Preview

Examples Of Contrapasso In Dante's Inferno

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
409 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Examples Of Contrapasso In Dante's Inferno
Where The Murders of the World Reside In Hell

No one wants to suffer for eternity however for some it’s a reality.The suffering of souls was shown countless ways in the spiritual epic Dante’s Inferno.In this spiritual epic Dante is guided through hell to prevent him for continuing his poor choices.Some of these punishments were contrapasso,which means a punishment that is symbolic to their sin.Knowing all of this information I will be explaining a certain level of hell and why its punishment and its location is contrapasso. To start we need a little background information on the level of hell we’ll be focusing on.The exact level is the seventh circle where all of the murders reside.To get into this circle you have to walk down a rocky hill
…show more content…
The next point is the amount of blood they have to stand in.As Dante walks along the Phlegethon River he “[sees] some [souls] who were sunk up to their browns.”(XII-42).If you were someone like Adolf Hitler in life then your entire body would be submerged in blood.However if you just killed one person then just your feet would be submerged.Dante notices some people whose feets were being scorched saying “And so the blood grew shallower until it only scorched their feets” (XII-63-64).Some cantos show punishments that are not fair to those who have to suffer however on this canto I believe the punishment is very fair. So in conclusion the seventh circle of hell the place where murders reside is not a very fun place.Despite this the punishment these people endure is very contrapasso and it feels like they set this upon themselves.To summarize this entire paper up the real lesson learned or moral learned is don't

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Be familiar with the prominent perspectives on hell during the period of the church fathers and the Middle Ages. Pg 812-814…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Dante’s Inferno and the Apocalypse of Peter the sinners experienced the notion contrapasso which is that for every sinner's crime there was an equal and fitting punishment. There was some kind of connection between sin and punishment. As in God’s Demon, there was not a connection between sin and punishment. The demons and some human souls were all just punished with the ultimate punishment of converting them into bricks.…

    • 70 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The seventh ring of Hell is occupied by the souls of people who took their own lives. Their punishment is that they become trees and shrubs on which the harpies feed. As the harpies tear their leaves and branches, the souls suffer pain and bleed. But on the other hand, they cannot speak unless they shed blood. The Harpies “give pain and to that pain a mouth” (101-102). Dante, when seeing this for the first time, describes it “As a green log, burning at one end, that blisters and hisses at the other, with the rush of sap and air, so from the broken splinter oozed blood and words together” (40-44). The reader learns from the soul of Pier della Vigna that when an individual kills themselves, their soul falls into the seventh circle and roots itself, from there growing into a “wild thicket” (100).…

    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dante’s Inferno Critique

    • 2263 Words
    • 10 Pages

    As they enter through the gates of hell they read the sign on the gate, which reads “ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER”. The first place they enter is the Ante-Inferno, which isn’t really part of hell but is still a place of eternal punishment for those who were neither good nor evil. In this part of hell they were continuously strung and bitten by bees and wasps and were consumed by worms. As they exit this part of the Inferno they pass a river called Acheron, which is the border of hell. As they cross the river Dante sees all the damned souls waiting to be punished and sent into hell he then realizes that only the punished and eternally damned souls enter into hell and faints at the thought of entering such a place he might not be able to get out…

    • 2263 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Contrapasso means suffer the opposite. It refers to the punishment of souls in Dante's Inferno by a process either resembling or contrasting with the sin itself. There are many examples of contrapasso in Dante’s Inferno, as he travels ever deeper into the depths of hell. In the Inferno, we are given a tour through Hell by Dante, who is a middle-aged man. The Inferno is a story of a journey given by two different Dantes: Dante the pilgrim and Dante the author. He has a natural emotion of pity, which he is often reprimanded for. At the beginning of his journey, he is confronted by three animals. These animals represent the three rings of Hell. The first one is the she-wolf, representing incontinence, the second is the lion, representing violence, and the third is the leopard, representing fraud and deception. According to Dante, fraud and deception are the worst sins, followed by violence, then incontinence. Virgil is Dante’s guide throughout this treacherous journey. Dante uses the concept of contrapasso to express his own views on ethics of various sins, reflecting on the cultural and political state of Italy at the time.…

