Inferno story
Inferno (Italian: [iɱˈfɛrno]; Italian for "Hell") is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes Dante's journey through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen". As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.
14 total · 1 choice · 3 major · 10 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| journey into the underworld | choice | Dante travels through hell itself. |
| Christianity | major | The poem discusses what one must do and not do in order to be a good Christian. It also exposes hypocrisies within the Christian faith, yet affirms the core tenets. |
| the deadly sins | major | Inferno is in particular concerned with sin, and passes judgment on various characters from history by placing them in appropriate circles of hell where they experience suitable punishments for their sins. |
| the soul | major | various souls are punished in Dante's afterlife |
| anger | minor | Wrath was punished in the fifth circle of Hell. |
| criminal fraud | minor | Fraud was punished in the eight circle of Hell, subdivided into numerous Bolgias including for panderers, flatterers, simoniacs, sorcerers, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, sowers of discord, and falsifiers. |
| gluttony | minor | Gluttony was punished in the third circle of Hell. |
| greed for riches | minor | Greed, in its various incarnations, was punished in the fourth circle of Hell. |
| heresy | minor | Heretics were punished in the sixth circle of Hell. |
| obsessive love | minor | In the second circle of Hell are those that allowed romantic desires to rule their life to an excessive degree. |