Thursday, October 18, 2012
Discussion Prompt #9
As we discussed in class, Dante draws a distinction between sins: those in which reason acknowledges what is right but allows itself to be overwhelmed by misdirected natural desires, and those punished within the walls of Dis, in which reason itself consents to the sin. How do you see this distinction playing out in one of the sins we encounter in cantos 10-15?
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First comment! YAY!!
ReplyDeleteNow that's out of the way, time for an actual response. I saw the largest distinction of sins of incontinence and the sins of the 6th and 7th circles mostly in the first ring of the 7th circle. The sinner boil in blood. This blood possibly represents victims' blood. Revenge turns into a hot plate considering the sinners are boiling in the blood they shed. Also, I want to touch on the Forest of Suicides. Souls are trapped within bushes and trees, and Dante learns the souls' human bodies will one day hang from the limbs. Suicide offers no chance to repent. It is not only a "of the moment sin," but a "sin of reason." The human perishes without a chance to repent, creating a one-way ticket to the Forest of Suicides. This could be interpreted as a warning against spur-the-moment decisions.
Jacky Killian
In Canto XIII, the Pilgrim and Virgil find themselves in the wood of the suicides, and it’s here that I see the most distinction between the types of sins in Hell. The bush/soul/person they talk to says, “I kept his secrets from almost any other. / To this, my glorious office, I stayed so true / I lost both sleep and life” (131). I feel like it’s important that the soul realizes that what it did was wrong but continued to do it anyway. He thought about it and decided that it was better to keep the secrets. This implies an application of reason to the sinful acts. Of course, these secrets are not the real reason the soul is in the wood of the suicides. The real reason is his suicide, and this, too, seems to have been well thought out. He says, “My mind… assumed / Dying would be a way to escape disdain” (133). He didn’t want to face the disdain of the people and committed suicide instead after he reasoned that it would be the best thing to do. The other reason that I would say that the suicides had to have reason and couldn’t have been overwhelmed by natural desire is that suicide is not supposed to be a natural desire. The human being is supposed to have a desire to stay alive, so committing suicide could be considered solely a reasonable (and not natural) act.
ReplyDeleteIn the Forest of Suicides, sinners are trapped by having been turned into foliage. As if being stuck in hell wasn't enough, you get turned into a tree. Anyway, unlike sins of incontinence, sins of reason imply much thought before the action, and with so much effort being put towards suicide, repentance is not even an option. Apparently, the human being is not supposed to "[weep] when he should rejoice" (Canto XI, line 46), therefore violence against oneself is somehow going against human nature, and in the same grain, it is taking over God's duty to determine those who live and die. (I imagine that taking his job into your own hands is a little off-putting to the big man upstairs.) Suicide is not likely a sin that one commits at the spur of the moment, but one that requires a lengthy amount of time feeling despondent and unhappy with your worldly being, and so the amount of reason put towards extinguishing said worldly being justifies the sinner's sentence in the Inferno.
ReplyDeleteNot that I agree with any of these distinctions, however I see the biggest distinction within the living shades trapped as trees. Individuals spend the eternity in Hell without their own bodies, unlike those even in the boiling blood river. Not to say that being a tree is markedly worse than boiling in blood, because honestly between either I could not choose the better. But the idea of having your identity taken because you did not appreciate it, and were therefore stripped of it would certainly be a sort of hell to me. The distinction seems the most strict here in that fact that their identities (physically) are in fact stripped from them, whereas in the first six circles of Hell, and the first ring of the seventh circle, they keep their own bodies.
ReplyDelete-- Leslie Fox
The best example of distinction between these sins was most evident to me in Canto XIII. In this canto, the reader is introduced to the second ring of the seventh layer of Hell. This ring houses the sinners that were violent against themselves. These sinners committed suicide. What stood out to me was that the sinner Dante and Virgil were speaking to seemed to show no remorse for what he did. On top of showing no remorse, the sinner said:
ReplyDelete"If you return to the world above,/Either of you, please comfort my memory/Still prostrate from the blow that Envy gave" (71-73).
This goes to show that the sinner knew what he was doing by committing suicide, but he still could not blame himself. Instead, he blamed Envy and exhibited no regret. He explained that "dying would be a way to escape disdain" (67). That statement explains that he thought about committing this act of violence against himself instead of at the spur of the moment/as a misdirected natural desire.
One example of how there are different punishments for different sins is found in Canto XIV where there are some people wandering around on the burning sands, some are sitting, and some are laying down. The ones lying down are being punished for blasphemy, the ones sitting have been charged with usury, and the ones walking around are being punished for sodomy. If those who are walking stop for too long a time, they have to lie down on the burning sands for one hundred years. Another example of this that stands out is in Canto XII where there is the moat filled with souls that is guarded by centaurs. The moat is filled with tyrants who are being punished to varying degrees. According to how heinous their crimes are, they are required to stand so deep in the moat and if they go above their allotted height, they get shot with an arrow. I find it interesting that Dante divides up sins into different levels of severity. From what I know of the Bible, a sin is a sin no matter what. God does not divide up sins into different levels of evil. Disobeying is disobeying in the Bible.
