(The Divine Comedy)
This powerful introduction to the Divine Comedy imposes Dante’s moral guidelines and zealous devotion to Catholicism, sculpting his perception of just and unjust values while perhaps intending to manipulate the reader’s mind to promote his ideals, which were favourable in a Roman Catholic society. Inferno depicts the 3 sections of hell, narrated by the unattached perspective of Dante as he’s being guided by Virgil, beginning from Limbo, where those born before Christ and unbaptised were condemned, to the lowest depths, which Satan himself guards. The simplicity of the plot (one journey through Inferno) allows Dante to call into question the timeless themes of the evolution and correctness of human nature, and religion. By placing the reader and himself in the same position of absence of knowledge, Dante’s accumulation of understanding towards the end of the book assures the conformity of the reader’s outlook, thus shaping their mind in a quasi propagandistic manner. As the sections progress, so do the severity of the sins, encompassing and criticising the 7 deadly sins throughout; lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride. Dante reveals his perception of the ideal person, through the condemnation of all hell’s inhabitants’ flaws. Expanding the deadly sins, many other human faults are discernible, in particular; fraud, punished the 8th circle. Dante’s disgust for these people (such as a corrupted former Pope whose greed contaminated the Church) further illustrates his complete disapproval of sin, and ultimately his hope for bettering people of his time and readers, still to this day.