ipl-logo

Loss Of Hope In Dante's Inferno

973 Words4 Pages

Before entering Hell, Dante sees a stone sign that holds the message “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” on it as a warning for anyone entering into Hell (I, III, 31). Hell itself is a hopeless place filled with hopeless souls. Every single soul that has been damned to stay in Hell for all eternity shares a single punishment with all other damned souls: the loss of hope. From the “nearly soulless” that run in the Vestibule of Hell to Satan in the center of Hell, hope is abandoned in their sufferings (I, III, 31). However, the souls that do not reside in Hell and have not been damned still possess hope through divine salvation. No one that forever belongs in Hell has hope of being saved, but other souls do possess hope through salvation.
The loss of hope is the one common punishment of every sinner in Hell. Dante the pilgrim, in his spiritual traveling throughout the Inferno, encounters a plethora of different punishments distributed out to the damned souls that occupy the nine rings that form Hell. Each punishment is a kind of poetic justice suited for each kind of sin being punished and always includes the …show more content…

Jesus has descended into Hell and granted salvation to the souls in Limbo with hope. With the absence of these saved souls, every soul left in Hell has no hope of salvation. The sigh that states “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” acts as a warning for only the souls damned to stay in Hell for all of eternity (I, III, 31). No matter what ring of Hell a soul is punished within, the loss of hope is part of their punishment. Dante is one of the few that enter Hell that retains hope. His journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven is what grants him salvation and the reason he never loses hope. The souls atoning for their sins in Purgatory have hope of salvation since all the most do is wait and atone in order to be in Heaven. The hope is only stripped from the souls damned to Hell while every other soul possess hope for

Show More
Related

  • Examples Of Justice In Dante's Inferno

    272 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Dante’s Inferno, the ideas of justice, good and evil, and suffering in hell are implied. The idea of suffering in hell and the idea of justice are closely related. Dante indicates that those suffering in hell have committed crimes that are being punished in a reasonable way and that we should not have pity for them. He uses the setting and his organization of hell to transmit these ideas and his philosophy regarding these ideas. The organization of hell helps us understand that Dante believed it was a person’s poor decisions and not cruel fate that got a person in hell.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Contrapasso In Dante's Inferno

    1207 Words  | 5 Pages

    Dante ensures this happens by using the concept of contrapasso, which describes the relationship between sin and the resulting justification in Hell. The literal definition of contrapasso is the 'counter-strike' or the 'counter-suffering which translates literally as "counter-penalty." And in Dante’s Hell, sinners are punished according to the nature of their sin, so that their punishment fits their crime. And as we see throughout the story, some sinners literally become the personification of their sins while others become victims in Hell of the crimes they committed while on

    Read More

  • Sympathy In Dante's Inferno

    334 Words  | 2 Pages

    Another obstacle Dante faces is the sympathy he feels for the shades. Dante's sympathy for the shades is an obstacle because it's keeping him from going to Heaven; by sympathizing and pitying the shades, Dante is questioning God's justice. To God all the shades belong in Hell because they chose to sin. Dante must get rid of his feelings in order to enter Heaven. He does this by adjusting to Hell.

    Read More

  • Deprivation In Dante's Inferno

    156 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Inferno is symbolized of sins, and the sinners are unrepentant for their sinful behavior because they blame it on other people. Their unrepentant attitude and the fact that their souls did not confess for the crimes that they committed led to the eventual permanent suffering in Hell. They cannot receive salvation because they would not confess their own sins. The people who are in Inferno are hopeless since there is only suffering and despair. However, the sinners who are in Purgatorio have a repentant attitude.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Hope In The Diary Of Anne Frank Essay

    1266 Words  | 6 Pages

    Throughout history, we have had to deal with conflict. How we deal with conflict can be most challenging of all. We all can find our strength to make it through treacherous times. A positive attitude can help a tremendous amount when dealing with conflict. An example of this can be found in The Diary of Anne Frank.

    Read More

  • Free Will In Dante's Divine Comedy

    699 Words  | 3 Pages

    Those in Purgatory freely chose to repent and God respects that decision. They can travel at their own pace and God helps them by making sure they cannot

    Read More

  • Screwtape Letter By C. S. Lewis

    2108 Words  | 9 Pages

    “To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and his service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth.” (Screwtape letters pg. 37-38)

    Read More

  • How Is Satan Portrayed In Dante's Inferno

    667 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dante’s portrayal of Satan shows him to be monstrous and empty as he does not fulfill any satisfaction that is felt if something is missing in one’s life. The thing that is missing in the readers’ lives is God as only God can satisfy our desire. This paradox of Satan by Dante speaks truth as to the fact he is both monstrous and empty. This is an astounding idea to think but it makes sense as he is seen with three heads gnawing on the sinners in the final realm of Hell, Judecca, but is also empty as he is the epitome of sin and, as said earlier, sin is empty and never truly

