Examples Of Justice In Dantes Inferno

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Can you remember a time when you did something bad and were punished for it? Was the punishment too extreme, too relaxed, or just right? Most people want to live in a just world where the punishment always fits the crime. Dante felt just the same way about it. As a Christian he held strong beliefs about God's fairness and treatment in the afterlife. He believed that people who committed big and small crimes in life would be appropriately punished in the afterlife. This is one of themes brought out in the Inferno. In precisely matching the punishments with the crimes, Dante is expressing his belief that the Christian God is a God of justice who makes sure no one gets away with committing sins. I will explore this theme by examining the punishments described in three levels of Hell. The punishment for people who were either greedy or stingy in life which is one way that Dante cleverly reflects the precise justice of Dante's God. The justice…show more content…
In Dante's time, heretics were people whose beliefs went against Catholicism. In modern Western culture, most people are more acceptable of different religious beliefs and values. That was not the case in the Middle Ages. People who spoke out against the Catholic Church were often punished and mistreated. In Canto IX, Dante shows heretics trapped inside fiery tombs that "glow all over with more heat / Than any craftsman requires for his iron." The heretics suffered greatly in these tombs, and we are told that the heretics' "harsh laments" sound like the cries of "the wretched and injured." By placing the heretics in these tortuous tombs, Dante seems to be saying that these souls are nothing and mean nothing to God. They turned their backs on God, so God turns away from them. Their fiery suffering also matches the fiery anger they likely produced in religious Christians such as

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