Why The Inferno Captivates

Dante's Inferno has been able to captivate our imaginations for years because it explores, in detail, the depths of the unknown.

As humans, we are naturally curious about things that are unknow or inexplainable. In exploring realms that the living will never be able to explore, Dante takes his audience on the spiritual ride of a lifetime--a journey that is, otherwise, impossible to embark on.

The Inferno is also captivating because of the great deal of detail that Dante is able to present his audience with. For the longest time, the underworld, purgatory, and paradise have been realms left for each individual to picture in his/her own way. The Inferno, with all of it's concrete refrences and allusions to mythology and other things, provides a universal image of these realms, with The Inferno being the appropriately dark image of Hell and all it's ugliness.

Also, The Inferno captures the feelings of the doomed souls in a completely real way. Just as most individuals might've imagined, Hell is a place full of repentful, sorrowful, regretful souls. The Inferno captures just that in all of Dante's conversations with the shades and in the details that he relays.

Cantos XXVIII-XXX

Seeing my eyes
Fastened upon him,he pulled open his chest
With both hands, saying, "Look how Mohammed claws

And mangles himself, torn open down the breast!
Look how I tear myself! And Ali goes
Weeping before me--like me, a schismatic, and cleft:

Split open from the chin along his face
Up to the forelock. All you see here, when alive,
Taught scandal and schism, so they are cleavered like this.

A devil waits with a sword back there to carve
Each of us open afresh each time we've gone
Our circuit round this road, where while we grieve

Our wounds close up before we pass him again--
But who are you that stand here, perhaps to delay
Torments pronounced on your own words to men?"

This passage attests to the complete ugliness of Hell and all of its different circles. Not only do the sensory details involved with Hell constantly remind you of its ugliness. The activities that go on in Hell serve as a constant reminder, as well. The cycles of Hell completely add to its ugliness.

Life on Earth has its cycles,too. However, the difference between the two is in the length of time it takes the cycle to run its course, as well as the monotony that's involved with completing the cycles over and over. The fact that the cycles of Hell are never-ending also contributes to Hell's ugliness.

Life on Earth, on the other hand, is short-lived compared to life after life on Earth. But because Hell goes on forever, Hell's cycles take on a whole new meaning and purpose. Both the meaning and the purposes of Hell's cycles add to it's ugliness.

Cantos XXIV-XXVII

The ditch there, but whoever spoke from below
Seemed to be moving. I turned quick eyes to peer
Down into the dark, but the bottom didn't show--

Wherefore I said, "Master, pray lead from here
To the next belt, and let us descend the wall:
Just as I cannot decipher the things I hear,

So too I look but make out nothing at all
From where we are." "I'll give no other response,"
He said, "but do it, for fitting petitions call

For deeds, not words."

Dante has an unwavering trust in Virgil that seems unwarranted at times. Although Virgil can be considered trustworthy, Dante doesn't know Virgil well enough to put his life, so completely, into Virgil's hands.

As they venture through hell, there comes a point where Dante can neither make out the sounds that he hears around him nor see the things around him clearly. Yet, Dante is led down further into hell by Virgil's goading hand.

The type of trust that Dante has for Virgil is analogous to the type of trust you have to have in someone who is supposed to catch you when you fall back. However, this type of trust is about ten times more meaningful. It would be the same thing as Dante falling backwards close to the edge of a cliff, whereas if his Virgil doesn't catch him, he will fall to his death. Dante, in all of his intelligence, seems to trust Virgil too much and too quickly. Almost to the point where he is making himself even more vulnerable.

Cantos XXI-XXIII

"My leader took me up at once, and did
As would a mother awakened by a noise
Who sees the flames around her, and takes her child,

Concerned for him more than herself, and flies
Not staying even to put on a shift:...

Hurtling along with me upon his breast
Not like his mere companion, but like his child."

Dante, especially when he is scared shitless, is very childlike. He makes Virgil seem like the superman that's always there to save the day.

