The Bond of Communion: An Analysis of the Communal Bonds throughout Dante's Inferno

The Bond of Communion:

An Analysis of the Communal bonds throughout Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno

Human beings are odd creatures, possessing abilities no other living species have. These abilities being Intelligence, Reason, and Free Will. These attributes allow human beings to value and destroy whatever they deem necessary to them. One of the most valuable things to a human being is the communal bond. This bond comes in many shapes and forms and is ultimately a form of love, and is usually a connection we share with others and with God. The communal bond works like a relationship, in which the persons involved are expected to and obey the instructions specified. This bond is a weak love, one that is easily influenced and most likely to be corrupted and shattered. This is due to man’s inability to hate himself and assume responsibility for his actions. Instead man decides to blame his neighbor for his wrongs and this leads to man loathing his community. In his work, The Inferno, Dante Alighieri utilizes the placement of sinners in The Inferno in order to establish the idea of moral depravation being a result of breaking communal bonds.

In the beginning of the epic, Dante introduces the Lustful. The placement of the Lustful in The Inferno demonstrates the impact Lust has on the severing communal bonds, community, and consequent moral depravity. The Lustful are located in the second circle of The Inferno and their punishment, through Contrapasso, reveals the consequences of breaking trust and love related communal bonds. Beginning his journey into Hell, “[Dante] came to place stripped bare of every light/ roaring on the naked dark like seas/ wracked by the war of winds.” (5.28-29) Immediately Dante establishes the setting of the ...

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...results but continues to do them. An example of a thief is Vanni Fucci. – “I am Vanni Fucci, the beast…/ I am put down so low because it was I/ who stole the treasure from the Sacristy, / for which others once were blamed.” (24.124-139) Vanni Fucci was also known as a man of violence but Dante places him in the eighth circle because theft is a greater sin.

, the placement of the Treacherous to Their Masters, circle nine, in The Inferno demonstrates how man’s selfishness, abolishes communal bonds and lead to moral depravity. It also shows the punishments they must endure as a consequence of the breaking the most sacred of bonds: the bond to master. Betrayal is a crime Dante experienced fist hand, it was Pope Boniface VIII who exiles Dante, and he remains angry.

Works Cited:

Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: Signet Classics, 1954. Print.