The Divine Comedy Critique - Essay Example

Punishment and Hell Based on Dante’s Inferno Dante’s greatest work was the epic poem The Divine Comedy (completed in 1321). It includes three sections: Inferno, in which the great classical poet Virgil leads Dante on a trip through hell; Purgatorio, in which Virgil leads Dante up the mountain of purification; and Paradiso, in which Dante travels through heaven. The primary theme of the poem is sin and punishment. Every sin committed has its corresponding consequence as it was emphasized in the contrapasso which demonstrated that connection between sin and punishment (Reverius 2002). Canto I serve as the introduction of the poem which is the narrator’s journey to the unknown. In his journey, he met three animals – leopard, lion and wolf. At a glance, it just seemed that these animals were plain predators that would cause harm to the narrator. However, these animals are symbols of the forms of sin. The leopard symbolizes sins of self-indulgence or lust. This form of sin is the easiest to commit. Naturally, humans seek pleasure, extravagant and sometimes greedy which are often sins of youth. The sin of bestial violence is represented by the lion. These are sins of adulthood, one of which is pride. The wolf represents malicious sins or the sins of age (Davis 2006). The poem illustrated the different levels of hell which corresponds to a particular sin. Beginning in Canto IV, the first circle is the Limbo where sighs were mostly heard is described as peaceful, yet sad. The souls in this were those people who are good but were not baptized. In the Catholic religion, one has yet to be baptized for the original sin (sin of Adam and Eve) to be forgiven. I am truly torn about this particular punishment because I also believe that if one is not baptized, one is not a part of the Christian world. In this case, since God has three entities – the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost- God is Christ and if you are not a Christian, there is no place for you in heaven or in paradise. On the other hand, logic tells me that there are non-Christians who are more deserving than Christians, and in this perspective it is not fair. The second circle is where the lustful are tortured; but the punishment is still considered as mild because lust is closely associated with love and therefore is viewed with compassion. The third circle of hell was smaller, filled with cold and heavy with dirty rain. This circle is surrounded by new suffering with souls unhappily lain in the filthy mud, tormented by the three-headed doglike demon Cerberus. These were the gluttonous people. There punishment for their greed is just fair. The fourth circle is where the hoarders were put to be punished because they spent immeasurably squandering their wealth, when their wealth should be put to good use for the good of the people. It was described in the poem that many of the misers where clergymen, popes and cardinals; in other words, it represents the wealth of the catholic church. The spirits there danced an infernal round while endlessly pushing around great weights. Divided into two groups, one shouted "Why do you hoard?" and the other, "Who do you squander?" (Archive of Classic Poems 2001). They went on and on with this dialogue as if to remind them for all eternity of their greediness and obsession with wealth and being excessive. The fifth circle of hell is where the wrathful are punished. It is marked by the Styx, a muddy and swamp-like infernal river where the furious naked spirits fought with one another. Underwater were the souls of those who have not appreciated the sweet air of the sunlit world. Described as the slothful and the sullen, were stuck in slime gurgling their lament which came as bubbles in the surface (Archive of Classic Poems 2001). There punishment is just right for them. In this way, they will realize that the sunshine is better than slime, and that they should appreciate it. The sixth circle of hell is where the heretics belonged. The fallen angels were incapable of repenting their sins to God. Past the sixth circle are three smaller circles, holds the souls of those who were guilty of different forms of fraud. The seventh is the upper circle holds the violent and is itself divided into three circles, punishing violence against God, ones self, and ones neighbors, in the order of most to least serious. Those who are violent against their neighbors are tyrants and murderers; those who are violent against themselves are suicides or squander their possessions; and those who are violent against God are blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers (Archive of Classic Poems 2001). Those who practice fraud against people who trust them: flatterers, hypocrites, and sorcerers are held in the eight circle. The ninth circle punishes treachery, the greatest amongst all sins. Different conflicts are shown in the poem – person v self, person v person, person v society, person v nature, person v God, person v technology. These may be seen as the sins a person commits in his life. In Canto 28 line 30, driven by guilt Mohammed tore his own body apart and because of being a schismatic, his punishment is to eternally tear himself apart in hell. Apparently, the punishment that one receives depends on what he has done. One’s punishment is exactly the same as the sin committed. In the conflict person v person, Count Ugolino, in his desperation to survive, committed cannibalism by eating his children, therefore his is sentenced to an eternity of eating people while frozen. In the issue of survival, man naturally looks for edible things to nourish one self. Man doesn’t immediately eat other men. There are two situations wherein I can see that his punishment is justifiable: 1. if Count Ugolino’s children were intentionally killed just to feed himself to survive and 2. He ate his children to survive and when he survives he did nothing good. On the other hand, when his children naturally died because they don’t have the strength to survive, and he is the only one who remained alive, I don’t agree with the punishment. Knowing that you have a chance of surviving, you just don’t let go of that chance. However, if one survives by eating other people (those of course who are dead) I just see it appropriate that one has to do something good as an act of gratitude for being alive and an act of repentance as well for the person or persons one ate. Obviously, I will not be happy if you ate my dead body, but I will surely understand. I am dead and you are still trying to be alive. I would rather let you grab the chance of being alive, and if it means eating my dead body, so be it. Politics is a dirty game and this is usually a classic example of person v society. As a politician, you can’t expect to please everybody and have everybody like you. The author’s political enemies threw him out of Florence when they took power in the city, in his resentment, he avenged himself, by throwing them in hell. Throwing political rivalries or enemies into hell because you were “kicked out” from the city is an act of cowardice, simply because it was an easy way of getting revenge. Dante’s enemies were just playing the game of politics and fortunately they won. Since he is not one of them and also an enemy at that, they exiled him to be able to put into action however it is they plan to rule Florence. Dante here was a sour loser. People also commit sin against nature (person v nature). In Cantos 15 and 16, the sodomites committed a crime against nature and they were punished by burning in hell. Person v God is a conflict about how Lucifer rebelled and separated from God during the war of good and evil. He is punished in the 9th level of hell, which is the lowest level, frozen and forced to gnaw on the heads of Judas, Cassius, and Brutus (Reverius 2002). God is God and his disobedience to God, Lucifer, was punished. His punishment is just befitting because he will never display arrogance and stubbornness again. The last conflict which is person v technology speaks about Dante and the Malebranches. On this matter, man’s pursuit of science has yielded a lot of miracles and made life more comfortable but this shouldn’t mean that we should use technology to rule us or to rule other people. It should be used to strengthen relationships and promote peace, growth, development and responsibility; the responsibility of taking care or helping those who are weak or less fortunate than us. Bibliography A.P. Davis (2006). “Dante’s Inferno” Introduction.” Epics for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 0. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 11 January 2008. . A. Reverius (2002). “Literary Analysis: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri.” everything.com. Sun Sep 29 2002 at 23:49:19. 11 January 2008. Archive of Classic Poems (2001). “Poetry of Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. everypoet.com. Selendy Communications. 11 January 2008. Read More