Love And Hate In Dante's Inferno

In the Inferno, the lustful between Francesca and Paolo seems to completely contrast with that of hate between Ugolino and the Archbishop Ruggieri. There stories may be kept at two different spectrums, but are in fact parallels of one another. Therefore, the story of Francesca and Paolo in Canto V and the story of Ugolino and Ruggieri in Canto XXXIII of the Inferno demonstrate the thin line between love and hate. Francesca was a young woman of her time expected to be in an arranged marriage by her father. One day when a Paolo came to her home, she was under the impression that this handsome man was to be her husband.1 However, it was his brother Giovani who was arranged to marry her.1 However, she still married Giovanni and they bore children.1 What Dante does not present in Canto V is that both Paolo and Francesca had children as well as spouses.1 The two still became very fond of one another as she spent more time with Paolo than Giovanni who was always away with duties.1 It was …show more content…
Ugolino did not show remorse towards his family and once they died he feasted on the corpses of his children.1 A number of parallels are present within these two stories of lust and hate. While reading both Cantos one may notice a similarity between a twisted form of a relationship/partnership between Francesca; Paolo and Ugolino; Ruggieri. In the second circle of hell, Francesca tells Dante how her love of Paolo struck her while she weeps, “But if you feel such longing/ to know the first root of our love,/ I shall tell as one who weeps in telling./” (V.