What is the punishment for sins committed in one’s life? Dante attempts to answer this question in Inferno, the first section of The Divine Comedy. In this section, Dante travels through the different layers of hell and observes the people and their punishments in each circle. Alighieri’s Inferno attempts to assign punishment to each sin. However, his punishments are not assigned haphazardly. As Dante travels through the first three layers of punishment in hell, he observes the symbolic suffering of the sinners as their souls are made to endure punishments that mimic their sinful ways in life.
After passing through the first circle of hell, Dante comes upon the first level of punishment, which is the level of the lustful and their symbolic …show more content…
They are constantly battered by dirty rain, snow, and hail, which creates both sludge and filthy air: “Thick hail and dirty water mixed with snow / come down in torrents through the murky air, / and the earth is stinking from this soaking rain” (Alighieri VI.9-11). This accumulation of filthy sludge symbolizes the gross nature of their overindulgence in worldly pleasures during their lifetimes. They also suffer the constant attacks of Cerberus, who “rips the spirits, flays and mangles them” (Alighieri VI.17). The physical mangling of their bodies by Cerberus symbolizes the effects of their gluttonous lifestyles on their bodies. They disregarded such effects in their lifetimes and therefore are made to endure bodily harm. This disfiguration is exemplified in Ciacco, whom Dante does not recognize after his years of punishment. Dante also describes the shades as empty: “We walked across this marsh of shades beaten / down by the heavy rain, our feet pressing / on their emptiness that looked like human form” (Alighieri VI.33-35). Therefore, not only are they unrecognizable, but also they are completely empty. This is payment for their overindulgences in life, which would have kept them full and overly …show more content…
Their punishment is to constantly push heavy weights in a semicircle only to clash with one another “They rolled enormous weights. / And when they met and clashed against each other / they turned to push the other way” (Alighieri VII.26-28). The weights symbolize the excessive importance they placed on money in life. The prevalence of this high value on money in life now bears down on them in death, and just as they carried it with them at all times in life, they must now bear the constant weight of it in hell. The hoarders and wasters constantly clash because they are both guilty of the same sin: greed. They constantly torture each other: “One side / screaming, ‘Why hoard?,’ the other side, ‘Why waste?’” (Alighieri VII.28-29). Each group is eternally reminding each other of the frivolous nature of their sin through this constant questioning. An answer is never given to either question, which symbolizes the frivolous nature of both ways of living. There is no answer to either question because each way of living is unjustifiable. Money is degraded to simple weights to symbolize its frivolity and despite its eternal presence for the people of this circle, it cannot save them: “For all the gold that is or ever was / beneath the moon won’t buy a moment’s rest / for even one among these weary souls” (Alighieri
After passing through the first circle of hell, Dante comes upon the first level of punishment, which is the level of the lustful and their symbolic …show more content…
They are constantly battered by dirty rain, snow, and hail, which creates both sludge and filthy air: “Thick hail and dirty water mixed with snow / come down in torrents through the murky air, / and the earth is stinking from this soaking rain” (Alighieri VI.9-11). This accumulation of filthy sludge symbolizes the gross nature of their overindulgence in worldly pleasures during their lifetimes. They also suffer the constant attacks of Cerberus, who “rips the spirits, flays and mangles them” (Alighieri VI.17). The physical mangling of their bodies by Cerberus symbolizes the effects of their gluttonous lifestyles on their bodies. They disregarded such effects in their lifetimes and therefore are made to endure bodily harm. This disfiguration is exemplified in Ciacco, whom Dante does not recognize after his years of punishment. Dante also describes the shades as empty: “We walked across this marsh of shades beaten / down by the heavy rain, our feet pressing / on their emptiness that looked like human form” (Alighieri VI.33-35). Therefore, not only are they unrecognizable, but also they are completely empty. This is payment for their overindulgences in life, which would have kept them full and overly …show more content…
Their punishment is to constantly push heavy weights in a semicircle only to clash with one another “They rolled enormous weights. / And when they met and clashed against each other / they turned to push the other way” (Alighieri VII.26-28). The weights symbolize the excessive importance they placed on money in life. The prevalence of this high value on money in life now bears down on them in death, and just as they carried it with them at all times in life, they must now bear the constant weight of it in hell. The hoarders and wasters constantly clash because they are both guilty of the same sin: greed. They constantly torture each other: “One side / screaming, ‘Why hoard?,’ the other side, ‘Why waste?’” (Alighieri VII.28-29). Each group is eternally reminding each other of the frivolous nature of their sin through this constant questioning. An answer is never given to either question, which symbolizes the frivolous nature of both ways of living. There is no answer to either question because each way of living is unjustifiable. Money is degraded to simple weights to symbolize its frivolity and despite its eternal presence for the people of this circle, it cannot save them: “For all the gold that is or ever was / beneath the moon won’t buy a moment’s rest / for even one among these weary souls” (Alighieri