...Prompt 2: Dante’s attitude toward Contrapasso is that it is a divine retribution. The passion and the pain that you suffer matches the crime that you have committed but it isn’t the same punishment that you committed on another person. Dante thinks that this is the most fair because only god can be the judge and jury of sin. Retributive justice is the “Eye for an Eye” concept, where the pain that you inflicted is the same punishment that you receive. Dante doesn’t believe in this because Geri Bello murdered his family member but his family members death will remain unavenged. He says, “Made him disdainful; whence he went away, As I imagine, without speaking to me, And thereby made me pity him the more." (Inferno: Canto XXIX: 34-36) This shows...
Words: 636 - Pages: 3
...In Dante’s Inferno he includes several laws. One law of nature he includes is contrapasso. Contrapasso states that for every sinner’s crime there must be an equal and fitting punishment. Throughout the story he explains several sins with their punishment. However, some of the punishments are fit for the sinners, but others are not fit. To begin, in the third circle for sinners that committed gluttony, Dante clearly presents a fitting contrapasso. For instance, he mentions, “Such as that dog is, who by barking craves, And quiet grows soon as his food he gnaws, For to devour it he but thinks and struggles” (Dante, Canto 6, Lines 28-30). This punishment is fit to the sinners because the punisher itself has also committed gluttony. In other words, they are being paid with the same coined. Furthermore, he illustrates, “ So we passed onward o’er the filthy mixture Of shadows and of rain with footsteps slow…” (Dante, Canto 6, Lines 100-101). This also shows this punishment...
Words: 398 - Pages: 2
...Contrapasso is one of the rules of Dante’s inferno which states that every sinner’s crime is equivalent to the punishment they receive. The level of hell where contrapasso is best represented is in the sixth level The sixth level shows how they were forced to live the afterlife since all they were focused in was the earth they lived on . They also contributed with dead objects which meant they had to go through dieing in the afterlife. For example, “ This punishment is fitting. What these souls avoided doing in life, they now do in death, “ (Canto 3). They way they showed death was that they bonded with coffins as if they were dead. Contrapasso is also show when it says, “ He shouted at Dante, “Living soul, go away. Stay away from the...
Words: 342 - Pages: 2
...Contrapasso is one of only a handful few principles in Dante's Inferno. It is the one "law of nature" that applies to damnation, expressing that for each heathen's wrongdoing there must be an equivalent and fitting discipline. These disciplines, in any case, are once in a while basic or clear and are generally figuratively as opposed to actually identified with their separate sins. Indeed, Dante researcher Lino Pertile takes note of, "the routes in which [contrapasso] works in the account are the same number of as the transgressions, if not the same number of as the miscreants, to which it is connected" (70-73). As is not out of the ordinary with such a confounded idea, numerous elucidations of this exchange amongst transgression and discipline...
Words: 447 - Pages: 2
...In the poem Dante’s Inferno, the depiction of Satan is not a common visual that the reader is accustomed to. The fact that Satan has three faces on one head allows the reader to take a not so satisfying insight to him. Moreover from this fact, Satan as depicted, does not represent the theme of contrapasso in the fourth ring of the ninth circle due to solely the description of the ring and the depiction of Satan. To begin with, Satan’s appearance strives from Virgil when he states, “Where he was fair once as he is now foul, and lifted up his brow against his maker” (Dante 47). This explains the reason why he is described the way he is. It is merely to show the results of being the greatest sinner of all time. In addition, Satan’s faces have different colors, each...
Words: 603 - Pages: 3
...Katrina Ramos Professor Perrone LAC 1000C: Italian December 2011 Dante’s Inferno: A Detailed Look Into Canto XXIV, Lines 1-57 Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy is an allegorical epic novel describing Dante’s journey through the Inferno, to Purgatorio and finally to Paradiso. The purpose of this journey, particularly the journey through the Inferno, is to expose people to the recognition and rejection of sin (Casagrande). Dante, being that he is human, must first pass through the Inferno to witness the sinners and their according contrapasso, before he can enter Purgatorio towards his final pursuit to Paradiso. The Divine Comedy is a metaphorical journey of bringing the light of God to the darkness of human sin. In Canto XXIV (24) of the Inferno, Dante and Virgil have made their way to the eighth circle of Inferno – “The Malebolge” – and are in the process of making their journey through the 10 pits of Circle 8 (Mahfood). Being the second to last circle in the inferno, the circle of the sinners who commited fraud and theft in their early life (Dante Worlds), the contrapasso witnessed here is more terrifying than what Dante and Virgil have seen during their journey previously. To provide some background information to Canto XXIV, the previous happenings of Canto XXIII (23) should be provided: Virgil is leading Dante through the pits, or bolgia, of Circle 8 when he remembers a bridge connecting the sixth and seventh pit. Virgil asks the circle’s monster-keeper, Malacoda...
Words: 2372 - Pages: 10
...August 20, 2015 3.2.13 Practice: Revision Strategies The tempest one of the most difficult Shakespearean works in my opion to stage, from its stormy, chaotic first scene to its sureality to its ambiguous resolution, with Prospero facing his silent, treacherous brother and renouncing the power that has made every action in the story possible. Potent language remains the central force and mystery of this fathomless play. Prospero speaks almost a third of the lines in The Tempest, and controls the amount of speech every other character on the island has through manipulation and magic. Prospero’s narrative of how he came to the island, what he did once there, and what he is owed for this history, goes largely unchallenged in the text. Yet the play offers innumerable readings and opportunities for alternate staging, particularly in light of postcolonial discourse about Prospero’s relationship with Ariel and Caliban, the legitimacy of his authority, and the nature of his magic and command over language. Though Prospero can be played many ways, there is no doubt he is The Tempest’s show runner. The metatheatrical nature of the play sometimes detracts from its action on the page, but it also offers the chance to explore exactly why Prospero needs an audience for his revenge, and whether or not it satisfies him, onstage. Prospero restricts the sight and knowledge of the other characters, putting them to sleep or manipulating them with invisible forces, but he often lets us, the audience...
Words: 3114 - Pages: 13
...God created the Inferno to punish the sinful souls and makes the each punishment appropriate for the sins. (Here the word “sin” means “crime.”) Throughout the Inferno, The Law of Retribution (contrapasso) rules over Dante’s Inferno, and the law states that the sinners need to suffered the same degree of punishment based on the sin’s nature. So the sinner who committed a terrible sin would suffer more punishments. In the second circle are punished those who are lustful. These sinners unable to control themselves to do the sinful things based on their lustful desires. The lustful sinners are tossed in a violent storm, and unable to control themselves in this circle. Following is a good example of lust characters: Francesca and...
Words: 438 - Pages: 2
