open ended plots for us to contemplate the meaning of said sin. In conjunction to some of the deadly sins, the main characters from “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Veldt”, and “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”, all display a truth about human nature.

The remaining four circles of hell are separated from the previous five, in that they are considered the lower parts of hell, where Dante must pass through the walls of the city, Dis. The sixth circle of hell are where the souls of the heretics are found, and burning in their open graves is the way they suffer for the rest of eternity. The seventh circle of hell is where the souls of the violent reside. This circle of hell is separated into three different sections, representing the 3 different types of violence separated by rings; 1) violence against neighbors, 2) violence against oneself, and 3) violence against God. The outer ring, those who commit violence against their neighbors, are punished by being submerged into the Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood. Anyone who tries to leave have arrows shot at them by Centaurs. Those in the middle rings who committed violence against themselves, or suicide, are punished by being turned into trees and bushes, in which harpies feed upon them. The trees can only talk when they have their branches ripped off. The middle ring also houses profligates, or those who destroyed their lives by recklessly spending money. Their punishment is to eternally run away from dogs who try to maul

In The Deadliest Of Sins Robertson Davies, the seven deadly sins are briefly talked about but his main focus is directed towards the sin, Sloth. He talks about the sins in a speech to fellow Queen’s University graduates and is explaining to them what sloth, or as he refers to it throughout the speech, Acedia, does to the mind and why it was considered a sin. I will summarize Davies points as well as add in my own opinion to the subject.