As an assignment in class recently, we were asked to “discuss the setting as it is laid out for the reader/ audience in the first 4 cantos of the ‘Inferno’.” The Inferno was written from a religious standpoint, written for the Roman Catholics who devoted their lives to Jesus. The story of Dante and the description of Hell as the setting of the story is supposed to scare the Romans reading the poem, scared enough to never stray from their faith. As I was writing my essay, I found a couple of places within the first four cantos that stood out and connected with the story of Genesis.
In canto one, Dante tells the reader that Death itself would be less scary than the woods he woke up in. We can relate this to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; both stories incorporate nature, but trees specifically. Why do you think so?
He became sleepy when he “first strayed, leaving the path of truth.” This gives the reader an inclination that he might be alluding to straying away from his Christian faith. He describes meeting the animals in the woods and said “and only then did terror start subsiding in my heart.” We can relate this to Adam and Eve meeting the serpent in the garden and instantly becoming ashamed, and essentially terrified of seeing themselves naked for the first time. Do you agree?
The following quote from canto three, Virgil speaking to Dante about who the lost souls, is the one that stood out to me the most, “These wretches, who had never truly lived went naked and were strung and stung again by the hornets and wasps…and made their faces run with blood in streaks; their blood, mixed with tears… and disgusting maggots collected in the pus.” This being the punishment for the “lost souls” reminded me of what God punished Adam and Eve with once they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge. He said “Cursed be you of all cattle and all beasts of the field…I will terribly sharpen your birth pangs; in pain, shall you bear children…with pangs shall you eat from it all the days of your life…by the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread till you return to the soil…” In both stories, the consequence of not following God and his orders is endless and various ways of pain and suffering. Do you think this is justified?