Post 19: Dante's Concept of Hell - Punishment and Suffering

Before I begin, I want to define two very important terms to this topic: Inferno and Hell.

1. Inferno: another word for Hell. This explains the reasoning behind the title of Dante's time spent in Hell being named this. Another definition is "a large fire that is dangerously out of control" (Google). I found this interesting because the Bible describes Hell as a big lake of fire, yet Dante's "Inferno" is named after this, but is described much differently than the Bible. Hmm...

2. Hell: "a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire beneath the Earth where the wicked are punished after death" (Google).

Before reading the "Inferno", I had never read or heard of any other story that is completely focused and based on Hell besides the Bible; however, Dante's view of Hell in "Inferno" is much different than that of the Bible, considering the Bible describes it as a burning fire. "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41) perfectly describes how the Holy Spirit (in the Bible) sees Hell, which sounds to me like an everlasting burn fest under the ground. What I found interesting after reading the "Inferno" and doing further research of Dante's concept of Hell was that the 9 Circles of Hell in the "Inferno" are quite similar to the 10 Commandments of the Bible, which are a set of rules handed down to the followers of Christ, in which Christians are expected to respect, perform, and not break in their life on Earth.

In the "Inferno", Dante first begins by being lost in the woods, where he is attacked by three beasts and then saved by Virgil, a poet, sent by Beatrice, who is Dante's "ideal" woman. This leads to Dante's journey through Hell. Dante's view of Hell is quite complicated in my opinion because he is introduced to the "9 Circles of Hell" (Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery), where each display a different perspective of life to Dante. What makes Dante's view of Hell interesting is how each "sin" that is not forgivable before life ends is a "level" in Hell, and each person that goes to Hell in the afterlife goes to the specific sin they are guilty of. I think that this part of Dante's concept is an appeal of punishment because someone is punished eternally because of their faults in life, and the suffering is their actual eternity spent in their specific "circle" of hell because that is horrible and goes on endlessly forever.