Torture In The Inferno

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

Dante's Inferno explores the nature of human suffering through a precautionary light. As Dante and Virgil move through the Inferno, Dante sees what has become of people who overindulged in things such as, lust, gluttony, violence, and bribery. Few of the punishments described in the Inferno have a direct correlation to the sin that the souls committed while they were living. Rather, they are a representation of what happens when we commit those crimes against ourselves and others. We create hells for not only ourselves, but those who we have sinned against. These hells are almost impossible to come back from as most of these sins cannot be taken back or undone. Some of the punishments that were clear representations were the punishments of

Dante explains a little bit why the lecherous are punished the way they are. He states that he “understood that to such torment / the carnal sinners are condemned, / they who make reason subject to desire” (V. 37-39). Desire governs the wantons’ reason instead of reason governing their desire. Since will instead of reason governed the sinners’ choices in their lives, then in hell they are experiencing the physical representation of the choices their souls made. The lustful are at the will of the wind, which blows them anywhere without any direction. This parallels the choices they made in life as their wills guided them without the direction of the intellect. The

Since these souls lived their lives in a windstorm of emotions and feelings, their penalty represents the literal way in which they sinned. In addition to the punishments relating to the sins of the sinners, there are also punishments which contrast with the actions of the sinners and represent what the sinner was lacking in life. For example, the neutral souls were people who could not choose between good and evil during their life, being untouched by cares of religion and faith. As punishment in hell, they have to forever chase a blank banner in circles and are constantly stung by wasps and hornets. By taking no action on Earth in regards to their faith, they have to spend an eternity running after a banner with no hopes of catching it. And because they were untouched by cares, hornets and wasps symbolically sting them forever. The neutral souls' retribution was opposite of their sin, but most punishments represent the crimes in an ironic fashion. By choosing this method of eternal punishment, God is able to inflict the most pain on the souls in hell because they are constantly reminded of their sins at all times and are never able to escape the truth of what they did. This punishment closely resembles the eye-for-an-eye tactic preached in the Old Testament, but is done mainly to carry out perfect justice. Even the inscription above the gates of hell, "justice it was that moved my great creator" (89), suggests that the sole purpose of this place

Joseph Kameen explains Dante's view of Hell and how it slightly differs from that of the Bible. He also explains Dante's view on the fairness of each punishment in Hell. "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" (37). Kameen tells us that the only law of nature that applies to hell is Newton's third law, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This can relate to the punishments of the gluttons and the wrathful because their punishment must be equal and fitting to the sin they committed. This tells us that Dante thought that each punishment fairly reflected each

Religious people always fear that they will not make it to Heaven or the place their God resides. The bible and other religious text give advice on how to avoid the pain of Hell. Dante Alighieri, a famous Italian poet, wrote about the physical description of Hell and the punishments each sinner would receive for their sins. Although The Divine Comedy chronicles Dante's journey from the depths of Hell to the glory of Heaven it contains a deeper meaning. Dante reveals the true meaning of the Inferno through his leading motif, his interactions between the sinners, and the intertwining of other literary works into the Inferno.

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

“My Guide and I crossed over and began to mount that little known and lightless road to ascend into the shinning world again.” The Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, is an epic poem, divine comedy, which was written in the 1500’s in Italian. Dante Alighieri lost his mother at a very young age and was exiled from his hometown, Florence when his group, the White Guelphs got into a disagreement with the Black Guelphs. Dante was a writer and greatly involved in politics which influenced him to write this epic poem. The story starts at with him meeting the ghost of Virgil, his idol, who becomes his guide for the remainder of the book and tries to escort Dante to heaven to be with his love, Beatrice.

Robert Herrick, an English poet, once said, “Hell is no other but a soundlesse pit, where no one beame of comfort peeps in it.” Picture any type of Hell with relief, happiness, or even the smallest crack of a smile. There is no place. In fact, one can only think of the complete opposite, whether it is a Hell filled with neglect, pain, disgust, or a never-ending life of horror. This is the place created by Dante Alighieri; The Inferno is exactly the type of Hell where no person would want to be. Even those who acted upon the lightest of sins suffered greatly. While each realm contained a different sinner, the punishment that each were forced to face was cruel, repulsive, and sometimes rather disgusting. Through grieving tears without an

In Dante’s Inferno, we followed Dante as he narrates his decent and observations of hell. A wonderful part of that depiction is his descriptions of the creative yet cruel punishments that each of the different sinners receive. This story is an integral part of literary history, and even if I were to have the imagination and ability of Dante Alighieri, I don’t believe I would change this tried and true version known universally.

In Dante’s Inferno, part of The Divine Comedy, Canto V introduces the torments of Hell in the Second Circle. Here Minos tells the damned where they will spend eternity by wrapping his tail around himself. The Second Circle of Hell holds the lustful; those who sinned with the flesh. They are punished in the darkness by an unending tempest, which batters them with winds and rain. Hell is not only a geographical place, but also a representation of the potential for sin and evil within every individual human soul. As Dante travels through Hell, he sees sinners in increasingly more hideous and disgusting situations. For Dante, each situation is an image of the quality of any soul that is determined to sin in

Dante’s “Inferno” is about the levels of Hell. Level seven is for violence against others, oneself, and God. The punishment the people go through for this was being immersed in a river of blood. However, depending on how severe the crime of violence, depends on how deeply submerged in the blood they become. “The people saw I, who from out the river/ Lifted their heads and also chest/… Thus evermore and more grew shallower/ That blood, so that the feet alone were covered…” (Dante). Level seven, realm one, is violence against others relates to physical abuse.

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.

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

     The Inferno by Dante is a story of a mans voyages through the treacherous depths of hell. Dante is a man who has strayed from the path of a catholic way of life. Now he needs to travel through hell to reach the virtuous path that will take him to heaven. He is guided through hell by a man who is in limbo, the first circle of hell, named Virgil. Virgil takes him through hell and shows him people suffering for the sins that they have committed. Together they travel through the nine different stages of hell observing who is in each stage, what there punishment is, and what sins they committed to get there. Virgil was sent to guide Dante through hell by Beatrice who is the love of Dante’s life. Beatrice plays a