How Does It Relate To Dante's Inferno

I found it interesting that Dante’s inferno paints a picture of what people thought was immoral and how they perceived hell. For example, thieves are in the eighth ring of hell, but heretics are only in the 6th ring. I would have assumed that in the 1300’s the emphasis on Christianity was much more prominent, since the church held vast political power and wealth, I was surprised that the thieves were thought lower of than Heretics. In addition, I had always thought of purgatory as a modern idea. I noticed that although Jesus and Mary are referred to indirectly, they are never called by their names. I believe that this is the case because biblical names are considered quite powerful, it would be disrespectful to utter such a holy name in hell. I also noticed the emphasis that Dante put on personal choice, many of the people in the lower rings of hell were there based on sins of choice and freewill. In addition, many angels who chose not to align with heaven or hell were stuck in purgatory. …show more content…
Although they were not in heaven, they were in the relatively best part of hell. In a time with such an emphasis on god, I’d think that people would be less forgiving. Also, the fact that people with fame on earth had more respect than those without it in purgatory surprised me, I’d assume that Christians would try to affirm the idea that God is supreme and any personal accomplishment on earth would have no carry over in the afterlife. I found it interesting that Dante based his judgments on the time period in which the souls lived, some souls had killed themselves, but they were not punished as it was not considered a sin in their time. I feel that this shows Dante’s emphasis on knowledge and information, knowledge is so important that one cannot be blamed for the absence of