The journey of introspection can lead to limitless places and unfettered achievements. During his travels through Hell, Dante Alighieri encounters the damned souls of the underworld and suffers their prodigious punishments. Undoubtedly one of the most exalted and enigmatic poems ever written, an unassuming reader can be practically overwhelmed by all the multifaceted allegory that sets Hell apart from all other works. The unrequited love that burns away its desire in misery, the desolate despair that disfigures itself in perpetual darkness, and the falsified deceivers who always brandish their shame, all become personified in every sinner Dante approaches. The Inferno invents a complex and elaborate system of hell, with each sinner's hell tailored appropriately to the crime committed; As Professor Braden of the University of Virginia states, "the sinner ultimately becomes, and often grotesquely, what he has made himself." In particular, three sinners (Francesca da' Rimini, Pier della Vigna, and Ulysses), although each has committed distinctly different wrongdoings, all carry on a meaningful conversation with Dante, who desperately seeks the attention of all three individuals. Each leaves him moved and more educated, with the deep and frightening realization that although the sinner may be a virtuous person, the stark consequences of his actions are sometimes inevitable. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Inferno creates two interlocking explanations for the allegory, both political and religious. Dante, writing this poem in exile in his native Florence, cleverly imbues it with his own political propaganda, visible in whose circles he places his enemies. Through his own placement, punishment, and unique depiction of each sinner, Dante sculpts the reader's own perception of those he pities and also those he frowns upon with merciless disdain, as with Pope Nicholas III . Clearly shown by sensitive gestures and words, Dante sympathizes with Francesca da' Rimini in Canto V. A famous and well-known destiny of the contemporary 14th century, she had married Gianciotto Malatesta of Rimini, but fell in love with his younger brother, Paolo , as she explains that “love, which is born quickly in gentle hearts, has taken possession of [her] beautiful body” (41). As the story progresses, her husband discovers the illustrious affair and has them both executed. Francesca was placed in the 2nd circle among the incontinent sins, and at the beginning she describes "love gave death to them both" (41), it is obvious that her crimes are crimes of passion and desire . However, she quickly contradicted herself by modifying the impulse from which she and her lover suffered when she specified that "To Galeotto, this book!" (42) was the real reason their passion blossomed. Comparing herself to Lancelot and Guinevere, Fransceca tells Dante that it was while she and Paulo were reading the tale that they gave in to the impulse of desire. His infinite destiny is to rage in the tumultuous wind, blowing in gusts on the 2nd circle of Hell as his emotions had torn from him with Paolo. Dante the poet responded overwhelmingly by proclaiming: "My pity overwhelmed me and I felt myself released: fading into death, I fell like a dying body" (42) and fainted with sympathy , seemingly understanding the energy and influence that the written word can cause. Beyond the sins of incontinence, Virgil leads Dante to the sins of violence, and remarkably in canto XIII, to the sins of violence againstyourself. Here, surrounded by decaying disfigured trees that contained the souls of those who committed suicide. Dante describes them with “non-green, earth-colored leaves; their branches not smooth? no fruit but poisonous thorns”; (101) each wood is continuously scratched by demon birds. Amid the contorted woods was Pier della Vigna, one of Frederick II's chief advisors, who had been wrongly accused of disloyalty to the emperor and, in despair at being denied his love of service, committed suicide. He proclaims his innocence to Dante: “I remained so faithful that I lost sleep and life? I never betrayed my lord who was so worthy of honor” (103-105), defending his loyalty and diligence. Dante discovers that this was "the common fatal flaw of the courts" (103), as Pier refers to envy as the sin that compelled his own violence against himself. He begs Dante to “comfort his memory” (105) upon his return to the living, which presented an unusual sympathy in the poet; His compassion for Pier was so intense that he had to ask Virgil, his guide, to continue conversing with the doomed shadow because he "cannot do so because of the pity that fills [his] heart." (105).This example represents the second time Dante is overwhelmed by a single encounter with a punished soul. Dante takes pity on Francesca and Pier, fainted by Francesca and touched so deeply by Pier that he left him speechless. Both committed the "lesser of sins", different from those kept at Malebolge who committed sins of fraud, like Odysseus who will soon be introduced. Dante classified everyone so that the most conscious and deliberate sins were morally worse than those committed on impulse, such as Francesca, motivated by desire, and Pier, whose suicide was punished more severely, but was still classified among the sins of incontinence and violence. . These two souls also demonstrate to Dante that often the sinner can still be a virtuous person, even if his actions have irrefutable consequences. The two souls differ in that Pier's suicide is placed in the deeper seventh circle than Francesca's second circle and is punished accordingly. Francesca's sin came from love in its lowest form, physical desire. Pier was motivated by madness, anger, and depression, none of which involved love. As love is a predominant theme throughout the Divine Comedy, Dante appropriately punishes the sins of love in a less torturous manner than violence, especially suicide. Gradually becoming more confident as Hell becomes more shocking, Dante's growing confidence becomes a valuable virtue. As he enters the 8th circle of Malebolge, he is introduced in Canto XVI to one of the greatest heroes of classical literature, Odysseus, who finds himself perplexed among the false advisors. Odysseus, warrior of the Trojan War and trickster of the Trojan Horse, with Diomedes "mourn their invention, the horse that opened the door from which came the noblest seed of the Romans." (219). The two schemers were condemned to swirl in a haze of flame, circling the cliffs like “fireflies a peasant saw (resting on a hill)” (217). Virgil must again speak with this soul, as he spoke with Pier della Vigna second, insisting to Dante to "let me speak - Greeks that they were, they might treat your words with a certain disdain", this as Robert Pinsky explains. like the method Dante uses to recognize that he doesn't speak Greek. Odysseus is punished, in addition to being a deceptive strategist, for not recognizing that he has deceived his own companions who "became so eager to travel, driven by the little speech [he].: 1994.