Dante's Inferno Dbq

During the plague of “black death” everyone was affected, but the people whose lives were affected the most were the chemists, doctors, and herb selling women who all lived along the coasts of the trade routes (Doc 1). During the plague people came to them for cures to this mysterious sickness and due to the technology of the time only received rudimentary or sometimes even wrong instructions for treating and avoiding the plague. Some of these instructions would be to avoid bathing and exercising and also burning incense to overcome the smell of the plague (Notes). Document 2 shows that the people affected the most by the plague were the people who lived along the European and Asian trade routes. The cities that were impacted by the plague the most were the large port cities like Venice and London.

He tries to explain his point of view of Hell so we can have an idea of what and how is the afterlife. Every bad decision or action will be paid up in hell. Everyone in hell is divided based on the relationship between the offense committed and the punishments deserved. He wants people to understand and identify themselves with the importance of life and a person’s relationship with God. Based on committing good actions and decisions, we must leave to look for salvation in the afterlife. The action of doing the right thing is what lead you to better outcomes and fewer punishments in the

As a result from these reasons, they tried many methods or practices to try to avoid or cure the plague. The methods or practices would include building fires to try purifying the contaminated air, building houses that faces north instead of south to avoid the contaminated southern winds, covering the windows with wax cloth, filling the house with flowers and sweet smelling plants, drinking liquified American Clay,rosewater, and peppermint, avoid sleeping on their backs, and breathe in latrine vapors. For the Islam, treating and avoiding the plague was way different. They try consuming pickled onions, pumpkin seeds, and sour juices, they passed severe laws against alcohol and prostitution, they used letter magic, and avoided sad talk. The living had a really hard

The Black Plague was a accident that turned into a tragedy.. The place where the Black Plague originated from was China. Kipchak Khan Janibeg the leader of China at the time wanted to infect his enemies with dead corpses on a ship that was sailed (Black Death). What he did not know was that the rats on the ship could carry

Trade routes helped spread the plague and if they knew this they would have shut down trade routes until they figured it out. Rats helped spread the disease and if they knew this they would know that rats were bad and they would try to get rid of the rats in their homes. Clothing/Blankets helped spread the Black Death and if they knew this they would keep their clothes and blankets in an isolated place and they would wash them

Beginning in the mid-fourteenth century, a plague swept the world like no other. It struck in a series of waves that continued into the eighteenth century. The first wave was estimated to have killed twenty-five million people, about a third of the Western Europe population at that time. Throughout the different outbreaks, the plague, also known as the Bubonic Plague or the Black Death, caused people to react in several ways. Some people believed the plague was a medical problem that can be treated, some found themselves concerned only with their own greed, still others believed there was nothing they could do and reacted in fear, and most people believed it was a form of divine

Religion has always been a major theme in history, and even now does not fail to play an important role. The desire to gain more believers and convert people makes up the base of the reason for the differences in Muslim and Christian responses the Black Plague. As Gabriele de Mussis, a Christian chronicler during the Black Death, states, “I am overwhelmed, I can’t go on!...The hand of the Almighty strikes repeatedly to greater and greater effect.” On the contrary, Muhammad al Manbiji, an Islamic scholar, said that “…the plague is a blessing from God; at the least, a Muslim should devoutly accept the divine act.” (doc. 4) These two viewpoints of the plague are complete opposites; Christians are overwhelmed that their population is dying out while Muslims are accepting it as a blessing that their rival religion is suffering. These documents were combined to emphasize the contrast between

In the middle ages people had no idea about how any disease such as the Black Death could spread. The Europeans think “it disseminated by the influence of the celestial bodies, or sent upon them by God in his just wrath” (Boccaccio). In other words, they think the plague came from the sky or sent by God. They think maybe it is God’s way of cleansing the earth or punishing them for their unfair behaviors. Some think that a supernatural origin caused the disease. This disease is a bacterium infection which has a variety of symptoms, such as, nose bleeding, tumors in the groin or armpits and black spots or

