Punishment for the Sinners in The Inferno

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

Virgil and Dante proceed down into Hell; in Hell Dante sins in every circle, committing the sin that represents each circle. After Dante sins in each circle he begins to learn and grow as a person realizing his mistakes but Dante is still his proud, careless self. In the circle of the wrathful, containing the sinners full of anger, Dante scolds one man saying “may you weep and wail to all eternity, for I know you hell-dog”. Dante is becoming angry just like the

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 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.”

In the beginning of his epic, Inferno, Dante seems to have “abandoned the true path” (1.12). He is lost in a dark forest, which symbolizes not only Dante’s loss of morality, but all of humanity’s sins on Earth. The Dark Wood of Error is a foreshadowing of what the afterlife would be like for Dante without God and without any meaning. Dante appears to be suffering through a mid-life crisis as he flirts with the idea of death, saying, “so bitter–death is hardly more severe” (1.7). Dante has lost his dignity and moral direction following his exile from Florence. Dante must travel through Hell and witness the worst crimes ever committed by humans. By traveling through the depths of Satan’s world, Dante is given an opportunity to reconnect with Christianity. Many people claim that Dante journeys through Hell for revenge, but in fact he is hoping to reset his own moral compass and find God.

Solely based on moral beliefs Dante's poem is obviously a deeply Christian standpoint. One might be surprised, then, to find that it is filled with allusions to pagan mythology and is populated not just by biblical figures, but also by characters of Greek and Roman myth and history. However taking place in hell on the evening of Good Friday through the morning of Easter Sunday in approximately the year 1300. The Inferno is an evil that is a contradiction to God's will; as most of the punishments of the sinners correspond symbolically to the sins they committed themselves. The walk through a dark and confusing world represents the life journey of men and women. Dante’s extensive literary treatment of death and afterlife aims to both comfort and warn; envisioning rewards for the

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 Dante’s Inferno, we followed Dante as he narrates his decent and observations of hell. A wonderful part of that depiction is his descriptions of the creative yet cruel punishments that each of the different sinners receive. This story is an integral part of literary history, and even if I were to have the imagination and ability of Dante Alighieri, I don’t believe I would change this tried and true version known universally.