Fraud and Dante

It's clearly seen in the start of circle 5 and throughout upper hell, Dante becomes much more graphic and expressing more emotion then the other circles. Both Dante the character and Dante the writer change with the language and complexity of the circles. There are still sign of pity ( in Bolgia 4) but the other circles show much more tension. It makes you wonder why his feelings changed.

It's true that Dante is emotional to circle 7, but circle 8 is much more obvious. In Bolgia 2, the souls are now overflowing "..in a river of excrement...blubber through their snouts...(147)" literally swimming and eating poop. The Simoniacs hanging upside down with fire burning their feet, diviners walking backwards as distorted humans, Grafters in a sticky pit with demons, the list goes on and on. His punishments now horrifying and tragic compared to the sins of violence. We don't know exactly why things change, but is certain that Dante was affected personally of these sins. He was criticized by the church for saving a boy from drowning during a baptism (clearly showing his anger in Bolgia 3) and was accused of grafting in Italy. These personal feelings made these sins more important than before. He has no pity to share with Pope Nicholas III stating, "...stay as you are; this hole fits you well...this avarice of yours grieves all the world..."(155-156).  Dante express fear in Bolgia 5 by pressing "...my whole body against my guide,/...not for an instant did I take my eyes/ from those black fiends..."(173). His fear and also anger towards the grafters and demons shows his hate of the men who exiled him. His disgust of the demons is showing his innocence by not supporting the accusations.

Dante's hatred of fraud was also influenced by God. He believed no one should go through life without contributing or testing gods power. God is the only one who has the ultimate power, no one else. These people humiliated, hurt, and tested God through their sins. So yes, I see the logic to Dante's thoughts. The souls of violence may have hurt others, but the frauds hurt God as well. Therefore, their punishments may be  severe and evil by God showing  the souls the pain that they cause to all of Christianity.


http://kirjasto.sci.fi/dante.htm
Here is a link to website about Dante. I found it helpful red about his exile from Italy to understand what happened and why it was so personal. 

Circle 7 Round 2: Archetypes and their meanings

Dante and Virgil continue there journey into Hell by meeting the souls of the suicides in Circle Seven Round Two. Their "...unhealthy branches, gnarled and warped and tangled..."(102) give the reader a clear image that these souls are very weak and hurt. Here they committed violence to themselves now serving their punishment in Hell as trees in a forrest. Harpies come and snatch pieces of them making them bleed and have to ability to talk as they bleed. Dante's use of the trees to as an archetypal symbol is very important to not only the sin, but the punishment of the suicides crime.

To really understand this blog question, every detail to this round is significant. The Harpies, for example, were known in Greek Mythology to steal food from Phineas and the word meaning "to snatch". This would then be a very symbolic creature to steal the souls limbs from them, for they are one of the most important things they have. This then goes back to the contropasso with the Harpies break and tear the souls apart "...feeding on it's leaves.../ give it pain and pain's outlet simultaneously." (105) The souls of the Suicides now have to perminatly live as trees, being denied a human body that they destroyed an Harpies constantly attacking them to remind them of what they did. 

Also the choosing of the tree as the souls also was an interesting choice. When I think of a tree and God together, The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life pop into my head. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil defiantly can relate to the suicides with both the suicides and Adam and Eve both doing harm to themselves even when they know it's wrong by God. Even when Dante writes '.. bore poison thorns instead of fruit"(102), that mentioning of not having fruit could also imply that they will never have the pure and healthy life like The Tree of Life and also another sign back to Adam and Eve. It's like God's throwing it back in the Suicides faces that they will always be in the state of how they died and nothing more. 

Harpie

This whole round, like the majority of the book, was specifically calculated by Dante to be symbolic and make sense. When you look up every detail in the Round, all of the creatures and things included go back to the sin of the souls. Dante does this to show the reader how he views this sin. We do this by not just looking at the symbols in the round, but also Dante's reactions to the souls. This and the symbols give a clear picture to the reader of how the contropasso makes sense to the crime. It gives the book a fine opinion supported by tons and tons of evidence that support his claim to how they will be punished forever and ever. 




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5kX8KWYCf8&feature=fvst
This is a link to a storyboard animated videos that someone did for a class. I thought it was cool in how she interpreted the Canto.