“The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces,” as said by famous psychologist Philip Zimbardo. However, even if one was to cross this line and sin there are some redemptive qualities of evil, one can completely halt their path of wrongdoing and return the light. Unlike the fairy tale stories we are taught as children, a person can not be completely evil or completely good, our environment and experiences shape us into who we are. Every fairy tale dragon slayer has made a mistake or done that they're not proud of, good people can do bad things and sometimes even become bad people. This concept is just like how horrible human beings have once done a kind act and …show more content…
This last portion of the Bible was written by the John the Apostle and it is is a prophecy of the end days from Jesus. It states that when the end is near the seven churches would be contacted and although they had sinned they would be allowed a second chance. This second chance allowed the people to be redeemed for their sins and if they follow their morals and followed the path of God they would prove their faithfulness to Him. During the apocalypse non-believers are thrown in a pit of fire, and terrors are unleashed for the entire world to bare. Those who do not resort to life of sin for survival and do not give up their faith in God, repenting for their sins will be shown His mercy and, “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes…” showing remorse and that “...neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away…” (Revelation 21). One does not just see the path of redemption from the people of Earth but also from John the Apostle. Of all those He could have chosen, God chooses John to write the story of the end of days even though He acknowledges the sins of John. This assignment of writing the prophecy is not something to be cared lightly and is in fact John’s second chance to repent for his sins. This can be seen by the statement God speaks to John in Revelation …show more content…
A morally right person can sometimes cross the permeable line between right and wrong, between good and evil, some in this situation may continue to fall and accidently lead themselves to a life of wrongdoing while others may search for meaning and return to the path of light. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante too goes through the struggle of losing his way as seen with this quote, “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood,” (Canto I 1). Based on the information gathered throughout the story, Dante is on a quest to overcome sin and find the embracing arms of God, since his life as a Florencian politician has left sin to obstruct his path. Dante then travels into Hell to explore the nature of sin and ultimately learn to not pity the fate of those that are being punished with the justice of God in eternal damnation but rather understand how they got there. In order to regain his footing on the straight path to paradise, Dante must abhor all sin and have a stringent set of moral standards. In the beginning of the story, Dante is less abhorred by those he meets in Hell and more compassionate which can be seen by this quote, “They pause from
God states that we treat each other with the love he gives to us as individuals; while us stating violent acts against love, fraud constituting a corruption and, greed becoming normal thing amongst people defines everything god had envisioned for mankind. Yet, while Inferno implies these moral arguments, it generally states very little about them. Dante discusses with each of the souls in the different circles of hell although it is not truly stated as to why they are specifically in that circle. Only because God justifies there sin belonged there. In the end, it declares that evil is evil, simply because it contradicts God’s will and justification, and since God is God, he thus does not need to be questioned about his morals. Dante’s journey of evil progressed as he winded down the depths of hell pitiless and was driven to make it to purgatory. Inferno is not the normal text that most people would read, then think about how it relates to todays morals; its intention is not to think about the evil discussed but, rather to emphasize the Christian beliefs that Dante followed through his journey.
Bertie Carvel once said, “People's character is their behavior—we're all capable of good and evil”. The quote explains the how good and evil is not born with; it is created by our experiences and behaviors. Good is the ability to sympathize with others, while evil is being cold-blooded and describes people who will go through many extents to satisfy their own desires. “The Most Dangerous Game”, a short action story by Richard Connell explores the idea of good and evil through human nature. The story addresses the conflict of the character Rainsford, who is hunted by Zaroff after he had shipwrecked on his island. On the contrary, Zaroff, the owner of Ship-Trap Island, is a man who has a strong passion for hunting. Hunting animals was not a challenge to him anymore after he had taken down almost all dangerous games.
