Scaring The Hell Out Of People

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).

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

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 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.

Robert Herrick, an English poet, once said, “Hell is no other but a soundlesse pit, where no one beame of comfort peeps in it.” Picture any type of Hell with relief, happiness, or even the smallest crack of a smile. There is no place. In fact, one can only think of the complete opposite, whether it is a Hell filled with neglect, pain, disgust, or a never-ending life of horror. This is the place created by Dante Alighieri; The Inferno is exactly the type of Hell where no person would want to be. Even those who acted upon the lightest of sins suffered greatly. While each realm contained a different sinner, the punishment that each were forced to face was cruel, repulsive, and sometimes rather disgusting. Through grieving tears without an

Dante had different thoughts when seeing the good and the evil sinners. As Dante goes through the Inferno, he sees sinners who are tearing up and looking terrible. In circle eight, he witnessed sinners who have committed fraud and rape, yet also saw some who were accidently accused of those crimes and did not deserve to be in Hell. “Here pity, or here piety, must die if the other lives; who’s wickeder than one that’s agonized by God’s high equity?” (Aligheri, Canto 20). He felt pity for some, in which Virgil had to tell him to bear with it and that there is no pity in Hell. Dante was biased about his thoughts of good and evil when determining which sinner was good and which sinner was evil. Sinners are also in Purgatory and are considered good too, since they repented their sins.

Does hell have its own history? For Dante, the structural and thematic history of ‘hell’ in the Inferno begins with the Roman epic tradition and its champion poet, Virgil. By drawing heavily from the characteristics of hell in Book VI of The Aeneid, Dante carries the epic tradition into the medieval world and affirms his indebtedness to Virgil’s poetry. Moreover, Virgil becomes a central character in the Inferno as he guides Dante, the pilgrim, who has no knowledge of hell, through his own historical model. Similarly, the protagonist of The Aeneid, Aeneas, lacks the foresight necessary to make the journey through hell on his own and thus places his trust in the

Dante Alighieri went on a journey that was motivated by acrimony, revenge and retribution. The Divine Comedy is a story of Dante’s expedition through the afterlife with the help from a Roman poet, Virgil. In the Divine Comedy living in Hell is the same as living on earth in poverty today. Today, there are many politicians who are trying to help with the welfare of poverty, but they never follow through with their goals. Throughout Dante’s life on earth he witnesses the corruption of the church and power given to higher authorities because of their image. Many of the journeys that Dante has experienced in his journey through Hell are just like what we have experienced on earth whether you are rich or poor. However, there are significant differences between the two through symbolic signs and other non-religious meanings.

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

What causes trouble in this world simply comes down to human nature, really, who’s on top. In this eternal fight to the pinnacle of the societal pyramid, there are bound to be those that suffer more than others. Dante Divine Comedy brings into question: “Which life should I care about more, the one on Earth or the one in the afterlife?” For those who may not believe in Heaven or Hell (an ever increasing number today) the choice is quite easy. In effect, Dante condemns anyone that he feels violates this “divine” order of sanctity (those that prefer the Earth life) by putting them in different circles of Hell. The different sins in Inferno are divided into those of pleasure/ambition, and those of intention to harm. Both are evident in the corruption of society with the former focusing on “improving” oneself at the expense of the individual and the latter “improving” oneself at the expense of others. Take the gluttons for example. People such as Ciacco indulged too much in lively pleasures such as

“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

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.

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.