Effects Of Treachery In Dante's Inferno

Throughout reading Dante’s Inferno written by Dante Alighieri, Dante wanders through Hell, escorted by the Roman poet Virgil. Together, the pair move on through the nine circles of Hell, witnessing the horrors inflicted on the souls of the damned. In this Divine Comedy, Dante molded the arrangement of hell and the circles justly based on events that occurred and experiences the poet witnessed in his life because Dante’s Inferno is a work of fiction. This is made clear through Dante’s expulsion from Florence as it takes a negative effect on him, this effect caused by treachery. His hunger for political power made Dante profoundly affected by Gluttony. During the early fourteenth century when Dante’s Inferno was written there was political unrest …show more content…
For example, Dante ranked treachery as the ninth circle when actually violence is a worse crime, but because he was affected by treachery, he ranks it worse. Furthermore, the prison sentence for fraud is as low as a year, but the prison sentence for aggravated assault, the weakest form of violence, is at minimum two years. Moving forward, Gluttony was looked down upon in church, but not everyone went to church or had religious beliefs, some had different religious beliefs and hell is made for everyone, so Dante ranked it incorrectly as he made it strictly for Catholics. Therefore, people who oppose the fact that Dante’s ranking was just, believe that hell in Dante’s Inferno was created as the factual and stringent interpretation of hell. It may be true that Dante ordered treachery fraud and gluttony wrong if it was for a stringent interpretation of hell. However, Dante’s Inferno is fiction and the choices Dante made to put the circle in that particular order were purely for fictional purposes. In short, Dante’s use of his life experiences to construct the circles of hell is perfectly just as Dante’s Inferno is a fiction text meant for the enjoyment of his