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Contrapasso In The Inferno

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The Inferno Paper Hell has taken many forms throughout the course of time and people. Most can agree that “Hell means separation from God. […] When the Scripture uses fire concerning Hell, that is possibly an illustration of how terrible it’s going to be-not fire but something worse, a thirst for God that cannot be quenched. (Time magazine, 11-1 5-93). In the Inferno by Dante, he has given Hell a specific form. There are not any exceptions to whom may enter Hell (Canto 3 ln 123). Every walk of life is represented in Hell in some way. In this paper, I plan to show the elaborate layers of Hell that Dante and Virgil must travel through and the contrapasso for each level. According to Dante, there are nine levels of Hell. The first level of Hell …show more content…

The avarice souls have sinned against God by allowing their greed to take over. The prodigal souls have allowed their spending excessively to harm their relationship with God. For their contrapasso, the avarice group must joust the prodigal group eternally. As both groups fight the other they cry out “‘Why do you hoard?’ ‘Why do you squander?’” (Canto 7 ln 30). The wrathful and the sullen occupy the fifth circle of Hell. These groups possess a different contrapasso unlike the two groups in the previous circle of Hell. Wrathful souls have been damned to engage in combat against one another on the surface of the river Styx while the sullen lay beneath the water struggling for air (Canto 7 ln 103). The wrathful use their entire beings to fight one another with no purpose (Canto 7 ln 112-114). The sullen sink into the dark abyss where their anger grew. There are a few walls that lie in between the fifth and sixth walls of Dis. Dante and Virgil had a difficult time moving on with their journey because the fallen angels that guarded the gates would not allow them entrance. A messenger from Heaven had to come down to open the gates for the poets to continue their journey through Hell. Dante attributes the troublesome entrance into Lower Hell because circles six through nine are closer to Satan. Since these are closer to Satan, the contrapasso is greater and the beings become more …show more content…

The Minotaur represents violence in it’s very being. Violence can take place in three ways according to Virgil; the violence can be done to other people, oneself, or God (Canto 11 ln 28-33). People who have killed or committed acts of bloodshed are punished by spending their eternity immersed in blood and fire that correlates with their sin (Canto 12 ln 73-75). Those who have caused harm to themselves are turned into forms of trees and bushes to be feasted upon by the Harpies (Canto 13 ln 5). The third group who commits violence against God are the sodomites and the blasphemers. They are given a setting of a fiery desert of sand. The blasphemers must lay on the sand while the sodomites drift without a purpose being burned by flakes of fire (Canto 14 ln 28-29). These harsh punishments represent the power that God has over those who consistently show violence to

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In Dante's Inferno, Dante who is main character is getting a tour of hell by his tour guide Virgil. Virgil his tour guide presents to him all the nine levels of hell, including the punishments the sinners must suffer with for all eternity. In the ninth level of hell, the worst sinners are frozen in a giant lake. The sinners are then eaten alive by whom is so called satan. According to Dante, Satan is described as “Than do the giants with those arms of his; consider now how great must that whole, which unto such a part conforms itself… O, what a marvel it appeared to me, when i beheld three faces on his head!

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