In the Inferno, Dante was petrified of hell’s agonizing environment, and this led to him reacting in ways that did not depict a Christian hero. Towards the end of the journey, Dante strived to make sure he could avoid being in hell in the afterlife, however, at one point of the story Dante shows qualities the opposite of an ideal Christian hero. For example, in Canto 3,
Throughout his journey Dante the pilgrims meets different souls who share their gruesome stories, and Dante the pilgrim does initially sympathize with them. Eventually as he gets lower into hell he does not pity the souls anymore. In Canto three Dante states "Inscribed on the lintel of an archway, master I said, this saying 's hard for me."(Inferno, III; 11-12). The claim can be made that Dante is very different from the dammed souls he sees in hell, and he is aware of that. In a way Dante sort of separates himself from those souls he meets. A single minded mentality is born unlike in Beowulf where his pride helps him to solve a problem that will help his
...ards monstrous figures and sympathy towards those who seem to be tortured unjustly. In his perverse education, with instruction from Virgil and the shades, Dante learns to replace mercy with brutality, because sympathy in Hell condones sin and denies divine justice. The ancient philosopher Plato, present in the first level of Hell, argues in The Allegory of the Cave that truth is possible via knowledge of the Form of the Good. Similarly, Dante acquires truth through a gradual understanding of contrapasso and the recognition of divine justice in the afterlife. Ultimately, Dante recognizes that the actions of the earthly fresh are important because the soul lives on afterwards to face the ramifications. By expressing his ideas on morality and righteousness, Dante writes a work worth reading, immortalizes his name, and exalts the beliefs of his Christian audience.
The purpose of the pilgrim's journey through hell is to show, first hand, the divine justice of God and how Christian morality dictates how, and to what degree, sinners are punished. Also, the journey shows the significance of God's grace and how it affects not only the living, but the deceased as well. During his trip through hell, the character of Dante witnesses the true perfection of God's justice in that every sinner is punished in the same nature as their sins. For instance, the wrathful are to attack each other for all eternity and the soothsayers are forever to walk around with their heads on backwards. Furthermore, Dante discovers that hell is comprised of nine different circles containing sinners guilty of one type of sin, and that these circles are in order based upon how great an opposition the sin is to Christian morality and the ultimate will of God. We see here how Christianity plays a major role in the structure of hell and the degree to which each sinner is punished. Lastly, we can look at the story and see the importance of the grace of God not only to Dante during his journey, but how it affects the souls in hell and purgatory as well.
The relationship between justice and punishment has been an essential fabric of society for centuries. It’s important to note the significance of justice in this equation. Justice to Dante is whatever you do in this life will haunt you in the next one. Whatever sins you commit will be your punishment. The circles of hell Dante creates is a just punishment for sinners. Those who commit incontinent crimes, violent crimes, fraudulent crimes, and worse crime against the perfect city deserve to be in the inferno. This punishment is just and supports the claim that Dante presents an image of a just God.
Dante's "Inferno" is full of themes. But the most frequent is that of the weakness of human nature. Dante's descent into hell is initially so that Dante can see how he can better live his life, free of weaknesses that may ultimately be his ticket to hell. Through the first ten cantos, Dante portrays how each level of his hell is a manifestation of human weakness and a loss of hope, which ultimately Dante uses to purge and learn from. Dante, himself, is about to fall into the weaknesses of humans, before there is some divine intervention on the part of his love Beatrice, who is in heaven. He is sent on a journey to hell in order for Dante to see, smell, and hear hell. As we see this experience brings out Dante's weakness' of cowardice, wrath and unworthiness. He is lead by Virgil, who is a representation of intellect. Through Dante's experiences he will purge his sins.
