How Does Dante Use Pity In Dantes Inferno

When pity, as an emotion, becomes more and more profound, it increasingly comes off as sympathy. Over time, it evolves into compassion for those who are suffering given misfortunes. Undoubtedly, “pity and sympathy are based on an initial relationship of fellow feeling, or identification with the circumstances and feelings of another” (Walton, p.88). Dante uses his characters in Inferno to explore or conceptualize the pity concept. Based on the characters, he builds up unsettled moral standards that are not in agreement with the presentations made by the reprobates, including Francesca and Ugolino, to him in the poem. Dante characterizes the mismatches between the unsettled moral standards and the presentations made by the reprobates as being a pity struggle.
The pity struggle is occasioned by sinners, who attempt to absolve themselves of the liability for their iniquities and needle pity from those around them. As Dante moves through hell, his pity for the hurting souls, which are already damned, keeps evolving. Initially, the pity he feels for the …show more content…
He does not focus on her lust iniquity. Rather, he is misled to focus on the suffering of Francesca owing to the iniquity. His being misled may be blamed on his ignorance of the difference between the iniquity and the reprobate or sinner. The ignorance vanishes as time goes on and becomes more and more capable of making out the difference. He first pities souls like Francesca’s, but later on fails to pity Ugolino. In many ways, it speaks to the value of consistent moral dispositions and perspectives. It is clear from the poem that one of the principal causes of the pity struggle is the attempt by sinners or reprobates to try to shift particular blame for their iniquities to other persons or situations. The reprobates seek to be pitied by other people despite their sinfulness due to their