The World Upside Down

In Canto XXXIV, when Virgil and the Pilgrim climbed down to Lucifer’s legs; they noticed that the world and the axis had changed. This is an upside and downward world in which both “realms” share the same perspective, but the viewpoint is different depending on where you are standing in the upside or the downward world. After their long journey, they became aware that the spiral of Hell is like a staircase bringing them upward. There is a fragment or a line that separate and hold these two worlds together. Virgil and the Pilgrim cross that line to reach the upside world also known as “our world”. They left Hell without realizing that they were descending upward; throughout the book of “The Divine Comedy- Volume 1: Inferno”, Virgil and the Pilgrim entered nine circles of Hell encountering numerous of sins such as lustful, wrathful, heresy, Malebolge, and violence also meeting the sinners who committed these sins. However, what was the purpose of learning and understanding about the sins and the punishment? Are we (the readers) are more mindful about the sins after reading the Inferno? The hardship of this trip symbolizes that we all have to overcome obstacles in order to reach our goal like Virgil and the Pilgrim; their goal was to exit Hell and traveling upward in which they succeeded. This last Canto was interesting about Lucifer’s legs of how the Pilgrim and Virgil found themselves in another “world”; I think that they were confused, but amazed of how the world transformed.

                        We climbed, he first and I behind, until,

                        through a small round opening ahead of us

                        I saw the lovely things the heavens hold,

                        And we came out to see once more the stars. (136-139)