Have you ever wondered why in some states the death penalty is legal, while in others it is outlawed? Simply put, some jurisdictions have different opinions than others on what punishment for certain crimes is acceptable and what isn’t. There are those who believe that to take the life of someone who committed an act of murder is perfectly fair, while there are others who cry in outrage, Who are we to play the role of God? Though the time periods between now and the time Dante’s Inferno was written are vastly different in many ways, the simple fact that certain sins are viewed as unacceptable remains true throughout. Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet who wrote Dante’s Inferno in the Late Middle Ages, used his literature to convey an allegory with this same concept; and even takes a step further so as to describe the theorized punishments that were linked to each sin in his day in age. First up: greed. As Dante is guided through the …show more content…
Here, until Judgement Day, the souls of the heretics who once roamed the Earth are to spend eternity in flaming tombs, and on Judgement Day, the tombs will seal and the souls inside will be trapped forever within their earthly bodies. To an untrained ear, so to speak, this punishment may seem a little...out there. However, it actually makes sense; remarkably so, in fact. At this point in time, heretics believed that the human body did not contain a soul. Though this was not the case, they spoke out against the Church and the widespread Christian belief that everyone had a soul; and because of this, Dante portrays them to suffer by being confined to a burning tomb, destined to have their souls and their earthly bodies joined together for the remainder of time. The heretics’ punishment is yet another example of Alighieri’s ability to provide well thought out, well described details to his
What is Hell? During the fourteenth century, Dante Alighieri was exiled from his home in Florence, Italy and wrote The Devine Comedy: The Inferno while in exile. In this text, Dante gives detailed descriptions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. He wrote this poem in order to get revenge on the political figures who had banished him. Walter Scott explained this perfectly in his book, The Heart of Midlothian, “Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell” (Scott). In many ways, The Inferno was designed as a type of memoir to depict the sins that surrounded him in Florence. In Dante’s Inferno creates an imaginative connection between a soul’s sinner on Earth and the punishment the sinner receives in Hell.
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
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?
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.
“They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to.” (Green) The Divine Comedy is a text that is divided into three parts, the most famous of which being Inferno. Inferno follows Dante through his epic journey through the nine circles of hell in his attempt to achieve a higher understanding of the afterlife. Dante is a man that seems to have, both physically and metaphorically wandered into a very dark place. He has begun to sin without
Throughout the story of Inferno there are several examples of symbolic retribution that we can talk about. Symbolic retribution means a punishment that you will have to undergo because of your sins. Dante’s Inferno portrays several different layers of Hell. Each layer of Hell has many different types of sinners. The layer of Hell that the sinners are placed in depends on the sins they have committed.
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
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
In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, punishments are often presented in the form of symbolic retribution. The punishment a sinner receives in hell is proportional to the severity of the sin committed. In this representation, sins are revealed in their true nature, as what they truly are. In the modern world, there are actions that be can observed in others or see in ourselves that would be offensive or in someway be potentially harmful to someone else. For instance, these actions can be so small that may not even give much thought them, for example actions such as gossiping. These sins could be more serious offences, such as not contributing in a group project or even spoiling a movie for someone else. Using the model of symbolic retribution found in the Inferno a better understanding can be gained of sins in the modern world.
“No one thinks of how much blood it costs. “The person who said this is the same revolutionary that wrote the Inferno. He is talking about war, and about what violence brings, when no one thinks about the consequences. In his poem, The Inferno, he goes through hell meeting and talking with people in the different circles. These layers get worse the longer the poem lasts, and as long as Dante traverses the unknown depths of the devil’s kingdom. In canto 12, Dante and his guide Virgil, come across some interesting creatures that are watching and are helping torture their victims. In most people eyes, these beings are the most deserving of their punishment in the inferno, and the interesting thing about this sin is that not everyone can
Inferno, the first part of Divina Commedia, or the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, is the story of a man's journey through Hell and the observance of punishments incurred as a result of the committance of sin. In all cases the severity of the punishment, and the punishment itself, has a direct correlation to the sin committed. The punishments are fitting in that they are symbolic of the actual sin; in other words, "They got what they wanted." (Literature of the Western World, p.1409) According to Dante, Hell has two divisions: Upper Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of incontinence, and Lower Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of malice. The
As Dante explores the Second Circle of Hell, he is horrified by the punishments that the sinners must suffer through. When he hears the story of Francesca and Paolo’s lustful actions, Dante relates deeply to their stuggles because he reflects on his own sins and believes he may be cast to a similar fate in the afterlife. Dante reacts to the story when he says, “I fainted, as if I had met my death. / And then I fell as a dead body falls” (5.142-143). Dante faints from compassion for the two sinners’ pitiful story. Dante struggles to grasp the wrongdoing these people have participated in to be placed in Hell because he continues to search for the noble qualities in everyone. On the one hand, Dante believes God’s punishment for the lustful sinners, relentless winds and storms, is unethical. On the other hand, this belief is naive because it is known that all of God’s punishments are just. The lustful are condemned to an eternity in Hell because they did not care about their actions on Earth, so the raging storm that torments them is not concerned with what is in its path. Dante is not only attempting to discover the possible consequences of his own actions, but also learning to trust in God’s judgement.
The heretics burn in the tombs with fire, fire in some cases is viewed as gods love, but the heretics here feel a fire that burns them and torments them, it reminds them of their guilt for not following god. The souls in hell, not only the heretics are going to be further punished later in the future when Jehovah comes, which will bring the, ,ore torment in the future. The torment the heretics will receive is that their tombs will close for eternity and they will be in there in the burning tombs for
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
American Educator Susan Blow studied Dante’s Inferno with great respect to the implements of ethics and theology. “In the following excerpt, she discusses the Inferno from an ethical and theological point of view, explaining that divine retribution implies man's fundamental ethical responsibility, and that ‘Hell is the Creator's final tribute of respect to the being he made in his own image’ “ (Blow, para 1). Blow clearly understood Dante’s views and states, “His poem is not individual but universal; he utters not his own thought, but the unformulated creed of Christendom. Nay, he reaches beyond Christianity and speaks to the universal conscience of humanity—that inward witness which is always calling upon man to rejoice in his freedom and tremble before the responsibility bound up with it” (Blow, para 2).