How is Dante's Hell relevant to today's society? For starters, though Dante's visions seem drastic, cruel and even inhuman, I feel that a lot of his thoughts are very relevant to society today. Perhaps in a different way, punishment being applied differently, but society in mind still would, and can relate to Dante's vision of hell. The sins that these people have committed are still taking place every day. This is probably one of the foremost reasons for Dante's success among our people. He uses light and dark imagery, which is repetitive and abundant throughout the cantos. The light representing reason, truth, righteousness, and goodness as displayed with the fact that the hill to "Divine Light" is cloaked in rays of the sun. The dark he depicts as times of torment, blindness, and evil. This imagery is seen in the fact that the path through Hell that Dante must take is dark and the sun does not shine there.

Dante's Inferno describes the descent through Hell from the upper level of the opportunists to the most evil, the treacherous, on the lowest level. His allegorical poem is a detailed description of sin and its relationship to degrees of punishment.

The sinners in the fourth circle are those that "could not judge with moderation when it came to spending." Here Dante points out specific people in this level, but first generalizing by finding "priests, and popes and cardinals, in whom avarice is most likely to prevail." he finds the shades' punishment to be a joint punishment, where on one side must shove their material wealth against the other. The river Styx, serving as the Fifth Circle, holds "the souls of those that anger overcame." Here punishment is to lie in a sluggish black muck and create a gurgling sound instead of being able to speak or sing while an eternal rage against them to attack and bite their own bodies is created. In other stages Dante describes punishments such as where sinners lay upside down in a hole where only there feet stick out. Their feet are then engulfed by flames. Hereby displaying another symbol; instead of being baptized in water, the sinners are immersed in oil and fire "perverting" their type of baptism.

Finally to exit Hell, the duo must climb down the body of Lucifer, which is covered in shaggy hair. While climbing down, Dante marks how he becomes confused because he soon feels as if he is climbing up again. This marks how they are crossing the center of the earth, or "the point to which all weight from every part is drawn." They then make their way up to the exit of Hell and the entrance to Purgatory. The travelers finally make their way to the surface, where they "came out to see once more the stars."

Many people in today's society judge and look down upon other people. It is in this way that society can relate to the different circles of Dante's Hell. We categorize people by the way they act, live, and dress. Regardless of what others think this will always be the case. Just as Dante placed people in their circles according to their sins, society ranks people by their

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