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The Contrapasso In Dante's Inferno

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When Dante reaches the last level of hell he sees Satan, which is very fitting to the contrapasso. The contrapasso either fitted the level and punishment or it didn’t. Encountering satan in the last level fits very well as the punishment. since the ninth circle is the most worse from all the other levels. Only the souls in this level deserve to be in the ninth level with satan, chewing/eating them. Finding out that satan was once an angel may interest the reader because the reader might question why he ended up being so evil if he was once a very trusted angel. “ Lucifer was once the fairest of all the angels, but Dante saw that lucifer was now the foulest of all beings” (49). Satan was once something better than he is now. Just like all …show more content…

Satan has no chance of escaping. The harder the ice is the harder it will be for him to get out of the ice. Satan has one head and three faces. Each face representing something else. The face in the middle was red representing the color of anger. The face on the right was white blended with yellow representing the color of importance. The face on the left was black representing ignorance. “ lucifer had one head, but he had three faces-a perversion of the Holy Trinity” (49). When Dante saw the three faces every set of eyes was crying. Each face had two eyes. Satan has some very strong wings that would make the ice freeze and be colder every time he would use his wings to try to escape. When they describe satan in hell it’s really more like being in winter with satan since it’s very cold. Satan is frozen as well, not all the way just half his body. His lower waist and down to his feet. In the fourth ring of hell are the one who made the worst sin, betrayal. In Satan’s mouth there's the ones who betrayed someone. they are being punished by be chewed on for eternity by satan. The three sinners demonstrate the contrapasso because those three men all committed a very serious sin and they deserve nothing more than

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