Analysis Of Hell In Dante's Inferno

We’re all in the same game, just different levels; dealing with the same hell, just different devils. This idea perfectly explains the basic components and structure of Hell in the classic story of Dante 's Inferno. Alighieri builds hell in his story for the entertainment of his readers with multiple underlying and discrete messages about politics and religion from his time period. To grow on the politics in his story there is the character Virgil, the ghostly poet who will lead Dante through hell to his divine illumination. In his story there are nine circles of hell, getting smaller with more severe punishments as you go. There are a few other locations such as Limbo and Purgatory that are heavily influenced in his story. As readers go through

Dante will explain clearly throughout his entire book about the level system in hell; more specifically the nine circles in determining punishment. Each level has a chosen sin and an incredibly detailed environment upon how the sinners are punished as explained by Roberta De Monticelli in Dante 's Inferno: Phenomenology of a Strange Passion. In the study of Dante she will go into detail of one of Hell’s circles from the information she was given in the book. “Inferno, canto VII. Dante meets the wrathful in the fifth ring, the Stygian Marsh, a mephitic and bubbling river that separates the higher Hell from the lower one, encircling the iron-like and incandescent walls of the city of Dis.” This belief carries on to how the design of Hell and its description in the levels may scare people into believing in God so that they may avoid the dreadful

Building off of what was said previously about the design of hell, the thought of where you will go is terrifying to any person as explained by John Alcorn in “Suffering in hell”. He explains how “Emotional suffering is partly about pain; for example, sinners dread the Last Judgment and the maximal pain that they will then forever experience as embodied souls.” All the emotions are deeply involved in this idea, they stimulate the fear and insecurity in humans that makes them fear hell as much as they do. Through people’s analyzations of hell the emotions come into play as they would in any story. While they are watching Dante go through hell they are not only feeling emotions for Dante, but there is that underlying fear of hell out of everyone. The fear is always the same size, but it is big enough in most people to where they think about it to the point where there is evident fear that could easily scare people into doing whatever it takes to avoid