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Essay / The correlation between a person's sin and a soul's punishment in Inferno
Dante's Inferno is not only a catalog of evil, it also serves as Dante's outlet for his political frustrations. Dante creates a hell where the punishments match the nature and level of evil of the sin. By cataloging the punishments in this way, Dante shows the reader what he considers to be the order of sins, following strict and doctrinal Christian values. The moral system of The Inferno does not prioritize human happiness or harmony on Earth, but the will of God in Heaven. Along the way, Dante uses his descent into hell to point out the sins of his political rivals and those who transgressed the state in the past. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Dante creates a correlation between a person's sin on Earth and the soul's punishment in Hell. Lustful people, carried away by the passion of life, are caught by a raging storm and carried away for eternity. Cholerics attack each other for the hatred and conflict they created while alive. Gluttons are forced to eat feces, due to their lack of control. This simple idea is used to illuminate one of Dante's major themes: the wisdom and perfect justice of God. In Canto III, the gates of Hell bear an inscription which explicitly states that God was moved to create Hell by justice. The reason for Hell is to punish sin, and the punishments illustrate the divine perfection that the sinner violates. At the beginning of Inferno, Dante creates a tension between God's justice and his fictional self's sympathy for tormented souls. Thus, the poem shows the infinite wisdom of God in punishing the sins of tormented souls. Dante's pity for the suffering of the damned demonstrates his early lack of understanding. As the story unfolds, Virgil's comments to Dante make him less inclined to pity sinners. The relevance of divine punishments is significant in Dante's moral message and in the structure of Hell. Although these punishments may seem harsh, when the poem is read in its entirety, it becomes clear that the punishments are designed to form a balance with sin. The punishments of sinners are constructed to relate allegorically to the sins they committed while alive. Since the notion of balance shapes the punishments chosen by God, his justice is mechanical, strictly objective and impersonal; there are no extenuating circumstances in Hell. The structure of Hell serves to reinforce this relationship: as Dante goes deeper into Hell, the sins become more and more evil. Sometimes this structure can be questioned, for example why he considers murder (sixth circle) less bad than fraud (eighth circle). Thus Dante must consider violence as a less serious evil than fraud; fraud is the greatest opposition to the will of God. God requires that people treat one another with as much love as He bestows upon all people. Although violence is a direct act against the love of God, fraud constitutes a perversion of that love. A fraudulent person proclaims his love while knowingly committing sin against it. Throughout Inferno, Dante asserts his political belief that Church and State should be separate but equal powers on Earth. While the Church governs a man's mind, the State should govern that man's actions, thereby creating a chaste and obedient person. If Christ is the perfect head of the spirit and Caesar is the perfect head of state, then in..