Similarities Between Hamlet And Dante's Inferno

Unlike Dante, Hamlet is a much less godly believer, but still a believer. He is unsure of his reason. He is a Protestant, and undoubtedly religious, but confused as to where we all go in the end. Is it really the hell Dante describes in The Inferno, or is our God a much more merciful God? He knows what the Catholic beliefs about sin are and believes suicided will send him to hell, and from almost the first moment we hear our depressed prince speak he says, “O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon’ gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!” (1.2. 129-132). Clearly Hamlet is going through some deep rooted issues to be wishing he could commit suicide, but as a believer in God, he doesn’t do it, for the fear of the possibility of going to Hell. Hamlet is a religious man, but his faith is wavered and his reasons are uncertain. Again in his most famous soliloquy, he dwells on the thought of suicide, and how revenge would be so sweet, but his beliefs stop him from acting. “who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know no of?” (3.1. 76-82). Hamlet believes that no one would want to …show more content…
A man who’s trying to be what he knows he’s not, deep inside, someone with deep roots to Catholic religion, but also trying to make sense and maybe understand the new ways to interpret the bible, ones that don’t send you to hell for uncontrollable human sins. While Dante was a man with an unstoppable mission, one with a certain