Admittedly, Virgil is Dante's only pathway through which a tour through hell is even possible. But is it really necessary for Dante to call Virgil "Master" all the time?

I understand that without Virgil, Dante would not be able to make it through the depths of hell. I also understand that Dante is utterly thankful for Virgil's leading hand. But there comes a point in time when addressing Virgil in saying "O sun, that makes all troubled vision clear" seems a bit ridiculous.

I desperately want Dante to realize that, although he is thankful, and rightfully so, Virgil has gotten the point. Virgil knows that Dante is thankful. In praising Virgil each time he addresses him, Dante shows an unwarranted reverence towards Virgil. This unwaranted reverence makes Dante's constant thankfulness much less substantial than it was in the very beginning. By now, Dante is making himself seem completely ridiculous and docile and dramatic. How much creedence can you put into what someone says if they're a dramtic kiss-ass, who will always say what you want to hear?

Cantos XIII-XX

"I kept his secrets from almost any other.
To this, my glorious office, I stayed so true
I lost both sleep and life. The harlot that never

Takes its whore's eyes from Caesar's retinue--
The common fatal Vice of courts--inflamed
All minds against me; and they inflamed so,

So inflamed Augustus that the honors I claimed
In gladness were converted into pain.
My mind, in its disdainful temper, assumed

Dying would be a way to escape disdain,
Making me treat my juster self unjustly."

In the realm of hell in which souls who "robbed [themselves] of" their bodies dwell, one soul thoroughly understands the sins he has committed. He has a complete understanding of what rules caused his actions to be considered sins. He's essentially gotten the point, which his punishment was intended to make, and molded himself accordingly.

However, "Justice" is still running it's gruesomely relentless course.

The initial Hammurabi-style punishments usually fit the crimes: they make complete sense. But, it's safe to say that at a certain point, most souls have served their sentence. At some point, the lesson has been learned. Eventually, all of the souls, with the exception of those few unfalteringly belligerent souls, will have given their hands in retribution for their thievery. Why, then, does the punishment that "justice" allows continue, relentlessly, eternally?

It seems like the punishments should, generally, become milder and milder. Souls should be able to transcend the rings of hell according to the progression, stagnancy, or digression of their moral healing.

If "justice" is right in its unrelenting punishments, I am forced to either reconsider what the purpose of punishment is or what serving justice is supposed to accomplish.

If "justice" is not right in its unfaltering ugliness, why, then, does God seem to just let it happen in The Inferno of Dante?

justice in The Inferno of Dante : real justice :: wife stabs her husband 357 times, causing his death : wife kills husband with one bullet straight through the temple

One simply gets the job done, while the other obviously has some underlying issues that it's aimed at taking care of.

In The Inferno of Dante, implementation of just punishment turns bad.

I guess the role that punishment plays in The Inferno of Dante is understandable if God doesn't actually have a hand in punishments at all. I guess Satan can be expected to be cruel and unusual to his constituents. I guess that idea is what makes the inferno so utterly undesirable: God has said "To hell with you" and washed his hands of all of its dwellers. They're Satan's constituents. And Satan has an all access pass to break all of the rules: the essence of the inferno's darkness.

Canto VI-Canto XII

He answered--"Silence, accursed wolf! Attack
Your own insides with your devouring rage:
Bound for the pit, this is no causeless trek.

It is willed above, where Michael wreaked revenge
On pride's rebellion." Just as sails swollen with wind
As soon as the mast is snapped collapse and plunge,

That savage beast fell shrinking to the ground.
So we descended to the fourth defile
To experience more of that despondent land

That sacks up all the universe's ill.
Justice of God! Who is it that heaps together
So much peculiar torture and travail?

