In Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, Dante travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Throughout this allegory, Dante changes during his journey from many experiences he experiences, including learning that the souls in Hell deserve their punishments, seeing the people inside of Purgatory being punished for their pride, and realizing that pride is his sin while he goes through the bottom section of Purgatory. In the second circle of Hell, Dante meets Paolo and Francesca, who says to Dante, “we are one in Hell, as we were above.” Dante feels great sympathy for Paolo and Francesca, and “fell, as a corpse might fall, to the dead floor of Hell.” Later, in the fifth circle of Hell, while Dante is in a boat with Phlegyas, he sees someone he
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Their punishment is to be “pressed under the moving boulders.” Because once they thought they were above all others, they are now put under everything else, and are “no more than insects, incomplete as any grub until it burst the shroud.” Virgil tells Dante to “not think of the torments”, because the souls here will eventually get to Heaven. This level of the proud is on the bottom level of Purgatory because these Christians are “worms, each one born to become the Angelic butterfly that flies defenseless to the Judgement Throne”, and are nothing compared to what they believe they are. After seeing the proud being punished, Dante says, “I watched those souls with care.” He realizes that pride is his sin, and he may share the same fate with those currently in this section of Purgatory if he does not change this sin that currently defines him. Through showing Dante’s weakness to pride, Alighieri tells the reader that everyone has their own weaknesses to sin, even Dante. In The Divine Comedy, Dante changes as a character after seeing Filippo Argenti in the fifth circle of Hell, realizing that everyone gets what they deserve, and after seeing the prideful being punished in Purgatory, knowing that this is his sin. The reader, after seeing Dante’s revelation about each person getting what they earned in life, knows that they must do better and become a Christian in order to enter Heaven.
Their punishment is to be “pressed under the moving boulders.” Because once they thought they were above all others, they are now put under everything else, and are “no more than insects, incomplete as any grub until it burst the shroud.” Virgil tells Dante to “not think of the torments”, because the souls here will eventually get to Heaven. This level of the proud is on the bottom level of Purgatory because these Christians are “worms, each one born to become the Angelic butterfly that flies defenseless to the Judgement Throne”, and are nothing compared to what they believe they are. After seeing the proud being punished, Dante says, “I watched those souls with care.” He realizes that pride is his sin, and he may share the same fate with those currently in this section of Purgatory if he does not change this sin that currently defines him. Through showing Dante’s weakness to pride, Alighieri tells the reader that everyone has their own weaknesses to sin, even Dante. In The Divine Comedy, Dante changes as a character after seeing Filippo Argenti in the fifth circle of Hell, realizing that everyone gets what they deserve, and after seeing the prideful being punished in Purgatory, knowing that this is his sin. The reader, after seeing Dante’s revelation about each person getting what they earned in life, knows that they must do better and become a Christian in order to enter Heaven.