The Importance Of Damnation In Dante's Inferno

Hell, like love or other great intangibles, is a thing that cannot be fully grasped by mortal beings. It is a place that no one has ever experienced, so therefore, it is not possible to fully understand. However, Dante, through his epic poem Inferno, tries to comprise an in-depth experience of what Hell very well may be. This poem has likely been the most tangible understanding of the place as we can conclude thus far. The issue of whether the punishment of eternal damnation in Hell is just or not will vary amongst people and stem from different issues. As humans, Hell is difficult to understand due to our incomplete understanding of the nature of sin, God, and man. It is known that humanity is infinitely corrupt in the eyes of God, but does …show more content…
They are forced to roll heavy weights back and forth to each other which causes them to reflect on how in life they never shared anything. This constantly reminds them that because of their imbalanced lifestyle, they must forever work against each other to even each other out. The dwellers of the fifth circle are damned there due to anger and wrath. The wrathful are on the bank of the Styx and are perpetually fighting amongst each other in the mud. They fight for eternity because they could not manage their anger in life. The sullen are submerged in tar. Their punishment is choking which fits in with their inability to enjoy their freedoms while alive. The sixth circle is where we start to see what most of us commonly associate with hell, spending eternity burning in flames. In the sixth circle Dante finds the heretics. These sinners are locked in burning tombs. The fire symbolizes God’s love, which consumes them as torture for going against God’s will. Moving on, the seventh circle is divided in to three rings for the violent. The outer ring houses the murderers and others who were violent to people or property. They are boiled in blood and shot by arrows. The middle ring holds those violent to …show more content…
But upon my own further inquiry, I have been able to gain a clearer sense of what Dante was trying to get across. Upon first glance I found the punishments in Inferno slightly ambiguous, although the overall structure seemed to be reasonably uncomplicated. Dante explains that when sinners die they are appropriately designated to a place in hell where they will be punished for the sins committed in their lifetime. It is apparent that as we descend through hell the sins become worse and worse and the punishments that the sinners face become harsher. As elucidated in the paragraph above, each punishment correlates with the depravity of the sin committed. This form of correspondence is a way for the sinner to be identified for their sin. After a while it becomes quite apparent to the reader which sinner belongs in each circle. However, Dante’s Hell is more about indicating the deep-rooted reason for the eternal damnation of each individual, not just stating multitudes of acts considered sins. It would be simple to only recognize each sin correlated with each circle, but I believe Inferno has much more than to instill than just arriving upon that basic realization. It is about realizing the significance of the perplexing order of which the circles are arranged. At first I was confused by