The Serpent In Dante's Inferno

At the most fundamental level, Dante associates the setting of darkness with sin and sin’s deceiving nature through contrasting the darkness of Hell with the light of Heaven. In the first Canto, Dante sees that his escape from the wilderness is the pursuit of the sun; although Virgil, his guide, offers a better path to achieve his goal, the sun nonetheless represents a lack of sin. Immediately from the start, the darkness represents animalistic sin, such as incontinence or violence. However, Dante’s incorporation of sins against reason with darkness do not become clear until later in his journey. In Hell, darkness, like the degree of sin,

This association with serpents is also significant as the serpent was the first deceiver (7), establishing the deception and terror connected with these monsters which adds to the uncertain and disordered atmosphere in Inferno.

The people in Dante's second circle of hell all committed crimes regarding sexual desires. Whether it was falling in love for one, when being promised to another or simply cheating. These were all against the code of conduct and looked at as offences that landed them in hell. Another transgression was people who act out of sexual desire rather than doing what's right.

In Dante’s Inferno dante sees satan and see satan with three head and satan is trying to fly out of hell but his wing are making it where it is impossible to do so. Satan in the world now is known as the king of hell. Satan is different in this version of him. In our version he is the fallen angel from god and he looks like he has reds skin and has horns while the Dante version is like a big monster and is in his own prison and he is forced to eat so of the people that have went against god. In our version of satan he is cast of out heaven and rules the underworld and is the one that cause humans to be bad and make bad choices in life. In Dante version it seems that he is the one that is forced to have a punishment and pluto rules hades what

"Its shoulders glowed already with the sweet rays of that planet/ whose virtue leads men straight on every road,. (I 16-18) The Inferno is one-third of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. This fictional poem is a narrative. In the poem Alighieri made his own character symbolic to the Human soul and his idol, Virgil, symbolic to human reason. Together they journey through the Nine Circles of hell. Dante is able to complete his journey through hell because Virgil helps him through.

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.

Dante also relates how sins are punishable by the act that was committed. He does this through an allegory by saying things such as, “Their hands were bound behind by coils of serpents...A great snake shot up and bit him where the neck joins with the shoulder.” The snake in this canto depicts a couple things: The guilt that the thieves lived with from either stealing from the wrong person or hurting someone, always running and being bound by fear of being caught and the punishments that come back to get them. The snakes that bind their wrists and feet represent their emotions. While some certainly didn't care about their actions others were tormented by what they had done, be it from stealing from someone that didn't deserve it or being in the position where it was kill or be killed. The sneaky snake that jumps out and grabs the guy can represent the punishment they escaped catching back up with them.

The bible can be seen as a great piece of literature, one which many people will recognize if there are references to it in modern-day books, movies, and even music. One of the major topics for allusions is the Serpent. Most commonly known for his role in the story of Adam and Eve the serpent is sly, cunning, and deceivingly tricky. Authors allude to the Serpent if they want to characterize a character as evil or devious. They may also use this allusion to advance a theme as to not trust everyone you meet or temptation may be your downfall. They can use it to create other moods such as suspenseful ones, or even sad ones if the reader knows that the fall of the character is coming. All of these things are used in the examples in the next

This paper critically analyzes the character Dante in the Comedia. The paper analyzes the nature of the journey in the Inferno and what Dante needed to learn from it. The changes that were experienced have been analyzed in addition to the important parts of the text that are related to the changes. Moreover, the discussion has been keen to provide relevant illustrations as the case may be in order to emphasize on the character and the changes that are being addressed.

Dante’s Inferno is an amazing nonfiction piece that was meant to vindicate many lessons to its readers. As well as, depict what Dante believed hell to be, and express some of his concerns with divine justice, and the appropriate punishments for the crimes committed. While reading this epic piece it spoke in many ways, and it addresses similar issues that are still prevalent in current culture. This religious allegory seems to focus on punishments, and how it should equal up to the wrong that was done. It brings to mind the rule of Contrapasso. According to John Kameen, Contrapasso is one of the few rules in Dante’s Inferno. It is the one “law of nature” that applies to hell, stating that for every sinner’s crime there must be an equal and fitting punishment (Kameen37).

In Dante’s Inferno, throughout the epic journey of the character Dante into the depth of Hell, he encounters a number of beasts and monsters as he passes along the way, especially through the seven stations of the greatest monsters of Hell. The most significant of these seven major monsters is of central importance to the character Dante’s journey as well as to the narrative, for these monsters not only challenge the presence of the character Dante in Hell, but they are also the important custodians of Hell. Moreover, some of them even have more particular duty to perform, apart from being the Hell guardians.

I think Dante’s description of Hell is a wonderful work of literature. Dante uses numerous literary techniques to describe his vision of Hell to the reader. In my opinion, one of the most affective techniques used by Dante is symbolism. It would be a very difficult task to compile a brief list of significant symbols from the Cantos that we read in class. Dante utilized many symbols throughout each canto. Some of the symbols that Dante used in Inferno are well defined and easy to interpret, while other symbols are much more difficult to recognize and understand. For this paper, I will be analyzing multiple symbols from Dante’s Inferno. Some of the symbols came from the Canto’s that were included in class

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.

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.

"Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit” (Romans 3:13). Snakes have been a universal symbol of fraud in literature since “The Fall,” when God transformed Satan into a beguiling snake and “[c]ursed” Satan to slide “on [his] belly” for all eternity for his deception (Alter 41). Dante uses snakes in his epic poem, the Inferno, to tie the fraudulent nature of thieves to their punishment in the seventh bolgia of the eighth circle of Hell. Snakes have metaphorically slithered through time and shed, taking on new appearances as deceivers in society. In 2005, they revealed a new face, Olatunji Oluwatosin, an identity thief. From his base in Los Angeles, Olatunji Oluwatosin stole private information, such as credit card