Dante's Inferno Discussion Paper

Dante’s Inferno Discussion Paper

“The Inferno” was written by Dante in the 14th century as a part of a three part story: the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Each book represents a level of the Catholic faith of an afterlife. In the Inferno, Dante travels through Hell on his way to Heaven and he must face and witness the various “levels” of hell and their corresponding sins. The “hierarchy of sins” merely refers to the Church’s belief that some sins were worse than others and have different punishments. Dante was attempting to show the varying degrees of sin and how they fit together.

The hierarchy is not random; the methods of torture inflicted follow a scale of least to most serious the deeper into the underworld the characters visit. In Dante's view there are three major divisions of the circles of Hell, populated by those who give into their lesser instincts and desires, those that refuse God, and those that intentionally do harm to themselves or others by physical or deceptive means. Dante uses these three divisions to explain which misdeeds are more severe than others and why the punishments given to those populating each are fitting and deserved.

The first division is built upon those who give in to desire and instinct, as well as the virtuous heathens. The virtuous heathens are stranded in Limbo for not knowing God, their punishment merely an eternal longing: "they did not sin; and yet, though they have merits, that's not enough" (Canto IV, 34-5). They died before knowing Christianity; therefore even the most noble and dedicated heathens could not ascend to Heaven. Accompanying the heathens in lower circles of Hell are the Lustful and the Gluttons. The lustful are doomed to repeat their damning actions endlessly. Dante draws in the audience, allowing readers to feel sympathy while at the same time challenging them not to. Gluttons are pelted by "cold and filthy rain." It is not described what exactly makes this rain filthy, only that it turns the...