Nature Of Sinners In Dante's Inferno

When thinking of Hell and what it may be like, one may turn to Dante’s work of epic poetry, Inferno, for guidance as it sets up Dante’s idea of what Hell is like and how sinners are organized. It becomes obvious that Dante looks upon his Christian values to determine his idea of Hell, but it may also be thought that Dante uses his knowledge and personal feelings of the people he condemns as well as his own life experiences as a guide to determine where in Hell sinners will go. This is apparent when Dante enters the ninth circle of Hell. It is here that he comes upon Count Ugolino, who recounts to Dante of how he was traitorous against his city of Pisa and that while imprisoned for this, he ate his sons who had died from starvation. It may be …show more content…
Dante approaches him and says “when/I know who you are and what his sin, in the/world above I shall repay you for it” (136-138). This again illustrates Dante’s plan of spreading the name and story of a traitorous person back in their city to inform the people of their wrongdoing, and maybe, again, redeem himself. Ugolino recounts his story, telling Dante of how he and his sons were imprisoned and starved by someone he trusted, Archbishop Ruggieri, the man whose head he had been gnawing on at the end of the previous canto. While imprisoned, Ugolino’s sons died from hunger and Ugolino proceeded to eat them stating that “then fasting had more power than grief” (75). After hearing Ugolino’s story, Dante curses the city of Pisa, of which Ugolino was a traitor, saying, “shame of the peoples of the/lovely land where si is spoken, since your/neighbors are slow to punish you” (79-81). Dante then goes on state that “if Count Ugolino was reported to/have betrayed your fortresses, you should/not have put his sons on such a cross” (85-87). This then may show that Dante was so intent on spreading the names of those traitorous against such cities like his beloved Pisa because these criminals had not been brought to justice early enough to get what they deserved or were never found out at …show more content…
Ugolino however, is the worst type of traitor because he sinned in this way twice, the second time against his own blood. Thus, Dante has no remorse or sympathy for him, as unlike the other sinners, he had a choice to somewhat redeem himself for his traitorous behavior by not delving further into it. So then, by eating his children, he gave up his ‘second chance’ and caused Dante to lose any sort of feelings for