In the story of Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life, Avila’s account of hell opens with her description of a narrow pathway which appears dark and narrow. The ground, she said, “seemed to…consist of dirty, muddy water emitting a foul stench…” (A Vision of Hell, and a New Monastery, 759) When Avila arrives at the end of the pathway, she describes a small aperture in the wall which is her place of confinement. Avila also experiences an inferno burning in her soul along with excruciating physical pains that cannot compete with the, “suffocation of her soul, as if her soul was tearing itself into pieces.” (A Vision of Hell, and a New Monastery, 759) Avila attempts to explain the complete absence of light, however, everything that was agonizing
