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In Dante’s Inferno, people’s souls are being punished due to their sins committed on Earth. Each individual soul has committed similar and different types of sins, but they all have one thing in common and that is that they all deserve punishment no matter if it is a mortal sin or a venial sin.
Due to the sin of our ancestors that Adam and Eve committed, humanity is punished with original sin and is punished by God. God punishes us by giving humanity the decision of free will.
With free will, humanity commits sins every day that stray us farther from God and makes it difficult for us to reencounter with him and lead a path of salvation. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante is a poet who has lost his way and is pitied by The Virgin Mary, Santa Lucia, and Beatrice Dante’s lover, so they send Virgil, who was once a great poet, down to help Dante reconsider his actions and see what his life in Hell would be like if he continued.
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“ She followed all my directions. It was really easy to contact her and respond very fast as well. ”
Even though Dante is a Christian and believes that Christ is the key to our salvation and the definition of what being a good person is, he begins to question his beliefs after seeing important church figures in Hell. For example, in Inferno Canto XIX, He meets with Pope Nicholas III who abused his spiritual power for political gain. Dante becomes angry after seeing many other religious figures in Hell and starts to realize how corrupt the Church is and how it has also lost its way.
Due to the sins of the Church and others, people must be punished.
According to Dante’s Inferno, we must be punished for our sins due to it causing us to turn away from God and causes imperfection in the world. For example, at the beginning of Dante’s Inferno, Dante writes about losing his path and ending up in a dark forest. “Midway in the journey of our life / I came to myself in a dark wood, / for the straight way was lost. // Ah, how hard it is to tell / the nature of that wood, savage, dense, and harsh - / the very thought of it renews my fear! // It is so bitter death is hardly more so.” Inferno, Canto I. This shows how the mystery forest actually represents sin and Dante represents us and our inability to see how our sins are the cause of our own destruction. In The Inferno Canto, I line 31-54, while climbing up a mountain in order to escape the dark forest, Dante encounters a lion, a wolf, and a leopard. These three animals represent a form of sin. The lion represents pride, the leopard represents lust, and the wolf represents greed. These animals surround Dante just like these sins surround us in our daily life. We lose our path from God, not knowing how we end up in the forest and constantly having sin surround us. Our sins are what causes us to stray from good and into evil.
Traveling through hell, Dante discovers the 9 circles of Hell. Each circle has a certain sin that the sinners there are being punished for. Even though all sinners are punished, the limbo level is the least harsh form of punishment presented in the Inferno. For example, The Limbo is described as a place of sorrow without torment. This means that the people who dwell there are the unbaptized, philosophers and authors, etc. The Limbo is a peaceful circle but it is very depressing. The rest of the circles of Hell get worse and worst as you Dante travels further down.
Each circle of hell is designed to fit the sin. For example in Canto VI the third circle of hell, the gluttons reside there. They dwell in eternal heavy rain, cold air, and reeking of garbage while they lay in filthy polluted water and mud. Due to consuming excess in their life, they shall lay in excess of filth for eternity. Another example is the 7th circle of hell. Here reside the assassins, tyrants, suicidal and violent sinners. They are guarded by a minotaur who shoots them in a river of boiling blood and fire. The suicidal hang from tree branches and are eaten by harpies.
During Dante’s travel through hell, Virgil tells him to not pity the sinners for they are sinners. Sinners are not meant to be pitied for their sins, that is why they reside in Hell. In Inferno. VIII, 37–38, after being questioned by a sinner that Dante knew in life, for being in the boundary of the afterlife and life, Dante curses him and begins to insult the sinner. This shows Dante not having pity towards the sinners which gives Virgil great joy. Even though the reason for Dante to not have piety on the sinner, his reasons are not valid. His rejection of pity comes from past grudges towards the sinner and not from the person’s sin in itself.
In Dante’s Inferno irony is seen in almost all circles of hell. Due to their punishments being ironic to the sins they committed on earth. For example, in Inferno Canto VII, lines 121-124, The sinners who always complained about the earth and felt no happiness at all now dwell in irony forever. “ Fixed in the slime they say: ‘We were sullen / in the sweet air that in the sun rejoices, / filled as we were with slothful fumes. // Now we are sullen in black mire’” This shows how they are now left to spend infinity crouched in mud as they bite and hit each other. The same way they spent their life on earth is now destined to be their eternity.
Sinners on earth must meet their fate either in Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. There they must suffer punishment for their wrongdoings they committed on Earth. Humans are wrapped up living in a world full of sin, that ends up causing our own destruction. Humans go to hell in order to be punished for causing us to stray away from God’s goodness and causing imperfection in the world that God created for us.
Works Cited
1. https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/inferno
2. https://study.com/academy/lesson/dantes-inferno-quotes-about-sin.html
3. http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-information.html
4. https://medium.com/@asobcza2/the-presence-of-pity-course-paper-on-dantes-inferno-8fc6dab19922
Dante's Point Of View On Why Do People Go To Hell. (2024, Feb 19). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/dantes-point-of-view-on-why-do-people-go-to-hell-essay
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