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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A three page paper on contrapasso, the Italian term for selecting a punishment that perfectly fits the crime. In Dante's Inferno, Dante tried his best to come up with unique punishments that would convince his readers that sinners are really held accountable for their very specific sins in the afterlife, and they should thus do whatever they could to avoid sinning while they were still alive. No additional sources.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_KBdante6.rtf
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with inventive and creative (and suitably distressing or tortuous) punishments that would convince his readers that sinners are really held accountable for their very specific sins in the afterlife, and
they should thus do whatever they could to avoid sinning while they were still alive. In most cases, Dantes use of contrapasso is extremely effective. For example, in the uppermost
ring of the Incontinence cluster in Hell -- incontinence meaning the inability to control ones bodily appetites -- we meet the lovers Francesca da Rimini and her brother-in-law Paolo, two
people who apparently lived in Dantes own time. Although we do not hear their entire story, it is clear that on earth they indulged in a sexual relationship with one
another outside the bonds of marriage, and thus in Hell the penalty for their crime is to be buffeted forever by "a black wind" as in life the couple was
buffeted by their emotions. Dante seems sympathetic to them, and therefore their punishment is not really too dreadful; being buffetted by wind may be unpleasant or uncomfortable, but it certainly
isnt agonizingly painful, and at least the lovers are together for eternity as they so desperately wanted to be in life. Certainly in this case, the punishment does fit the
crime. Several rings down, Dante and Virgil arrive at a somewhat darker cluster, that of Violent Crimes. This ring is epitomized by tyrants, who are condemned to swim in the
lakes of blood they have shed, while Centaurs circle the pool of blood shooting arrows at them to prevent them from ever coming ashore. This is another instance where Dante
has found a punishment that very accurately fits the crime. People who live under the rule of tyrants are forever "treading water" without any way of attaining security -- much
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