Dante's Inferno - Today's Society

644 Words3 Pages
Dante’s Inferno In today’s society, everyone rationalizes their sins. No one wants to believe that what they do in their everyday lives is morally wrong. Dante, throughout his Inferno, describes what he believes hell to be. He travels through each circle, seeing the souls that committed sins. At the end, Dante comes to the final circle of hell to see Satan’s three heads perpetually chewing on Brutus, Cassius, and Judas, the three great traitors. The relevance of Dante’s Inferno to society can be seen in the first Canto. “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood” (Alighieri, 194). This represents those who go astray in life, who have fallen into temptation, committed sin, and cannot seem to bring them self back to God. Dante describes the dark wood: “Its very memory gives a shape to fear” (Alighieri, 194). Dante, like many others today, was forced to face his fears. Dante had to go through each level of hell in order to leave the dark wood safely. However, as relevant as Dante’s experience to facing horror is to society today, he had the help of Virgil to be his guide throughout. Many would find it irrelevant, as it is not easy to have a reliable companion such a Virgil through such a difficult and turbulent experience. Dante enters into the vestibule of hell in Canto IV. “And I found I stood on the very brink of the valley called the Dolorous Abyss, the desolate chasm where rolls the thunder of Hell’s eternal cry” (Alighieri, 201). The vestibule is where the souls that have no fixed place in hell go. These souls are representative of those who died without repenting for their sins. Although their sins may not be extreme like those in deeper circles of hell, they are in darkness for all of eternity. These are the people who did not see the true light of Christ and have guilty consciences. It
Open Document