Use of fantasy in Inferno and SinbadValerie SkerkavichFantastic elements appear in both Dante's Inferno and Tales of Sinbad, but it is evident that Inferno uses much more as fantastic as Sinbad. In Dante's Inferno, there are several fictional creatures (Cereberus, the Furies, Geryon) in the realms of Hell, all of whom serve a specific purpose in Hell and in Dante's journey through the depths of Hell. hell. Throughout Sinbad's journey, we see a lesser amount of fantastical creatures, but, as in Dante's Inferno, the creatures that appear in Sinbad's journeys all serve a purpose to the plot of the story. The main connection that Dante and Sinbad have when it comes to the use of the fantastic in their journeys is the purpose of the fantastical creatures themselves: they serve to cause death, among other things, but are often the sources that help make advance the plot of the poem. forward.On Sinbad's second journey, he encounters a large white ball so big that he cannot climb it. It's smooth and there's no foothold he could use to climb this mighty white ball. Then he remembers stories from other sailors about a bird named Roc: an incredibly large bird, and Sinbad puts two and two together and realizes that this giant ball is actually the bird's egg. , Rock. A bird of fantastic size is not as original as the creatures we see in Dante's Inferno (things that are half woman, half bird; or have three heads), however, it is still a fantastic element and the bird is used in the same way. as Geryon is in Hell regarding the advancement of the poem's plot. Removing my turban, I firmly attached the cloth to the bird's foot in the hope that the rock, when it took flight the next morning,...... middle of paper ..... .now they literally look behind them and walk backwards, never predicting the future, but going back in time, through the past. There is no evidence of contrapasso in Sinbad as in Inferno, and because contrapasso represents such a large part of Inferno's use of the fantastical, the lack of contrapasso in Sinbad is significant because it s This is a major and definitive difference between the use of fantasy elements in Inferno and Sinbad. The fantastic in Dante's Inferno and in Dante escapes from a realm of hell and advances to the next circle, and are the sources that facilitate an escape route for Sinbad; fantastical beings that do not support the advancement of the poems' plots are creatures that only cause death or pose a threat to the protagonist. In these fantastical advances, we see how lucky Sinbad is to be alive and how lucky he actually is..