Use Of Punishment In Dante's Inferno

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In Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, the punishments of many different sins are depicted. One such punishment is that for the violent against themselves, that is, people who have committed suicide. The punishment for this particular sin is very complex. Firstly, as a shade The Pilgrim encounters explains, “’The moment that the violent soul departs the body it has torn itself away from, Minòs sends it down to the seventh hole; it drops to the wood, not in a place allotted, but anywhere that fortune tosses it. There, like a grain of spelt, it germinates, soon springs into a sapling, then a wild tree’” (Alighieri 435). This is not the end of the punishment for the sinner, however. As the shade continues to explain, “’at last the Harpies, feasting on its leaves, create its pain, and for the pain an outlet’” (435). Lastly, the peak of this punishment is explained, “’Like the rest, we shall return to claim our bodies, but never again to wear them—wrong it is for a man to have again what he once cast …show more content…
To come up with such a punishment, Dante used the idea of contrapasso, which means, “counter penalty”. As explained in the previous paragraph, the sinner is forced to take the form of a tree. This is because they have already cast off their body in life. The second part of the punishment are the giant creatures that constantly peck at the trees. As the sinner has harmed themselves in life, they will be harmed in death. Lastly, unlike the other souls, the violent against themselves will never regain their original bodies. Instead, they will be forced to hang it on a branch of their new body to look at it for all eternity. This is almost an extension of the first part of the punishment. Because they discarded their body in life, they will never have the chance to do it again. The punishment for those who have committed suicide seems to be one of the worst, or at least, the most
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