Tim Rocca
Dr. Russo
04/17/23
CLA 315
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Dante’s Inferno depicts the writer himself traveling through the afterlife with his guide Virgil, and details all the aspects of hell as Dante descends towards the ninth circle. Throughout his journey, he witnesses souls in every circle of hell for the sins they committed in their lifetime, each suffering punishments different based on the specific circle they reside. Not only are the punishments different, but they tend to be perfectly suited to the sin that has been committed, a concept called “Contrapasso”. Contrapasso essentially translates to “the punishment fits the crime,” and this notion permeates throughout Dante’s poem as he describes to the reader how the numerous souls in hell are
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As Dante leaves the circle of the hoarders adn the spenders, they approach the river Styx where Dante saw “muddy people moving in that marsh, all naked, with their faces scarred by rage” (Musa 132). There are countless souls thrashing in the river, while beneath them are “sighing souls who make these waters bubble at the surface” (Musa 133), representing the slothful. Those who were always angry and upset to the point of violence are now forced into internal conflict with others who are just like them, all the while those overcome by sloth are forced under the river, never being able to get up, just like how in their life they never rose to the occasion when it counted. This contrapasso symbolizes the inherent anger and hatred associated with hell itself, as the emotions of the condemned bleed into the surroundings of hell through Dante’s imagery of muck and slime, almost as if the souls are “one” with the river, and their violent lashing makes up Styx’s waves. Moreover, the ninth circle of Hell contains this theme, where “livid shades were stuck in ice, up to where a person’s shame appears,” all stretched out upon “a lake of ice” (Musa 363). Once again, shades in Hell are forced into its structure, but lie buried beneath the deepest layer “like straws worked into glass” (Musa 379). Dante’s imagery here depicts the sinners in this circle woven into Hell’s foundation, and the irony that Hell’s integral foundation is formed from those who commit the highest level of betrayal and mistrust serves as a reminder to the reader that at the core of it’s being, Hell is a place built on true evil and