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ReplyDeleteI deleted my comment, because I was referring to the wrong Canto. Let's try this again. Coming from a Christian perspective, sin is sin. In the Bible, God does not distinguish between how bad one sin is compared to another. In God's eyes all sin is equal. I do not believe in layers of Hell, I believe there is only ONE Hell and ONE Heaven. In Canto XIII, Dante enters the second ring of the the seventh circle of Hell. In this Canto, Dante is introduced to people who committed suicide and thus they are turned into trees; in lines 70-73 the sinner exclaims, "I never betrayed my lord,/who was so worthy of honor./If you return to the world above,/Either of you, please comfort my memory." What I took from this was he believes he did not betray the LORD when he decided to take his life, and he shows that he had no intention of reconsidering his action. I have a hard time comprehending why any human would want to commit such a horrible act towards themselves, I believe this sinner did betray the LORD because the LORD gave him life. He should be the one to decide when our time is over, we as humans should not make such decisions. Suicide is the most selfish thing any human could do, and I may be a bad person for saying this, but I do not feel sorry for the souls in this circle of Hell. I will elaborate a little more in class tomorrow and I will try to explain in a way that does not offend anyone.
DeleteEmily Embry
Throughout Dante's journey in the seventh level of Hell, he experienced a vast number of sins and their individual punishments. Those who committed suicide and had to live all eternity as trees were the ones that most resonated with me. I can see why Dante wrote of this particular sin and made those who committed it to be separated from their physical bodies since those who commit suicide are usually not happy with themselves. I am, however, having a hard time understanding why exactly they are trees and not anything else, specifically something that applies to the reason they took their own life.
ReplyDeleteThe distinction was very clear in that of those that had committed suicide. They were housed in the second ring of the seventh circle, and their souls were trapped in trees for eternity. Those located in this ring were left this way because they’d actively chosen to end their own lives, and had not appreciated properly there human form, having obviously chosen to do harm to it. Unlike in some of the earlier circles, the sin could not be blamed on something like sexual desire, and could really only be explained by the sinner’s choice to commit the sin and defy God’s natural order.
ReplyDeleteZachary Ecton
I find it extremely interesting how closely the themes and ideas from “Inferno” correlate to my other classes. While speaking of the “Scarlet Letter” (I can’t seem to find how to italicize things) in American Lit I we spoke of the differences and degrees of sin; much like this class we discussed that biological sin (adultery, etc.) differs greatly from when the mind is involved. When the sin encompasses contemplation and delves deep into the conscious, it becomes a much darker sin. This idea is shown tremendously by Dante’s use of the layers of hell and Dis. The layers of Dis are broken down into parts by how they affect a certain group; they are put in a certain layer depending on if their sin was “to God, / To one’s self, or one’s neighbor” (Canto XI, lines 31-33). I found it particularly fascinating in Canto XII when men were boiling in a river of blood; depending on their level of harm to others, they would be boiled from as high up as their eyebrows to as low as only their feet. The centaur explains the sinners’ situations thoroughly: “’These are the tyrants given to blood and plunder. / Here they lament the merciless harm they did…’” (Canto XII, lines 98-99). The centuar’s words help to justify the amount of anguish that the sinners go through; by being “merciless” and “tyrants,” their sin goes far deeper than that of the flesh.
ReplyDeleteI see the biggest distinction in the Forest of Suicides. Just as some of my classmates mentioned earlier, suicide is a sin that is obviously premeditated. The damned souls that committed suicide had to know that what they were doing was wrong, but continued to submit to themselves and their tormented desires. The bush that Dante spoke to exemplified this type of sin. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but he continued to let it destroy him. I feel like the violence done by a soul that committed suicide is of great importance. It is both a violence against God, and a violence against themselves. The fact that suicide is a long, thought-out process makes the sin much worse. It is not a spur of the moment decision that gives into desires like Francesca's sin, but a deeper sin that gives into the lost desire to live.
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ReplyDeleteIn itself, suicide is "death by reason". I know this by personal experience. It is "reason" which fuels one to attempt suicide; it is the most selfish act anyone could possibly commit. The selfishness of suicide is shown in Canto XIII, when "Pier della Vigna" (Pinsky 398) says:
ReplyDeleteI never betrayed my lord, who was so worthy
Of honor. If you return to the world above,
Either of you, please comfort my memory
Still prostrate from the blow that Envy gave. (70-73)
In these lines, his focus is truly on himself (and his reputation). He is selfish even beyond his life and has learned nothing from neither death nor his torment in hell. He blames “Envy” for his plight; he obviously realizes what he’s done but can’t bring himself to accept the blame. I think that’s part of the curse an egomaniac who would do such a thing must endure; he can’t even admit to his sin because he is so self-centered.
On a side note, as Pinsky states in the notes, Pier della Vigna felt he was faithful to the emperor, Frederick II (had he meant “his lord” was God, Dante would have capitalized the word “Lord” – but that’s just my observation and retort to an earlier post).
