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Taming Of The Shrew By William Shakespeare

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The idea of the contrapasso, or counter suffering, explains that punishments must arise from the sin itself, not the damage that the sin created. Dante’s Inferno expresses the contropasso through nine circles of Hell which are distinguished based upon the specific sin of a mortal being. The job of placing mortals into a particular circle of Hell can be an arduous, but given the opportunity to fulfill this task; Katherina from Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew displays the distinct characteristics which allow her to be placed among the sinners in the Inferno. Kate’s tragic flaw of being the shrew in the play means she personifies anger. Her anger is clearly seen at the beginning of the play, but appears to lessen during the remaining acts. On the surface it can be easy to conclude that Kate is a shrew no more and her marriage has tamed her. Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew contains clues which can conclude that Katherina is not tamed at the conclusion of the play and therefore she embodies the characteristics that most closely correspond to Dante’s fifth circle of hell, Anger.
In the Inferno the fifth circle of Hell is the realm where the wrathful and sullen sinners reside. Wrathful sinners are those who express their anger, and sullen sinners repress their anger. The wrathful are seen fighting each other on the surface of the river Styx and the sullen are gurgling beneath the surface of the water (Inferno, 7, 109-26). The line between what constitutes wrathful and sullen

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