Throughout time, perspectives on religion and what happens after death have changed. For example, ancient cultures of polytheism of great Olympian gods to modern cultures of monotheism of Jesus Christ. Many religions believe that there is some kind of heaven, hell or reincarnation that comes after death. With different perspectives of afterlife come different punishments and rewards. In Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Dante captures the perfection of God through the various punishments for the sinners sent to hell. In Virgil’s Aeneid, Virgil captures the connection between the human spirit and the past life, and then relates it to the punishment.
In Dante’s Inferno, Dante shows the perfection of God’s punishment by illustrating in great detail
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As Dante progresses through the nine rings of hell, he begins to realize that the level at which you sinned determines which level of hell is appropriate for the sinner. However, at the beginning of the Inferno Dante describes the violent scenes of hell through a scared and pitiful tone. For example, Dante entering the gates of hell, “here sighs and cries and shrieks of lamentation echoed throughout the starless air of hell; at first these sounds resounding made me weep” (1607). But as Dante moves through the final levels of hell, he is not scared, rather he is somewhat repulsed and experiences a realization as he reaches the lower levels of hell. For example, as Dante addresses the reader directly when describing Satan himself, “How chilled and nerveless, Reader, I felt then; do not ask me–I cannot write about it” (1716). Dante going from scared to disgusted shows that as Dante progresses, the sins and punishments only become viler. When Dante is scared, he experiences pity for the dead. But as he progresses, he realizes that the people of hell are getting exactly what they deserve, which reflects god’s perfect justice