In the first part of Dante’s epic poem, The Divine Comedy, Dante journeys through hell guided by the Roman poet Virgil. “Through me you enter into the city of woes, through me you enter into eternal pain, through me you enter the population of loss” (Dante 19). Dante entered Hell to embark on an epic journey through its nine circles of punishment. As he travels through the circles, he encounters many souls damned for eternity as reparations for their sins. At the beginning of the epic, Dante feels pity for the souls he comes across, but, by the end, he is disgusted with them. “I did not open them—for to be rude to such a one as him was courtesy” (Dante 293). He believes the sinners are deserving of their punishment and refuses to aid them.
According to this understanding of Heaven and Hell, in order to achieve eternal happiness, people must live their lives in a sin-free manner or at least atone for the sins they commit. Divine law and is carried out through Christian societies as a means of creating a uniform system of deciding what is right and just in the world. To transgress …show more content…
In The Death of Ivan Ilych, the titular character, Ivan, leads a life that is standard amongst everyone that he knows and for the majority of his life he believes he is happy. “Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible” (Tolstoy 102). Although he was striving for contentment and following all of society’s rules, Ivan Ilych was most unhappy. After falling ill he began to realize that the life he had lead and everything he thought he had achieved was worthless because he was never truly happy. “Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done, but how could that be, when I did everything properly?” (Tolstoy 148). The life and death of Ivan Ilych displays the idea that living according to cultural pressures will not bring individuals happiness or
According to this understanding of Heaven and Hell, in order to achieve eternal happiness, people must live their lives in a sin-free manner or at least atone for the sins they commit. Divine law and is carried out through Christian societies as a means of creating a uniform system of deciding what is right and just in the world. To transgress …show more content…
In The Death of Ivan Ilych, the titular character, Ivan, leads a life that is standard amongst everyone that he knows and for the majority of his life he believes he is happy. “Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible” (Tolstoy 102). Although he was striving for contentment and following all of society’s rules, Ivan Ilych was most unhappy. After falling ill he began to realize that the life he had lead and everything he thought he had achieved was worthless because he was never truly happy. “Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done, but how could that be, when I did everything properly?” (Tolstoy 148). The life and death of Ivan Ilych displays the idea that living according to cultural pressures will not bring individuals happiness or