Flaws In Dante's Inferno

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Flaws within Dante’s System of Ranking Sins In Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, Dante the Pilgrim’s journey is described in three parts, the first of which is Inferno. Dante the Pilgrim journeys through the nine circles of Hell with a fictional incarnation of the Roman poet Virgil as his guide. The sinners of the first circle had committed what Dante thought were the mildest, and the sins of the people in each circle got progressively worse as the number of the circle increased, all the way up to the ninth circle, where Dante placed the worst of the sinners. However, in Inferno, Dante’s ranking of sins is inappropriate in that the sinners of the first circle should be in Purgatory because they did not choose to commit the actions that landed…show more content…
In Inferno, Dante the Pilgrim states, “Great grief seized on my heart… because some people of much worthiness I knew, who in that Limbo were suspended” (Alighieri IV. 43-45) after seeing some individuals that he had believed to be great people were stuck in Limbo. Hell is supposed to be for sinners and morally bad people and the people of the first circle were neither sinners nor morally bad as Dante the Pilgrim observed; they simply were born before Christ or were not baptized. For this reason, it is clear that those placed in the first circle should not be in Hell. Dante’s Inferno’s incarnation of Virgil tells Dante the Pilgrim that “for such defects, and not for other guilt, lost are we” (Alighieri IV. 40-41). This quote shows that those in the first circle are placed in Hell for defects, rather than actual choices that they made. The people of the first circle of hell should not be punished for a choice they were not able to make. Instead, they should be placed in Purgatory so they can make up for their ‘defects’ and move on to

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