The well-known story of Dracula was strategically written to include every sin imaginable, each with its own special place in hell. Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, was written about hell, with each level representing a different level of tortured sinners. Dracula, written by Bram Stoker, is about a vampire who terrorizes the city of London. Inside of Dracula, readers can discover that it contains many of the elements found in Inferno. Each of the sins represented in Inferno can be found, in detail, inside the novel, Dracula. In Dante Alighieri’s hell, the first sin is Lust. Soon after staying inside Castle Dracula, John Harker finds himself as a prisoner. Count Dracula advises him not to venture too far into the castle, but despite his warning, John searches the castle for an escape route. Atop of a stairway, John finds one room that is unlocked. He opens the door and inside he finds a couch which he quickly falls asleep on. In the middle of the night he wakes up with three girls in the room with him. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain, but it is the truth. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her on. One said, “Go on! You are the first, and we shall follow. Yours is the right to begin.” The other added, “He is young and strong. There are kisses for us all.” I lay quiet, looking out from under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation (39). John is guilty of Lust towards the three women in this example. He has a longing desire to share a kiss with then. John has this desire even though back home he has a girlfriend, Mina. Lust overcame John in t... ... middle of paper ... ... in its own level with its own punishment. The first sin found in Dracula, Lust, is committed by John Harker. On level three is the sin of Gluttony, which in the novel is illustrated by Count Dracula, who also commits the next sin, Hoarding. The next sin, who Mina portrays is the Sullen. Her good friend, Lucy, is guilty of Heresy. Count Dracula is again guilty of another sin, Violence against himself, while, similarly, he is also guilty of Violence against others. Circle eight, for the Fraudulent, would contain the characters Lucy, for being a Flatterer, and John Harker, for Thievery. The final circle of hell, for those guilty of Treachery, is inhabited by Count Dracula for being a betrayer to his guests and benefactors. With each sin being found in Dracula, it seems like Bram Stoker’s novel was, in fact, written purposefully to include each sin from Dante’s Inferno.
Perhaps no work of literature has ever been composed without being a product of its era, mainly because the human being responsible for writing it develops their worldview within a particular era. Thus, with Bram Stoker's Dracula, though we have a vampire myth novel filled with terror, horror, and evil, the story is a thinly veiled disguise of the repressed sexual mores of the Victorian era. If we look to critical interpretation and commentary to win support for such a thesis, we find it aplenty "For erotic Dracula certainly is. 'Quasi-pornography' one critic labels it. Another describes it as a 'kind of incestuous, necrophilious, oral-anal-sadistic all-in-wrestling matching'. A sexual search of the novel unearths the following: seduction, rape, necrophilia, pedophilia, incest, adultery, oral sex, group sex, menstruation, venereal disease, voyeurism" (Leatherdale 155-156). While there are many other interpretations of the novel, such as the vampire as a Satan figure who wishes to take away the mortality Christ won mankind, this analysis will explore how it reads as a story of repressed sexuality and the conflict it creates for the characters living in a repressed Victorian world.
“Early in the spring of 1300, "midway along the road of our life," Dante is lost and alone in a dark, foreboding forest. To survive this ordeal, he must visit the three realms of the afterlife, beginning with Hell.” (Smith) Dante’s Inferno, one of the great classical poems that have come out of literature that’s topic is hell. Dante’s Inferno, gives a descriptive look into hell, from the eyes of Dante. Dante goes into detail about every part of hell. The people, what it looks like, sins to go there, the whole shah-bang. Dante splits up hell into nine different parts. In which he sends different types of sinners to each part. Each hell is made up differently, each has different systems that make up that particular systems. For example, circle three, has Cerberus the three headed dog, and another circle is completely frozen over. There are three circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno that are the best in the book: Circle one, circle six, and circle three.
The dated ideas reflected in Dracula focus primarily on the concepts of lust, intimacy, and immorality as they were depicted during the late 19th and 20th century, in what was considered a relatively conservative society. At the time, sex was a controversial topic, with emphasis placed upon using caution and awareness when involving such matters. Such beliefs are prevalent throughout the book, and are concentrated on the glorifying resistance of temptation while advising against the inevitable temptation to “taste the forbidden fruit”.
In the Inferno we follow the journey of Dante as he wanders off the path of moral truth and into Hell. The Virgin Mary and Santa Lucia ask Beatrice, Dante’s deceased love, to send some help. Thus, Virgil comes to the rescue and essentially guides Dante through Hell and back to the mortal world from which he came. However, things begin to seem kind of odd. When reading the Inferno one may begin to question the way Dante describes Hell and the things that occur within, or even the things we have always believed about Hell. Despite the way it is described and well known in western civilization, Hell is not at all how we expect it to be because of Dante's use of irony throughout this poetic masterpiece.
While Inferno has one main theme, each circle of Hell has its own sin, or theme. The sub-themes range from gluttony, suicide, and betrayal. Ironically, the main theme for Inferno and the sin for circle two coincide. As ...
Dante Alighieri once said, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” The same person who said this quote wrote the epic poem called the Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is separated into three parts, Inferno being the first. The Inferno is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante going through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. This story is centered around seven deadly sins, telling the story of how man’s true nature can send him to depths he never imagined were possible. Dante’s writing has influenced many people’s thoughts about how they live their life and how the decisions they make are going to affect them in the afterlife. Even though, Dante wrote these stories over 700 years ago, the fact that it can still be taught in schools today, shows the importance this piece of literature has had on the world.