How is it that we choose to sin and wither?
Like waves above Charybdis, each crashing apart
Against the one it rushes to meet, here gather

People who hurry forward till they must meet
And dance their round. Here I saw more souls
Than elsewhere, spreading far to the left and right:

Each pushes a weight against his chest, and howls
At his opponent each time that they clash:
"Why do you squander?" and "Why do you hoard?" Each wheels

To roll his weight back round again: they rush
Toward the circle's opposite point, collide
Painfully once more, and curse each other afresh;

And after that refrain each one must head through his half-circle again, to his next joust.
My own heart pained by those collisions, I said:

"Who are these, Master?--and are the shades who contest
Here on our left all clergy, with tonsured head?"
He answered: "Every one of the shades here massed

In the first life had a mind so squinty-eyed
That in his spending he heeded no proportion--
A fact they bark out plainly when they collide

At the circle's facing points, that mark division
Between opposite faults. Those bare of head
Were clerics, cardinals, popes, in whom the passion

Of avarice was wrought excess." I said,
"Among these, Master, I'm sure I'll recognize
Some who were thus polluted." He replied,

"The thought you hold is vain: just as the ways
That made these would so foul were undiscerning,
So they are dim to discernment in this place.

Here they will keep eternally returning
To the two butting places: from the grave
These will arise fists closed; and those, pates shining.

Wrongness in how to give and how to have
Took the fair world from them and brought them this,
Their ugly brawl, which words need not retrieve.

Now you can see, my son, how ludicrous
And brief are all the good in Fortune's ken,
Which humankind contend for: you see from this

How all the gold there is beneath the moon,
Or that there ever was, could not relieve
One of these weary souls," I; "Master, say then

What is this Fortune you mention, that it should have
The world's goods in its grip?" He: "Foolish creatures,
How great an ignorance plagues you..."

The reasons for which The Inferno of Dante is so utterly dark and dismal are several. The obvious reason: the author's use of adjectives and meticulous description.
However, another unexpected characteristic adds to the darkness: the ugliness of eternal monotony, as well as the circularity or the cycles of Hell.

Canto I- Canto V

He answered, "Those are things you will discover

When we have paused at Acheron's dismal shore,"
I walked on with my head down after that
Fearful I had displeased him, and spoke no more

Then, at the river--an old man n a boat:
White-haired, as he drew closer shouting at us,
"Woe to you, wicked souls! Give up the thought

Of Heaven! I come to ferry you across
Into eternal darkness on the opposite side,
Into fire and ice! And you there--leave this place,

You living soul, stand clear of these who are dead!"
And then when he saw that I did not obey:
"By other ports, in a lighter boat," he said,

"You will be brought to shore by another way."
My master spoke then, "Charon, do not rage:
Thus it is willed where everything may be

Simply if it is willed. Therefore, oblige,
And ask no more." That silenced the grizzled jaws
Of the gray ferryman of the livid marsh,

Who had red wells of flame about his eyes.
But at his words the forlorn and naked souls were changing color, cursing the human race,

God and their parents. Teeth chattering in their skulls,
They called curses on the seed, the place, the hour
Of their own begetting and their birth. With wails

And tears they gathered on the evil shore
That waits for all who don't fear God. There demon
Charon beckons them, with his eyes of fire;

Crowded in a herd, they obey if he should summon,
And he strikes at any laggard's with his oar.
As he leaves in a quick succession sail down in autumn

Until the bough beholds its entire store
Fallen to the earth, so Adam's evil seed
Swoop from the bank when each is called, as sure

As a trained falcon to cross to the other side
Of the dark water; and before one throng can land
On the far shore, on this side new souls crowd.

Everyone is governed by something. Even those who are literally dead and would have nothing to live for (if they were living) are governed by the old man in the boat and his oar. Although the reasons for which the dead souls are able to be uniformly governed are unclear, Dante is especially docile for very specific reasons: he is scared almost to death and he realizes the magnitude of his vulnerability in that he is surrounded by things that are so grossly unfamiliar to him.

The dead souls, on the other hand, are utterly familiar with and seemingly used to the occurrences. So, maybe their cooperation can be attributed to passivity... they know they're essentially doomed... for all of eternity Then again, maybe they're not passive at all. Maybe "the goad of Divine Justice" does actually push them along--they know what their actions has caused them to deserve. Therefore, they won't stop until they've paid the price.