-Ann Reagan
In Canto XIII, the distinction between the two types of sins is evident. In the seventh circle of hell we see Virgil and Dante being introduced to the souls that caused harm to themselves and to their possessions and were turned into trees. Dante explains in what he experiences here, that the sin of committing suicide is of the most formidable sins and a layer with explicit ongoing torment. The souls continue to be tortured in this circle of hell as the Harpies injure and pain them in their tree form and their earthly bodies hang on their branches to remind them of the life that the Lord gave them and the life they took away. The reasons that caused these souls to commit suicide on earth is multiplied and handed to them daily. They are unable to escape the pain, the torture, and the misery that they thought they would end when ending their lives. This is how I view Hell to be, the sins that one may struggle with on earth will be multiplied and used to torment the soul that did not repent of their sins. In Canto XIII, a soul in tree form that Dante encounters states, “I never betrayed my lord,/ who was so worthy of honor”(70-71). This soul is claiming that in taking his life, he had not betrayed the lord’s will. I believe that the Lord has ordained our days and for every day that he has us alive, we are alive to fulfill a purpose. When one decides to take their life into their own hands and end it, the individual sins against their creator, therefore betraying his creator’s will for his life. I found these assigned readings interesting, as I was able to compare Dante’s views sin with my own.
ReplyDeleteThere is distinction in the sinners that are boiling in blood. It is a sort of allegorical punishment for those who craved blood in life. In other words, they harmed one of their "neighbors" and are serving a punishment of eternal near-drowning in blood that is boiling. However gruesome this punishment is in general, it is still flexible to each sinner and their degree of offense. Someone who killed a fellow man is punished with blood up to their legs, forever being boiled from the legs down. Where as a tyrant is subjected to the same punishment up to their head. This seems to have a political reason behind it. I also thought perhaps the point was that those who orchestrate murders are just as guilty as the people who carry them out (if not more guilty).
ReplyDeleteI am drawn in immediately as Dante and Virgil pass into the first circle of the seventh level of Hell. Of course the entire seventh level stands out by being the level for the violent sins. Violent sins involving hatred, revenge and murder specifically stand out since we talked about the earlier sins controlled by human desire, and sins caught in the moment. The sins of revenge and murder are meticulously planned and premeditated as apposed to something caught in the moment of lust and desire. This to me seems to be a perfect example of the difference between the sins punished outside the walls of Dis and the sins punished inside the walls. The eleventh stanza of canto XI lists the three types of violence found in the three circles of the seventh level as: violence to God, violence to self, and violence to ones neighbor. No matter which of those three types of violence you may refer to, it still requires premeditated thought and planning. This aforethought required for these sins is the key factor in the determining the deeper level of pain, suffering and punishment as apposed to that suffered by those outside the walls of Dis.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I missed last class due to a full body rash that was super viral and contagious according to health services. The good news is I have finished my antibiotics, and I’m no longer contagious. The bad news, I don’t have anything to draw from class, since I wasn’t there for what sounded like a pretty in-depth discussion. However, I’ve read over a few of the responses you all have posted, and I think I have a fairly good understanding as to what I missed. I think the distinction is drawn the clearest in the thirteenth Canto when Dante is taken to the seventh ring and travels through the woods of suicide. One of the sinners stated, “dying would be a way to escape disdain" (67). While this statement shows that the speaker felt death was a way to escape his earthly inadequacies, he states that it was simply just one way to get away from his problems. Therefore, we can see that these sinners differ from other sinners because they acknowledge that there is a choice, whereas sinner in earlier circles had committed sin, not realizing their ability to have avoided sin and done good while on earth. I hope this leaves me caught up!
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading through Canto XI, I was thinking about the discussion from the class before. The first, and most noteworthy example that I came across was Pope Anastasius II. Generally speaking, the Pope is supposed to be a man of holy power and is the highest power on Earth in the eyes of the Catholic church. It is very interesting that he was "tempted" by the natural desires when it comes to the realm of thinking about general biology. According to the notes in the back of the text, it is noted that Pope Anastasius II was found to be a heretic because he didn't fully believe in the divine conception of Christ-- he thought that it must have been through the true biological way that Christ was born. For this, a sin against god, he has been cast into the depths of Hell.
ReplyDelete--Jordan Cole
The distinction that was clear to me is the sinners that chased around the white banner. This represents how they are choosing not to follow anything, but at the same time they are choosing to not be on a particular side on something, which is the same as choosing a side. It is side that is looked down upon, but it is still a side. Christopher Catlett
ReplyDeleteIn Canto XI, Virgil tells Dante about the city of Dis and how it is divided into circles for crimes against fellow men, God, and the self. He makes an allusion to the very last circle, the innermost of hell, where the betrayers go (111,113). I think the most distinction between sins of passion and sins of reason is drawn here. To betray someone is to break a bond of trust you made not only to that person, but to yourself as well. It is the worst violation against man and God, according to Dante, and is punished accordingly. Unlike adultery and gluttony, sins of passion that are controlled by the desires of one's body, betrayal is a sin completely of reason; you make a conscious choice to betray someone, it is no matter of passion. This is seen in more detail when they get to the last circle.
ReplyDelete