Moreover, Dante, the narrator of the Inferno, has succeeded in not only telling the frightening story of the Inferno, but also pointing out the importance of the relationship between human’s sins and God’s retribution, using the monsters as the symbols for each kind of sin and its punishment throughout the progress of the story, which teaches his readers to be well aware of their sins through the literature – a part of humanities; the disciplines that teach a man to be a human.
The most effective way to achieve something in our world also happens to be the most difficult to do. The two most effective methods of achieving something is taking or winning. Taking a stand is the most courageous act a person can do because often times they are going against the common belief of the people around them. All great leaders have one thing in common and that is that they are brave enough to take a stand. Taking a stand is more important and has a bigger effect on the world than winning does.
. ." (Alighieri 40). So although this couple is in Hell for experiencing one of the seven deadly sins, Dante doesn't see Lust as a horrendous enough crime to not show compassion towards them, considering their sin only effected them and also because they're first hand experiencing "human warmth" and love (Alighieri 259), unlike other sinners that are living in lower circles of Hell who removed themselves from God's love to commit these sins. In Circle Nine Round Two (Treachery Against Country), Ugolino shares a story of how he watched his "sons" drop one by one due to lack of food from being imprisoned, and then immediately gnaws away at the imprisoner who did this to them. (Alighieri 269) Obviously this act not only affected a large amount of people, but the pain and agony they endured lasted an incredible amount of time; which is why Dante sees this as deserving to be in the last circle of Hell right before the
In the beginning of Dante’s Inferno, Dante engages the reader in a personal way by including them in his story. He allows the reader to relate and emphasizes that they will or most likely have gone through an experience of losing their path in life. Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself/ In dark woods, the right road lost (Dante, 1408). The Inferno is often described as the quintessence of the medieval worldview, a codification of the values of the high Middle Ages in art, science, theology and philosophy (Wilke, Hurt). He was a pious man whose own experiences in a corrupt society shaped his writing style and the symbolism he included in his stories. There are graphic details of each circle of hell by describing the appropriate judgement of each sin. In essence, the condemned are those who ignored with God’s laws and eluded His spirit. He describes the different realms of Hell and always descripts the emotions he is feeling in order for the reader to understand the severity of what he has witnessed. The comedy is supposed to symbolize the world we reside in; and Dante’s journey into the afterlife evaluates the human struggles when confronted with sin whether they conquer or succumb to it. Dante’s imagery is seen how he exemplifies God’s divine retribution and his own intentions of judgement of sinners by creating the circles of hell into a downward spiral. As the spiral descends the worse the sins, the more dreadful the punishment. Dante presents appropriate schematic judgement in the nine circles of hell because it was important to symbolize the judgement his society would endure due to their low levels of morale.
Under these predicaments, there is no surprise that intimacy arose between me and another captive. We became very good friends. Her name was Margery, and on account of her beautifulness, she was greatly admired, although she was a
The Count’s actions throughout the novel Dracula, would have placed him in the second level of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, lust. Jonathan had just entered the chapel in Castle Dracula for the second time. He then began to search for the Count’s body among the coffins. He found the Count in the same coffin as before, and he removed the lid. He found the Count lying there, with his mouth covered in blood. The Count looked as if his youthfulness has been partially restored.
In the critical essay “Lust,” Janet Ellerby summarizes and analyzes the short story “Lust.” Janet Ellerby describes the author’s theme for the short story. The narrator of the story is “unprepared to face the pressure of male desire” and does not know the emotional connection of intimacy. In the short story there is a difference between the desire of men and women, and the attachment of emotions. Susan Minot also describes “what it might mean to open the heart.” The narrator feels that she cannot open her heart to the boys she has encounters with. Ellerby describes that when the narrator lists her encounters she does it without any emotional connection; it is “more like a grocery list than an emotionally charged account of an erotic past.” This shows the narrator trying to give more of a male attitude towards the encounters. Psychologically, the narrator has no emotional attachment to her partners at the beginning of the story, and seems withdrawn from her experiences. The story starts to take a turn and the narrator is negatively affected psychologically.
I see myself taking a stand when something I'm passionate about or someone I care about is being threated. I have had to decide through my life when it is necessary for me to take actions on such. I believe that taking a stand will put you in an awkward situation, but you will be happier that you did so. My friend group in high school was a huge group of 20 something girls. Within this big friend group, there were separate groups, but we were all friends. There were a couple girls in the group that were complete bullies. They would find any reason to pick on each other behind one another's back. The sad part is, no one would stick up for whomever was getting picked on. Although they never talked smack about you to your face, word would
In the study of Dante’s, Inferno, one must consider the historical significance of the text to understand the allegorical nature of the poem. At the time that Dante wrote this story, he had recently been exiled from his homeland of Florence, Italy. This story was his attempt to gain fame and exact a form of written revenge on those who had wronged him. What better way to scare those that exiled him than create an actual in depth description of Hell. Dante’s Hell revolves around the concept of different circles for certain sins, with respective punishments. Jonathan Crane tells, “Dante uses allegory to relate the sinner's punishment to his sin,” (Crane).