The Contrapasso of Caiaphas in Dante's Inferno Essay

In death they are doomed to exist with their heads on backwards and their eyes overflowing with tears so that not only could they not see what was happening in front of them, but they could not see at all due to these copious amounts of tears. Similarly, each sin had its own logical punishment, and each group of sinners received the same punishment, with only a few exceptions. Such an exception can be found in Canto XXlll when Caiaphas lies crucified on the floor while the other hypocrites walk around him in circles. He is set apart because he counseled a Roman to crucify Jesus. While the sinners represent man's imperfections, Virgil symbolizes human reason.

This canto begins to delve into the more sublime, dark, and mysterious. Words like, "moaning," "screeching," and "lamenting" give this canto a sad and depressed feeling. Spatially, I can imagine a dark, black whole type of place that seems like a vacuum. A lot of the words refer to dark colors and describe the

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

In Dante’s Inferno, a permeating theme of the work is the idea of contrapasso. Contrapasso is only mentioned once and late in the Inferno in Canto XXVIII of XXXIV by Bertran de Born: “In me you may observe fit punishment / Cosí s’osserva in me lo contrapasso” (XXVIII. 142). Although the literary device of contrapasso is only mentioned once and late in the Inferno, the tool is used in every circle and subdivision in hell. Contrapasso is seen in the punishments of the damned in a physical manifestation, which represents an appropriate mode of retribution in terms of a kind of divine justice. In Dante’s Inferno, contrapasso, while it describes the physical agony of the damned as fit punishment for their habitual sins, represents the damage

Jesus preached about His beliefs with God, and all his Glory. He went around telling people that he was the son of God. These accusations raised chaos with the Jews. He was brought to the house of Caiaphas, the high priest. They were looking for any kind of evidence, or excuse to kill Jesus. “The high priest

Inferno describes Dante’s point of view of Hell when Virgil takes him through a tour of Hell. It has nine circles which are classified by punishment. Sins that each person has committed during their life is what decides to which circle they belong. Dante tries to give us a sense of how Hell looks like to encourage us to make better decisions about our life. Having an understanding of how the afterlife works can encourage us to commit fewer offenses and think better before acting. Contrapasso is “the idea that a sinner’s punishment in the Inferno fits the crimes they’ve committed on Earth”.

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.

The text answers the question in a direct way using the works of Aristotle, “How his Ethics describes, and deals with at length, the three dispositions rejected by Heaven, Incontinence, malice, and bestial rage and how one of these offends God less and so incurs less blame?” (Canto XI 80-83). At this explanation a reader could draw the conclusion that God’s judgment is merciful and perfect. The question though still remains, if those of previous levels offend God less why do they still incur such a horrible punishment? This question leaves implications that God’s punishment might not be perfect and just. In previous cantos Dante seems to have developed some pity for those shades he has met in previous circles, such as Ciacco, and Francesca. He sympathizes with those damned almost as if he is realizing his own sins of his world. The implications of an imperfect and unjust God can ripple right to the very core of our own existence. If god is not perfect then

After passing through the City of Dis, Virgil and Dante enter Nether Hell, where violent and heretical sinners are punished. Dante portrays these sins of corrupt will as more evil and deserving of worse punishment than the weak-willed sins of upper hell. Souls who, during life, were violent against their neighbors boiled in a river of blood. Suicide cases are trapped in the form of trees, unable to scream unless gauged by horrible birds. The violent against God are sprawled face-up on burning sand, eternally confronting the proclaimed enemy. Even within an individual circle, some sinners are punished more than others. Among the violent against God, Capaneus is more severely punished than his peers because of his pride. He continues to be blasphemous, even in death, declaring, "That which in life I was, in death I am." His stubbornness and pride in death causes

   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.

Journeys can be taken many ways. Some people take the path less traveled and some people take the easy way out. Dante happens to be on journey that is less traveled, by exploring the depths of Hell in the Inferno. The epic poem’s story is about self-realization and transformation. It sees Dante over coming many things to realize he is a completely different person from the start of the Inferno journey. Dante sees many things that help him gain courage in order to prove to himself and the reader that accepting change and gaining courage can help one to grow as a person and realize their full potential. After seeing people going through certain punishment Dante realizes that he must not seek pity on himself and others in order to fully realize his true potential.

One such punishment is that which Dante borrows from Emperor Frederick II.  Frederick II was well known for his lead capes with which he punished criminals.  Dante places all of the hypocrites in “gilded” cloaks that “dazzled; but inside they were all of lead, so heavy that Frederick’s capes were straw compared to them.”  Dante uses this analogy to Frederick to demonstrate the extent of cruelty of his cloaks in The Inferno.  The way that Dante compares one of the most evil punishments to those in his Inferno effectively demonstrates how horrible Hell truly is.  Although this punishment for the hypocrites is quite physically painful, it contains a rather brilliant metaphor.  For Dante, the hypocrites were those who were seemingly virtuous and good, but beneath their facades they were quite sinful.  The cloaks are a metaphor for the hypocrites’ characters: dazzling on the surface and cloaked in lead or sin underneath.

     Infidelity, murder, betrayal, and conspiracy all play an integral part in the story of the relationship between Jason and Medea. Jason is guilty of all four acts and Medea involves herself in three. Yet, perhaps, in the eyes of Dante, Medea might fall further into the realm of Dis than Jason. But, should she? And, is Dante's view of Jason and his sentence in Hell appropriate?

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.

In The Inferno, Dante descends through the nine circles of Hell, encountering increasingly serious sins, most of which are crimes. The levels of Hell can be interpreted as a gradation of crimes, with penalties in proportion to their relative gravity of sin. While crimes are transgressions against human law, Dante’s Christian orthodox ambitions translate the treatment of these seemingly earthly crimes as sins, transgressions against divine law. For the purposes of this paper, the two terms can be used interchangeably because Dante’s perception of crimes on Earth is in parallel to the punishment of those crimes as sins in Hell. For Dante, the most punishable sins are those of betrayal. With a lucid examination of Dante’s political