Dante's Inferno Essay

The journey through life that one must take can be full of many unexpected turns. In John Sinclair’s translation of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, this is exemplified by Dante’s voyage through life. He is faced with a crossroads in his life when he becomes lost at his middle age. This is where Virgil comes to his aid and they travel to a deep abyss that turns out to Hell. It is constructed in the form of a city, which is called Dis. Dante then informs the reader of his interpretation of how the underworld is categorized based on sin. He characterizes sin by the degree to which a person harms society when they commit that particular sin. He begins the circles of Hell with the least serious sins and continues down to the more heinous crimes. He categorizes the sins into three major classifications: incontinence, violence, and fraud. His journey through Hell has a major impact on him, and he uses his experience to portray his interpretation of how Hell is organized. The first classification of sin in Hell according to Dante is incontinence. Dante looks at having little or no self-control as being the least heinous of the sins committed. In Canto V he assigns the lustful sinners to this circle of Hell. The whole reason that committing lust is a sin is because by focusing their love and attention towards on another, they lose track of God. Dante creates the environment to exhibit that the punishment for being lustful is the sin itself. Virgil is forced to appeal to the beings’ sensual love in order to get their attention so Dante can interact with them. He describes the first scene when he walks into this circle of Hell: I came to a place where all light was mute and where was bellowing as of a sea in tempest that is beaten by conflicting winds. The hellish storm, never resting, seizes and drives the spirits before it; smiting and whirling about them, it torments them. When they come before its fury there are shrieks, weeping and lamentation, and there they blaspheme the power of God... (75)
The shades that exist in this realm of Hell have to forever endure the lustful environment of a violent storm. It refers to an internal storm that rages inside the sinners. Another example of how the beings in this circle of Hell are in a constant lust is through Francesca. Dante basically asks her why she committed adultery. To which she answers, “‘There is no greater pain than to recall the happy time in misery, and this thy teacher knows; but if thou hast so great desire to know our love’s first root, I shall tell as one may that weeps in telling’” (79). This just shows that in order for to even interact with him and answer the question she must endure all of her past feelings. He also refers to lust as a natural instinct by comparing Francesca and Paolo to beautiful doves. The doves are depicted as being driven by their instincts by their migratory patterns and their ability to survive. So in this case, Dante is portraying humans as being instinctively driven to be lustful. It is also referring to the appearance of the sinners; just because the sin itself is ugly in nature, does not mean that the actual sinners are ugly too. To put your sensual feelings before your spiritual feelings towards God is what makes this sin a punishable one. Dante’s second classification for sin is violence. Dante views violence as being worse than incontinence because you are breaking a more sacred bond with physical harm to either another person, yourself, God, or nature. In Canto XIII Dante categorizes “the Suicides” in this level of Hell. He puts the violence against oneself as more heinous than violence against others because it is an act of insubordination against God. The violent act of taking one’s life is a direct disregard to one’s body, which is God’s creation. These beings are stripped away their bodily figures and become trapped inside the barren trees and bushes. Dante describes the setting as, “No green

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