    Read More

  • Examples Of Divine Justice In Dante's Inferno

    1874 Words  | 8 Pages

    But, as the poem continues to progress, it becomes quite clear the there is a perfect balance within God’s justice as the degree of each sinner’s punishment perfectly reflects upon the gravity of the sin. Furthermore, the inscription on the gates of Hell explicitly states that Hell exists as a result of divine justice; “ll. “ Justice moved my great maker; God eternal / Wrought me: the power and the unsearchably / High wisdom, and the primal love supernal (III.4-6).” Prior to delving into the structure of Hell and how it displays God’s divine justice, one must first familiarize themselves with both the historical context of Dante’s life, along with the beliefs of the medieval church.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Light And Dark In The Inferno

    919 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Strive for Perfection Light and dark: a common perception of good and evil, is seen throughout Dante’s depiction of Hell through his masterpiece, The Inferno, as he describes a personal experience through the Land of Sinners. One can see throughout his novel, he writes as if there is a supernatural desire to reach the “light” again, and this need to be in the goodness of God, the light, allows for the reader to connect: as this gives the character Dante more relatable human problems and describes the common goal of all humans- to strive for perfection. Dante’s mission to reach the light describes the human desire for perfection as his need to achieve the faultless and complete Road of Heaven mirrors that of all humans’ need to be perceived

    Read More

  • Similationism Vs Annihilationism

    80 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Classical View of the hell involves the eternal suffering, meaning people will suffer forever in the afterlife if they rejected Christ. The Classical View is using eternal God and his eternal punishment for people who rejected him as main argument. On the other hand, the Annihilationist View emphasizes the suffering of people in afterlife and later will perish. The Annihilationist View bases their argument from how God is loving and would not bring even the rejecters to eternal suffering.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Dante's Inferno: A Comparison Of Greek

    1040 Words  | 5 Pages

    The idea of Hell itself in most Judeo-Christian denominations begins with the simple premise of being a place for those who have either sinned or turned his or her back on God, damning them to an eternity of punishment and suffering. A major idea presented in Inferno is the idea of the contrapasso. Justin Steinburg in his essay “Dante’s Justice? A Reapprasial of the Contrapasso” summarizes the idea by explaining it as a balance of crime and punishment in Hell. In canto 28 in the Inferno, the Dante first poses the idea in text when Bertran de Born must carry his own head in his arms after separating father from son.

    Read More

  • Dante's Inferno Purgatorio Analysis Essay

    1522 Words  | 7 Pages

    If you sin and do not repent you go to hell, if you follow the teachings set in stone and repent you are allowed to enter heaven. Dante had something different in mind, at a young age this man fought alongside a pope upholding and fighting for catholic ideals, he even eventually held the powerful position of a prior within the church. Later on Dante had a sort of midlife crisis years after losing the love of his life, whom he met when he was nine years old. This poet and thinker started questioning the way that a man would have to repent for his sins in life to receive the glory of entering paradise in a new life after death. Later in his life Dante was exiled for his vocalization of a different theory about the human spirit’s ascension to heaven.

    Read More

  • Dante's Inferno Paradiso Essay

    499 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dante has been through the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and most of Paradiso when he meets his great, great grandfather, Cacciaguida, and has a conversation about Dante’s future. In this discussion, Cacciaguida reveals to Dante that he will be exiled by his hometown Florence and sent to live on the streets, He will have nowhere to call home, he will have to “Taste the salt in others’ bread”, but worst of all he will have to deal with the “senseless company” of the streets. When Dante hears the full prophesy, he has to contemplate it and eventually comes up with an answer. He begins with thanking his father for letting him know ahead of time so that he can prepare and that he does not lose faith in poetry even if he loses his family and

    Read More

  • Karma And Reincarnation

    1913 Words  | 8 Pages

    I have been deeply interested in the idea of karma and reincarnation for a long while. The concept that actions incur penalties in life is known as karma which, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is considered as the "total effect of a person 's actions and conduct during the successive phrases of the person 's existence, regarded as determining the person 's destiny. " For Buddhists, if a person does a good act in life, it is believed that good reactions will follow, and the opposite applies for bad actions. By understanding this idea and trying to live a life ruled by the rules of karma, one can attain a life filled with contentment. Karma extends beyond the idea of right behavior towards others and reaches out to the connection

    Read More

More about Loss Of Hope In Dante's Inferno

Open Document