The life-span of many victims that were infected was about twenty-four hours and if this disease was not treated they usually died. Certain anti-bodies can be used to help the disease go away but this did not usually work. Usually people diagnosed with the plague must be isolated so that others can’t get infected and potentially cause more deaths. Without treatment, about fifty percent of people with the Black Death die. Treatment reduces the death ratio by fifty percent (Dugale). Some remedies of this disease are the vinegar and water treatment, which was that the person be put to bed and washed with vinegar and rose water. Another form of treatment was to lance the buboes, which were the large swollen lymph nodes that cause this disease, and in doing this the swellings associated should be cut open to let disease leave body, and certain stuff be put on the flesh wound. The last form of treatment was to watch the victims diet and what foods they ate because some foods enhance the disease (Cures For the Black Death). States and cities tried frantically to prevent this disease from spreading by preventing new travelers from coming in because they might carry the disease (Merriman

Sometimes, like most explanations back then, it was the work of God and punishment afflicted upon Europe for whatever reasons of the time. For these people, the only cure was to be somehow forgiven by God. This was usually done by people carving or painting the symbol of the cross on the front doors of their house with the words “Lord have mercy on us” either near it or on it. Another great contributor to the destruction of the Black Death was the Great Fire of London which helped eradicate most of the rats that carried the disease and wiping out most of the people with the disease. The plague actually repeatedly continued to remain in Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the centuries. The major occurences of the plague happened around the year 1346 and 1671. The Second Pandemic Black Death was pretty active in the years 1360 and 1667. All of Europe was ravaged and it impacted Europe so devastatingly that it took 150 years for the population of Europe to be fully recovered. Quarantining people was another way of combating the plague in ancient times. Taking anti-bio tics was advised was advised in case you came into contact with a victim of the disease. In early 2011 it was discovered that the bacteria Yersinia Pestis was actually the culprit for one of the most devastating pandemics ever to surface in the world. While

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.

The church could not save people from this disease, so it led to many people questioning and giving up on their religion. Doctors did not understand the origin of the disease, so most civilians believed the cause of the Black Death was from supernatural powers. They saw the disease as divine punishment, which is god punishing them. Many people thought they could beat themselves to atone for their supposed sins. The church lost power and influence in society because they failed to protect the civilians and the clergy from the horrid diseases. Many civilians lost faith and found a scapegoat to blame for the cause of the plague. The most popular scapegoat in the 14th century plague was the Jews. This religious group was accused of creating and spreading the plague because most Jews were merchants and the diseased rats were carried by the merchants. Persecution of the Jews continued out through the late Middle

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 evolution of human thinking throughout time is one of the most intriguing things we could ever observe. As events stay what they are the way we observe them throughout time go through spirals of fact and fiction because we are only human. In effort to explain the horrors of the Black Death, medieval Christian communities believed that the Jewish were held accountable by allegedly poisoning water and the wells. Due to this many Jews were killed on wooden platforms unless they agreed to be baptized. They were however mainly targeted due to being wealthy and lords of the time were in debt to them. The opposing side to this is that we now know due to science that The Black Death was a bubonic plague caused by a bacteria called “Yersinia pestis”

36). The natural disasters spread fear throughout the land. This fear was caused by the belief that God was responsible for the natural disasters and plague that cursed the area. The catholic belief at that time was that God created the world and was still heavily influenced by Him (Byrne p. 86). With his belief then it is easy to say that the disasters at the time were believed to be brought upon the population by God. The reason why God caused these disasters was also believed to be because his followers’ sins were far too many and thus he needed to purge the population of sinners (Article p. 273). The numerous amount of death that occurred during the Black Death made people think that the disease was not inconsistent with the biblical Apocalypse (Article p. 275). Many thought the end of the world was coming and they needed a way to repent for their sins to the fear of burning in Hell when their bodies died and their souls moved on.