What Hell does to a Person

    In Dante's Inferno, he is a perfect representation of every one of us who have become blind to our sinfulness and need for repentance. Throughout his journey through Hell, Dante expresses many different emotions towards these sinners, their sins, his own sins, and just Hell in general the further into it he gets. It is interesting to look at the way he progresses, or digresses( whichever way you choose to interpret it), throughout Hell and how it was a slow but steady change that Dante experienced and it was not something that he expected but it kind of crept in oh him while he was traveling.

    Dante starts off just in the first few layers of Hell being quite disturbed by what he saw and felt sorrow and pity for these people. For example we read in Canto V that Dante feels pity for the people because he says, “the other wept so sadly that I fell for pity of it to a deathlike faint—and I dropped like a body stricken dead” (139-143). Dante is so disturbed be their cries that he cannot do anything but fall to the ground is distress of their cries. Not only does Dante feel pity throughout the first few levels of Hell, but in the Sixth Circle of heretics he feels deep regret because he did not tell Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti that his son was still alive (106-111). Dante is constantly showing some kind of pity or remorse for the people in Hell. At one point when Dante passed into the Fourth Bolgia, he is actually ridiculed by Virgil himself for feeling pity for the poor souls because he was not merely guilty of some little weakness but of the questioning of God’s justice. However, Virgil seems to have a change of heart because in Canto XIII, Dante is in the Seventh Circle (where those of suicide suffer) and the cries of pity from a soul compels a response from Dante. The soul cried out, “Why do you tear me? Is there no pity left in any soul?” (35-36) to which Dante replies “such compassion chokes my heart” and Virgil tells the man to tell Dante more of the secrets of his punishment so that “this man may with all his heart do for you what your words entreat him to do—that is vindicate his memory before men (85-87,77).

    However, at some point during Dante's journey through Hell, he does become quite a bit merciless and has a taste is disdain towards the sinners. We see this in Canto VIII when he becomes familiar with Filippo from life and shows great anger and shame saying that he wanted Filippo “dunked deep in slop” (43-44). Yet, for the most part Dante keeps a sorrowful and pitiful heart for the sinners. Maybe he sees himself in the sinners? Maybe he sees the ones he loved or once knew and they remind him of who he really is and where he could end up. We are not really sure what happened to Dante throughout his journey but I think of it as a transformation. I also parallel it to my Christian walk. The longer you walk in sin, the more used to it you get and your mind becomes desensitized to the importance of sin and its consequences. In Dante’s case he literally walks in a sinners footsteps and on an even worse path because he sees the consequence of their actions firsthand.

    In many instances, the characters that Dante encounters throughout his journey through Hell have become horrendous and ugly monsters that are a manifestation of the ugliness of the sins that they have committed. I believe in a way Dante becomes like them, because the more sin and suffering he sees, the less pity he feels for them and in a few instances actually show interest in their sufferings. One instance that is significant is when Dante grabs the “dog’s ruff” of Bocca degli Abbati’s hair and pulls out fistfuls of it to get him to reveal his name. It is almost as if the whole thing had become a hobby or a game to Dante. I see it as another great example of what dwelling in sin, or a place of sin and its consequences (such as Hell). Can do to a person. Even more important is the example where Dante meets Filippo and his sorrow and weeping does not move Dante, but instead he reacts with rage saying “May you weep and wail to all eternity, for I know you, hell-dog, filthy as you are.”

    In a way, Dante changed for the good throughout his Journey through Hell. However, he did change for the worse in some ways. We can only be satisfied knowing that Dante now knows the danger of sins and their consequences and that he learned from his journey and came to a better understanding of it. Hopefully we to can “profit from it” (his journey) just as Dante did, and become better people with knowledge of what can happen in order to deter us from it happening.