Connor Coupanger Interpretation of Dante’s Inferno

Through the entire comedy Dante shows signs of personal growth and development, conquering challenges that he would not have been able to face before. “Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path”(Alighieri 1053). This shows halfway through Dantes life, he realizes that he was being lead astray from God's light. Dante found himself alone in the woods and he became scared for his life “I had become so sleepy at the moment when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth; but when I found myself at the foot of a hill, at the edge of the wood's beginning, down in the valley, where I first felt my heart plunged deep in fear”(Alighieri 1054).

Dante through the Comedy faints often because of his fear’s which is his weakness. “How I entered there I cannot truly say, I had become so sleepy at the moment when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth”(Alighieri 1054).

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Dante does not remember how he started to take the sinners path.

Some of Dante’s character traits change as his mind matures, he recognizes the justice carried out by God, from the beginning until the end Canto, and his fear does subside. “One ought to be afraid of nothing other then things possessed of power to do us harm, but things innocuous need not be feared”(Alighieri 1080). Dante brings to life pain and suffering in Hell, “pains are physical; suffering is emotional”(Alcorn).

Alcorn explains that in The Divine Comedy the pain and suffering that the damned souls experience are both physical and emotional. “In Hell Every pain is less than maximal because the damned souls lack their worldly bodies (vehicles for physical pain) and take the aerial for of virtual bodies. An implication is that pain in Hell is less saturated than is suffering. However, this state is temporary; in the fullness of time, at the Last Judgment, souls will regain their real bodies and thereby perfect their pain”(Alcorn) Alcorn also shows that the virtual bodies feel less physical pain then alive human bodies. “Emotional suffering is partly about pain; for example, sinners dread the Last Judgment and the maximal pain that they will then forever experience as re embodied souls”(Alcorn). The constant dread is the physiological torment used on the damned souls; even though it's bad for the souls then adding to the fact that they will never rise up and be accepted by God. These Souls are already at a lowest low, and with the souls knowing that it can become even worse is the constant punishment that these souls face for eternity.

In Hell, some of the most serious crimes are those of betrayal. “In the levels they have already passed through, the sins or crimes are mostly those of passion or weakness; in the second circle, for example, they encountered the adulterers Paolo and Francesca, who had been overcome by passion”(Paul). Paul explains that some crimes have different weight in terms of where the sinner ends up in Hell. Weakness plays a part in this whole story where Dante finds himself weakened by seeing some of these punishments and faints quite often. These acts of the uncontrollable urge to faint is proof that Dante is not only worried but frightened by the fact that he could be one of these souls down in Hell facing the same crimes. It is odd to think that crimes of violence are not as far down as other crimes like betrayal. Paul explains, “Crimes of betrayal were the most serious not only because they required the most dlibertate exercise of free will, but also because they did the most damage to the ethical net of obligations in society; conversely, violence seemed neither much out of the ordinary nor extraordinarily to be condemned”(Paul).

Through the story, Dante writes about Hell he produces prolific detail of punishments of the sinners, and vividly describes events to portray the true consequences of the the convicted. “Before me nothing but eternal things were made, and I shall last eternally. Abandon every hope, all you who enter”(Alighieri 1060). The first thing that Dante reads before he enters Hell, showing that true first step and how serious this quest is. According to Dante, there are a various levels in hell The first level in Hell is called Limbo. All of the people who die before being baptized those who do not accept any form of christianity into there life, are condemned for the rest of eternity in limbo. This levels purpose are for the philosophers who do not associate themselves with any religion are going to this limbo for eternity. Some Philosophers that Dante provides include well renowned philosophers like Socrates and Plato. 'The master of those who know'(Dante 1064). This form of punishment for the individuals stuck in limbo

In the beginning of the poem Dante is a softie because of these traumatic events Dante breaks into tears, passes out, and displays empathy for the sinners many time in the cantos. “And all the while the one of the two spirits spoke these words, the other wept, in such a way that pitty blurred my senses; I swooned as though to die, and fell to Hell’s floor as a body, dead, falls”(Alighieri 1070). As the story unfold Dante beings to change and toughen up feeling less empathy for the sinners. “Thought I come, I do not stay ; but who are you, in all your ugliness? “You see that I am one who weeps,” he answered and then I said to him “May you weep and wail, stuck here in this place forever, you damned soul. For, filthy as you are, I recognize you… “Master, it certainly would make me happy to see him dunked deep in this slop just once before we leave this lake-it truly would”(Alighieri VIII 1078). In the first couple of cantos Dante was unable to even watch some of these souls get torchered without fainting; In these cantos, Dante begs like a young child to see these souls in perpetual agony. Canto VIII had a drastic change to Dante. Dante has gone from a emotional scaredy cat, to Dante the punisher of souls, showing the overall effect of going through Hell has started to change and toughen Dante up. Leading Dante through the inferno, Virgil had developed Dantes overall confidence. Dante is continuously gaining confidence in the words exchanged with Virgil. “Are you then Virgil, are you then that fount from which pours forth so rich a stream of words? I said to him, bowing my head modestly”(Alighieri I 1055). This quote showing how Dante looks up to Virgil as a amazing poet and mentor.