Examples Of Contrapasso In Dante's Inferno

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Dante’s Inferno is a fictional masterpiece where Dante is guided by the poet Virgil in a journey through Hell. Hell is portrayed as nine circles, each circle representing a progressively more egregious sin than the last, and therefore each punishment is worse than the previous. Using contrapasso, meaning “suffer the opposite” in Italian, Dante describes each circle for the sinners and their equal and opposite punishments that the offender suffers for eternity. This epic poem is written in terza rima, which is a three-lined rhyming pattern.

Canto X starts off with Dante and Virgil reaching a narrow path made of the tombs of the Epicurean heretics. This is the entrance of the sixth circle, the final non-violent one according to the progression. Heresy, or the philosophy of achieving temporal happiness and denial of the soul’s immortality (Alghieri 163), did not believe in the afterlife when they were alive on Earth. The highest goal for man was to obtain the pleasures in life, according to their belief. As punishment for disregarding the papacy, heretics are to spend the rest of eternity in tombs.
They are described as walking down a narrow path, between the city’s castle walls, or ramparts, and the …show more content…

The first five levels progressed logically from sinful urges for natural desires acted upon impulse to those that yearn for less natural and more greed for societal presence. The more the sin was revolved around the person, the more heinous the effect and deeper the circle in hell. All sins contribute in some way to influence others, not just the immediate disorderly ones such as violence and treachery. The ones that seem the most personal, such as suicide and non-belief, show that that we are not only responsible for our actions, but the results as well. Selfishness is the basis of every wrong that reigns in

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