Question 1: There is something poetic about balance, or even karma. As Dante goes through the different levels of hell there is a strong theme of Irony. Each punishment is given specifically to match the crime, the justice is a form of poetry. Dante writes that the punishments, even the levels themselves, are based on God’s word “which was willed in Heaven” (462). As the circles become deeper and the punishments become harsher, the pattern doesn’t make sense to modern day morals. Present day individuals would consider violent crimes to be worse than fraud, but God preaches love thy neighbor. So while violence is against God’s word of love, fraud actively corrupting of it. It can also be said that Satan himself was never violent, according to the …show more content…
He lied, flattered, deceived, and falsified his own him image to dishonor God. His acts would be more severe than simply killing, because the acts were to actively act against the Lord. This is shown in the punishments. Flatters, a form a fraud, are forced to eat human waste, while those who are violent against themselves are turned to trees. Another example would be simonatics, people who have bought or sold offices, are placed upside down in baptism fonts with their feet on fire to drown over and over, while people who are violent towards God are forced to walk forever on burning sand. The punishment is more gruesome towards the fraudulence then the violence. Dante begins to pity those who are in hell, but “piety lives when pity is dead, for who could he more wicked than that man who tries to bend divine will to own” (458). It is insulting to God and dense to show pity because it demonstrates a lack of understanding and