Dante's adventure clearly shows that the souls of hell are punished, as I thought. Punishments range from living in filth to painful tortures. Dante expands his idea of hell being made up of circles that descend based on sin. While this idea makes sense, I have never been exposed to that thought. This concept creates constant surprises and extremely interesting imagery.
I agree with Dante on this placing, because those violent against kin, country, the innocent, etc., deserve the punishment they are given. This parallels the other sin I came up with in class: hurting the innocent and defenseless. It’s extremely disgraceful and disgusting. Suicide is the main theme for canto XIII, the second circle of circle seven. I honestly don’t know why this is so low in Hell.
To start, the lukewarm spirits are stung to the point that their “faces irrigate with blood,” which brings with it a feeling of justification (Alighieri III). As the Bible clearly states that it is better to be completely against God than a lukewarm, uncaring soul, the neutral sinners are given the punishment that they deserve, proving God to be one of justice, and supremacy. Next, as Dante travels on to the first circle of Hell the reader comes across a mood of hopelessness; moreover, the sinners are “without hope” as they “live on in desire,” replicating a humanly life without God (Alighieri IV). The mood in this canto acts as a tool to show “the holy power” of God in the way that dark feelings arrive in the midst of his absence, making him light (Acocella). After this, Dante approaches an “infernal hurricane that never rests,” and creates a chaotic atmosphere for the reader (Alighieri V).
In Dante’s Inferno, an epic poem about Dante’s journey into the depths of Hell, he comes across many different evils that we experience in everyday life on Earth. Virgil takes Dante through rings of Hell where he witnesses the punishing of sinners for different things, such as lacking self control or violence. These sins are broken down into specifics, but of all the many crimes Dante speaks of, it is worth noting that sex crimes do not come up as their own ring in Inferno. Understandably so, since at the time it may have been taboo to talk about. However, in modern society, sex crimes are a growing problem that are gaining attention.
They look at others as inferior in an arrogant way and see themselves as superior to all others. This is why God hates it. Pride caused Satan’s fall and the Bible says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov 16:18). This is exactly what happened to Satan and what still happens to humans who boast and brag. The second one is Lust.
His very existence is for the destruction of the truly innocent. In religious terms the devil is the ruler of the underworld and can see into everyone’s thoughts and manipulate them into temptation. A Shakespearean audience would be fully aware of this due to the fact that they were considerably religious during the period the play was written and performed in. We see that Iago has devilish qualities about his character in the way he manipulates other into essentially doing his dirty work for him. The clever technique Shakespeare uses allows al the characters to perceive Iago as ‘honest’ and quite pure and heavenly like.
In Both “The Minister’s Black Veil” and The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne demonstrates how human nature is associated with human passion. He mainly targets the act of sin as his example of human nature regarding human passion. Hawthorne also seems to expose the true hypocrisy of the Puritan lifestyle, especially in these two stories. In the story “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Hawthorne wrote about a man named Reverend Hooper. Hooper wore a black veil throughout the story in attempt to make a point to everyone that they all sinned, whether they wanted to admit it or not, and there was no point in trying to hide their sins… considering God was aware of them regardless of who else knew.
Now, by God’s grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it”(67). Unlike different people, Danforth’s extreme Puritanism affects him negatively. His fear causes paranoia to grow within him and drives him mad. There is no way that a highly regarded judge such as him could lack the amount of intelligence to be able to differentiate between blatant blasphemies and the truth. Danforth was far too afraid to face his God and be incorrect when judging the guiltiness of the accused.
Virgil acts as Dante’s guide, showing him not only the physical route through Hell, but also reinforcing its moral lessons. When Dante appears slow to learn these lessons – such as when he sympathizes with sinners or attempts to remain too long in one region of Hell – Virgil often grows impatient with him. For instance, in order to guide Dante onto the right path, Virgil states, “Here pity lives best when it is dead” (C. 20, L. 28), to show that Dante must stop sympathizing with the sinners in Hell because he is siding against God’s judgment. By teaching Dante these important qualities he needs to possess while traveling through hell, Virgil is working to accomplish his goal. To be a successful guide, he needs to guide Dante not only through hell physically, but also spiritually.
Iago also say’s “My lord, you know I love you” which juxtaposes his previous quote “I hate the moor”. He claims a reputation for honesty, yet he invents elaborate lies in order to exploit and manipulate other people. “I am not what I am” is one of the most famous and ingenious quotes said by Iago. Here the theme of appearance vs. reality is shown. This quote is reminiscent of a quote in the bible “I am what I am” which is said by God.