Suffering in Dante's Inferno Essay

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Dante

It's early fourteenth century and Dante is traveling along life's path and finds himself in a dark wood being accosted by a leopard, a she-wolf and a lion. He is having difficulty finding his path and is only at last rescued by Virgil, a Roman poet. However, Virgil's rescue of Dante is one that Dante may not wish to have happen, since now they have to travel through the underworld and visit Hell. What is really ironic about Dante's journey is that in traveling to Hell he has to pass through a series of circles symbolizing other worlds. These worlds are where people who die will go to receive punishment for their sins in this life. The punishments they find in these different worlds (or levels) of Hell are meted out to fit the crime, the sinners are meant to suffer in equal portion to the committed sins.

An example of equal suffering to equal sin comes to Dante even before he and Virgil have even entered Hell. On the outskirts of Hell is a no man's land. This is where all those people who never took a stand in life end up. They did no evil, but neither did they do any good. It was also the place where those angels who had not taken a stand for good or for evil before the world was created are banished to. In other words, they pursued only their own self-interest.

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For following their own motives they were punished by wasps and hornets who sting and bite them. The sting and bites of the insects most likely symbolizes the sting and bite of the individual conscience.

Once Virgil and Dante cross the river Acheron they are in Hell. Hell is set up in 9 circles, each one more punishing than the other, and each one contains certain types of sinners. Once again the punishments doled out in each circle are punishments that fit the sins committed. The circles are also categorized based on different types of sins. The first five circles will cause suffering along the same line as the self-indulgent sinner, circles 6 and 7 are for those people who committed violence against others or themselves, and the last two circles leading to Satan are for malicious sins. Each circle progressively contains more suffering than the one preceding it.

The first circle contains all those who did not accept Christ, but were righteous in their conduct. Their suffering is the lack of hope that they have to continually experience. The lack of hope means that they cannot enter into heaven but have to live without the spirit of….....

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