Sinners are placed in Hell according to the severity of their sins, lower for those who commit more grave sins. Dante’s placement of sinners can sometime be unjust and biased because of his personal beliefs and the beliefs of the Catholic church at the time. Dante unfairly places those who did not even have the option of being Christian in Hell and his little knowledge of mental illnesses combined with his old-fashioned Catholic beliefs prompts him to put those who committed suicide in Hell. Dante’s nationalistic and political bias also leads him put people he feels wronged him personally in the lowest circle of Hell. Dante speaks heavily about Divine Justice and God’s punishment but his choice of sinners seems too biased and ignorant to be the product of Divine
By saying this, it is evident that Francesca openly accepts Dante’s pity, so much so that she believes Dante deserves peace for it, revealing that she feels as though she has done nothing wrong. She also refers to her journey from life to Hell as “grievous”, implying that her punishment is far too severe for her, once again emphasizing how she considers herself innocent. This suggests that maybe Francesca feels as though her actions are justified because she was motivated by love, but it is selfish to think that one’s own happiness is more important than others. Dante is aware that justice is the true creator of Hell, and still shows sorrow for her and her lover, also suggesting that he might, like Francesca, value love more than justice. Dante knows that everyone in Hell is a sinner, including the pair of lovers, but he stills cannot help but to show pity towards
“There is no greater pain than to remember, in our present grief, past happiness…”(Canto 5) is what Francesca mentioned to Dante and I believed that this is where Dante himself founded that he shouldn’t dwell on the past and this is also where he learned that lust isn’t truly needed in life. That there is love, but lust is an unnecessary part of life. The deeper that Dante would go feel started to change his view towards people. He began to feel pity and sadness towards each and every soul he met during his journey. Once he met Brunetto Latini, Dante explained that he lost himself in a valley and that 's why he was sent there. The Pilgrim explaining himself proves that he was truly on a journey of self-discovery. Once he met Satan himself Dante realized, “the lovely things the heavens hold” (Canto 34) which one of the steps to self-discovery, finding the beauty in
In Italian Dante Alighieri (1265) Poem, The Divine Comedy Inferno, Translated by Mark Musa. Dante demonstrates the value of personal development which is the ability to keep a balanced life and continuously learn from past mistakes in order to create a better future. Dante begins the poem wrapped in his own thoughts and suffering but by the end of the poem he begins to understand other’s sufferings beyond his own. In his growth throughout his journey he learns about pain and sorrow that he cannot comprehend. He becomes more aware of the torture that is around him. At the beginning he appears to think that his life was horrible but by the end of the poem he seems to realize that he can make his and others lives better by becoming a better person. Dante also learns how to respect others by learning why the shades are in hell without judging them for their crimes, a few times however Dante disregards the core value of respect when he comes across a few shades that he personally disliked during that shades life time. Dante feels that a shade deserves to be psychically harm a shade when the shade does not respond. This shows complete disregard of the respect core value. The core value of excellence is also represented by Dante. The excellence core value is striving to be the best in all that you do and to always try to do everything better than the last time. As he goes through the layers of hell he learns more about life and gains courage that he lacked at the beginning of the poem.
Dante’s The Divine Comedy illustrates one man’s quest for the knowledge of how to avoid the repercussions of his actions in life so that he may seek salvation in the afterlife. The Divine Comedy establishes a set of moral principles that one must live by in order to reach paradiso. Dante presents these principles in Inferno where each level of Hell has people suffering for the sins they committed during their life. As Dante gets deeper into Hell the degrees of sin get progressively worse as do the severity of punishment. With that in mind, one can look at Inferno as a handbook on what not to do during a lifetime in order to avoid Hell. In the book, Dante creates a moral lifestyle that one must follow in order to live a morally good, Catholic
... of the characters portrayed in his epic poem shine light to the biased nature of his judgment. With Francesca, loving too much was what she was condemned for. Dante completely overlooks the elements of her sin that included those belonging to the ninth circle of hell: the circle of treachery. By kissing the man that was not her husband, Francesca not betrayed her husband but also her marriage. On the other hand, Pope Boniface VIII was predicted to receive condemnation for a severe sin versus a lesser sin while he was still alive. Dante’s damnation of souls in the Inferno may be based on their sins, but the placement of the sinner’s soul once in hell was somewhat skewed by Dante’s opinion of them. Dante’s Inferno does not portray god’s justice purely. It is in Dante’s humanistic feeling of emotion that make this Dante’s hell instead of a purely supernatural version.
At the beginning of Dante’s journey, he “went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood” (canto 1, 1). Dante has turned his back on the light of God and must now go through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven to become one with God. Following Virgil through hell, Dante sees what could have become of him if he had kept treading the wrong path. In purgatory, he learns