In Dante’s Inferno, Dante the author’s idea of Divine justice is punishing the sinners in a way that the sinners punished others (or themselves) on Earth, but with a harsher consequence that only God himself could conjure. While this may seem cruel at times, God is delivering justice in a way that will teach sinners and prospects why their acts are wrong. This is clearly shown by the contrapassos of each circle and Dante’s journey that is meant to teach him to follow God. Dante descends into a Hell where pity is not encouraged. At the beginning of the journey, Dante has not learned of the sins, so he weeps and faints several times, showing his ignorance and weakness. At this point, Dante does not understand the justice served to the sinners, based off of his reactions, and his naivete when the sinners share their stories. In the second circle where lust is punished, Dante the author even makes the readers naive of the punishments, making Paolo and Francesca seem elegant and tortured, …show more content…
Dante becomes arguably cruel towards the souls; threatening to rip their hair out and “accidentally” kicking its head. Dante’s voice of reason, Virgil, is conveniently absent during these acts, which could signify that Dante no longer needs Virgil to guide him, he has learned and understood everything he needs to know that Hell is a bad place. These parts of the poem may seem humorous or shocking to the reader, to see a pilgrim torturing these souls, which is worse than feeling pity for them, but to find their misfortune funny or shocking is a more sadistic reaction, just as Dante’s sadism proves that he not only no longer pities them, but interacts with them with the intention of hurting them. This may show that God has taught him too well about divine