Nature Of Evil In Dante's Inferno '

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Marisa Paris Humanities 220 Professor Cope 12/12/14 Have you ever wondered where you’ll end up after you die? Will you go up to heaven or down to hell, or somewhere in between? Both Dante’s Inferno and the Qur’an deal with this sort of underlying debate that all humans face. More specifically, both deal with the nature and origins of evil. Without evil, we wouldn’t know good, but at the same time without good we wouldn’t know evil. Nobody is perfect and it’s a guarantee that everyone has committed some sin over the course of his or her life. Whether it be something large, as in murder, crime, and violence, or something smaller such as stealing a pack of M&M’s from the corner store down the street. Regardless of what the sin is, there will still be a form of punishment as…show more content…
What that punishment entails, however, is said to be all up to fate. But, in this case the power of the imagination takes us on a different ride. In his book, The Divine Comedy Volume 1: Inferno, Dante uses his imagination to create an analogous world consisting of the sins a soul makes on earth and the punishment he or she receives in hell due to those sins. For example, the Sullen choke on mud, the Wrathful attack one another, and the Gluttonous are compelled and strained to eat filth and muck. All of these punishments seem to make sense, yet there are many other examples present in the book that don’t seem to make sense at all. “But what about those in the slimy swamp, those driven by the wind, those beat by rain, and those who come to blows with harsh refrains?” (170). Here, Dante questions the sinners who are guilty of Incontinence, which is the failure to restrain and contain sexual appetite or bodily appetites. (Merriam-Webster) Virgil replies by telling Dante that the Incontinence suffer a less harsh punishment because since their sins don’t include malice, they aren’t as offensive

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