    • 1679 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dante the Pilgrim visits many different people while on his journey through Hell in Dante’s Inferno. Each one of these tormented souls are punished for their crimes against themselves, society, and God. Most of these personalities bring no surprise as they are robbers, murderers, and blasphemers. However, the amount of Church authority figures in Hell is staggeringly high. The ironic revelation is never fully dissected by Dante but the implications of this writing may cause the public to turn a leery eye towards the Church. Throughout Dante’s Inferno, the sights of “Holy” men rotting in Hell create a rift between the teachings of the church and the common citizens.…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hell is a location where its inmates will be punished without any hope of relief, for eternity. Among those punished will be Satan,…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dante, the pilgrim, experienced Hell and as he reached the bottom of Hell, he experienced something completely different opposed to what readers would have expected. Dante Alighiere’s depiction of Satan once he reaches the bottom of Hell reveals the theme, that in Hell the punishment is always befitting of the sin. As Dante and his tour guide, Virgil, arrive at the last circle, Satan is described to have, “three faces on his head...underneath each came forth two mighty wings...at every mouth he with his teeth was crunching at sinner,” (Canto 34). The illustration of Satan does not satisfy the typical reader; the reader expects to be able to visualize Satan in a more depth illusion, showing how furious he must be after the punishment he has received, of having to be placed in Hell, being frozen; the irony of the Hell described by Dante is that the reader would have expected for Satan to be located where it would be extremely hot, and for there to be uncontrollable fire, not for it to be frozen. At the bottom of the slope, Satan is placed from his mid-breast forth issued from the ice, and as night approaches everything is opposite which is why they must climb down Satan’s leg. Dante was surprised as he reached Satan to see how frozen and powerless he became in circle 9. The ultimate evil is represented in this way by Dante, because Dante wants to show the reader how Satan, and…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Inferno” is an epic poem following the journey of Dante a mortal man who was guided through the many circles of Hell. Through his experiences he learns that divine retribution is pure justice of God; for all the punishment the tormented souls endure in Hell corresponds to whatever sins they have committed in life. Every circle in hell has an assigned punishment for the corresponding sinners within them. At the beginning of Dante’s journey he was horrified and felt pity and compassion toward the tortured souls he encountered. Through his journey Dante’s attitude changes from pity and compassion to ridiculing and wishing more punishment of divine retribution upon the sinners within the circles of hell. Through my essay I will discuss cantos V, VIII, and XXXII.…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The very structure of Hell – a series of concentric circles – gives an sense of inescapability, since circles are boundless or have no edges, an individual can only continue tracing their arcs in a futile attempt to find a way out. He describes the entrance to hell like so: “Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood for I had wandered off from the straight path” (1.1). The very imagery portrayed introduces the allegory that Hell is dark, succulent mass astray from the “straight path.” This journey is reciprocated of his exile from Italy. In his journey, he must learn to reject the deceptive promises of the temporal world. These promises are what he deems to be the problems of Italy’s social structure derived from the renaissance era. Promises that justice shall be executed at the expense of the Church, promises that obedience to the Church will ensure one’s reservation in Heaven, promises heeding to allow a state to monopolize the violence within its asserted territory. The use of the allegory explains the means by which he came to cope with his personal calamity of exile and to offer suggestions for the resolution of Italy’s troubles as well. Thus, the exile of an individual becomes a microcosm of the problems of a country, and it also becomes representative of the fall of man. Thus, each sinner in the Inferno embodies his sin just as Dante’s…

    • 1633 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dantes Inferno Essay

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages

    While Dante’s imagery is sometimes straightforward, he also has disparate instances where his the elegant diction in his imagery leaves the audience haunted such as when he describes those in hell for committing suicide, “Our bodies will be hung: with every one, fixed on the thornbush of its wounding shade” (XIII. 101). The imagery of this mutilation leaves the audience wondering about the about the wounding shade.…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dante feels hell is a necessary, painful first step in any man's spiritual journey, and the path to the blessed after-life awaits anyone who seeks to find it, and through a screen of perseverance, one will find the face of God. Nonetheless, Dante aspires to heaven in an optimistic process, to find salvation in God, despite the merciless torture chamber he has to travel through. As Dante attempts to find God in his life, those sentenced to punishment in hell hinder him from the true path, as the city of hell in Inferno…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Inferno Contrapasso

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In Dante’s Inferno, sinners in Hell are punished according to the nature of their sin. Dante uses the concept of contrapasso, so that the punishment fits the crime of the sinners. Some sinners literally become the embodiment of their sins, while others become victims in the afterlife of the crimes they committed while living. In the Inferno, sinners aren’t just damned to Hell for eternity, but punished individually for the crimes that got them there.…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Obadiah's Impatiences

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Obadiah's anger at the entering souls frustrated him. For he tried to provide his disclaimer through the volcano as the hole to hell, and the hot molten lava of death. This anger toward the individuals made hell physically exhausting, exerting the body from the very moment of entering. As the individual souls went through the process of hell they grew the same as Obadiah did. With first the longest level of discouragement torture physical, mental and psychological pain. These actions to have remorse for their actions, leaving them with the same feeling as Obadiah, a fake hope for help.…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dante's Inferno

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Dante's Inferno, Hell is described in vivid detail in the eyes of Dante, the main character and author. Sinners are eternally punished with tortures that fit their sins. This idea of retributive justice and the role of human reason in the form of Virgil are the two main themes in the poem. Canto VIII contains Dis, the capital of Hell and is most representative of these themes.…

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays