The Comparison between Dante’s Inferno and The Wizard of Oz Everyone, at a point in their life, has endured a challenging journey that seemed to drag on forever. Whether it be the journey of completing a complicated project for school, trying to get in better shape, or even getting back home/ to reality. Dante’s Inferno is the story of a man’s journey through Hell and the hardships he faced along the way. Throughout the literary work of Dante’s Inferno, Dante is able to obtain a better sense of how one’s actions alive can heavily affect their afterlives. The Wizard of Oz is a literary work that has been developed to film and follows Dorothy 's journey down The Yellow Brick Road to escape the Wicked Witch of the West.
While both Augustine’s confessions and Dante’s Inferno are concerned with the individual's repentance and conversion of life, Confessions seems to be more personal and Inferno more encyclopedic. Augustine organizes his work to be about him finding who God is and his conflict for conversion. It is a biography to how Augustine found faith in Christianity and within God. Dante in the other hand, while being a character in his poem, struggles as well, looking to get to heaven but the journey he takes is an experience for the character and not the actual poet himself.
Dante’s Inferno is an epic poem by Durante “Dante” degli Alighieri, written in the 1300s. He wrote a trilogy, known as the Divine Comedy, consisting of Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante was inspired by many events and issues happening at that time, such as the war between Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Battle of Montaperti, and Christian religious beliefs. In this paper, I will explore the first book, Inferno, on the topic of Hell and how the sinners had a significant impact on Dante’s journey through Hell. In Circle 5: Styx, Canto VIII, Filippo Argenti, a sinner of Wrathful, helped Dante to symbolize to readers his anger towards Black Guelphs, political enemies of the White Guelphs.
While the allegory “Inferno” by Dante and the play “Hamlet” by Shakespeare may seem like very different pieces, they both touch on the same central topic of sin. Dante uses a journey through the underworld that displays the punishments received by sinners in the afterlife, while Shakespeare shows the sinners before their death. Thus, both describe the widespread presence of sin and the power it has to consume someone. Dante and Hamlet start their stories out very similar-both are in the midsts of dark periods in their lives and in desperate need of intervention before they fall off the deep end. The only difference is that Dante had Virgil to lead him back to the light while Hamlet had no one.
In Dante’s Inferno, Dante Alighieri's depiction of Satan at the bottom of hell reveals the theme that in Hell the punishment is always befitting of the due to the fact that the lower you go, the farther that person is from god. The picture of Satan satisfies the reader because he shows that he is the opposite of god and that he is full of evil. Lucifer is the demon in the circles of hell which he has three faces, and bat like wings in which he creates the cold wind where the sinners suffer. “The face in the middle was red, the color of anger. The face on the right was white blended with yellow, the color of impotence.
While both works have similarities in their portrayal of sin, punishment, and redemption, they have their own distinct approach in the themes and literary style. To begin with, Dante’s “Inferno” is a piece of literature that describes Dante’s journey through the underworld with his guide Virgil. Dante and Virgil journey through the nine circles of Hell, and within each circle people are being punished for a sin that they committed in their earthly lives. Each circle serves as a different punishment depending on the sin that that person committed. In the first circle of Hell, this is known as Limbo where people who were not able to be baptized or not taught about God have to go.
In Inferno, Dante is the main character who is fighting between good and evil, which translates to be the theme of the story. Dante explores deeply the Christian hell and heaven, which includes the immediate Purgatory. This experience makes him cast his allegiance to good and God. The differences between these two stories are depicted when comparing the epic conventions, epic characteristics, and when comparing the various religious backgrounds of the times in which these two stories were written.
Argument of Dante’s Inferno Throughout the story of Dante’s Inferno his travels through Hell to search for God was interrupted by the spirits and the nine levels of Hell. In the book Dante’s Inferno, Dante goes on a journey through the levels of Hell. In the book as Dante travels through the levels of Hell and his anger increases as the journey goes on.
Now faith is defined as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. In the stories The Song of Roland and Dante’s Inferno both main character’s faith was tested on their spiritual quest to salvation. Roland was betrayed and outnumbered by his enemies and Dante was lost in the darkness of sin. As each man faced difficult situations on their missions, both relied on their faith to overcome their enemy, persevered through obstacles and refused to turn back.
God’s Justice in Inferno One of the most significant themes, if not the most significant theme within Dante’s Inferno is the perfection of God’s divine justice. Dante expressees divine justice within Inferno in a multitude of ways, with one of the the most prominent examples being the overall structure of Hell and how the punishment for the sinners (perfectly) reflects upon the sin. To the modern reader, Hell likely seems more like an act of cruelty than divine justice, much less a product of God’s love. At first,the torments that the sinners are subjected to seems extreme and grotesque.
In the Inferno, Dante describes the different levels of hell and the punishment which corresponds to the sin. Dante categorize hell into three major sins consisting of incontinence, violence, and fraudulent. Fraudulent is portrayed as the worse sin in the Inferno while incontinence is seen as a less serious sin. Each category has sinners which have all been punished for their wrong doings in life. The three major sins consist of circles where Dante separates the different sinners.
"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (). The Christian faith, their followers focus on being sons and daughters of Christ. Trying to make their lives better and repent their wrong doings to reach the eternal life. In the Buddhism faith, their followers focus on finding peace with themselves.
"The Inferno" is the first book in the epic poem called the “Divine Comedy” by the Italian politician Dante Alighieri and it is followed by "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso”. The book "Inferno", which is the Italian translation for Hell, tells the journey of its author through what he believes is Hell, which consists of nine circles of pain and suffering. In his journey, he is guided through the nine circles by the Roman poet Virgil. Each circle in the book represents a different type of sin with a different type of punishment, varying according to the degree of the offense they committed in their life. By the end of his journey through all of the circles, Dante realizes and emphasizes the perfection of God's Justice and the significance of each offense towards God’s unconditional love.
Inferno explores the descent of mankind into sin. The work’s vast usage of imagery and symbols, a powerful allegory, and well known allusions highlight political issues whilst dealing with the nature of sin and the road to salvation. In Inferno, Dante is forced to take a journey through hell. With the help of Virgil, his personal tour guide, Dante sees the different kinds of sins, as well as their contrapasso, or
Dante’s Inferno details the long journey of Dante and Virgil, throughout the bowels of Hell, or the Inferno. Dante’s Inferno is organized into nine different levels, each distributing a different and awful punishment to every different sin. The main sins include the seven deadly sins, “Wrath, Sloth, Lust, Greed, Pride, Gluttony, Envy”, he also included “Treachery” and “Violence”. The three sins that I believe fit their sins would be “Wrath/Sulleness”, “Greed” and “Gluttony”.
