Pity plays a huge role in Dante's Inferno. This is the key emotion that Dante faces during his time in the underworld. Those in hell feel sadness, and this sadness, being an ordinary human emotion, is believed to result in an ordinary human reaction of pity from those who observe but cannot share the sorrow. This normal human response is incorrect, because those who feel sorrow do so because of their transgressions and, in paying their penance, are unworthy of receiving any mercy. This is the complication that Dante must reconcile with himself as he travels through the levels of Hell. Dante must learn from his encounters with sinners to lose his pity. This is accomplished through an understanding of the nature of sins. These sins are divided into three main categories: indulgence in animal desires, use of violence, and use of deception. He must also learn that the fundamental characteristic that all sinners share is a certain vain pride that does not allow them to repent of their transgressions. Dante finds himself placed in a difficult situation; To understand the nature of sinners, Dante must encounter them while facing the danger of being deceived by them. They try to deceive him in an attempt to gain his pity. They also try to use it to help them overcome their limitation of not being able to know the present. Since Dante is human, he has great difficulty overcoming his natural response of pity. To overcome this, Dante must essentially shed his humanity and only then will he fully transcend Hell. It is ironic that only by becoming a worse human being and committing the same transgressions as these sinners is he able to accomplish this. An important distinction is that Dante commits these transgressions against sinners, which seems to make his actions more justifiable. Through the loss of human pity, Dante essentially becomes more pious and is able to transcend Hell. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay At the beginning of Inferno, Dante is very confused. He tries to reconcile the fact that he is still alive with the fact that he is in hell. However, he knows that he must try to leave hell. He is lucky enough to meet Virgil who serves as his guide. Virgil, unfortunately, has the crutch of believing that fate is absolute and that it always works to his advantage. This is a problem because in Dante's world, fate is not absolute. Virgil's misplaced faith puts him and Dante in dangerous situations. A more accurate portrayal of their relationship than Dante claims is that Virgil and Dante travel together through Hell, guiding each other. Virgil, jaded by his own beliefs, often makes mistakes that Dante must correct. Regardless, Dante still considers Virgil his guide even in the end since Virgil takes on the role of mentor from the beginning. Dante never really breaks the illusion that Virgil knows about hell. At the first gates of hell, Dante says to Virgil "Master, their meaning is difficult for me" and Virgil, seeming informed, replies "Here we must leave all hesitation behind" (III, 14). Dante is somewhat comforted by this. This early strengthening of Dante's faith in Virgil prepares him for his confrontations with sinners. The sinners of hell exhibit limitations that their ordinary human counterparts did not have. Dante finds this difficult to understand at first since he knows no such limitations. Virgil prepares Dante, telling him that in hell he will meet "thosewho have lost the good of the intellect” (III, 19). This means that those in hell have lost the ability to see the present. They know the future but lose this knowledge when it becomes the present. Dante is their only source of knowledge dealing with the present. Therefore, all the dead try to trick Dante into taking pity on them so that they can get what they want from him. This limitation is first revealed to Dante by Guido who wants to know if his son is still alive and cannot, for the life of him (or his death), understand him (X, 67-69). This limitation is very painful for sinners and motivates them to try to take advantage of Dante. Dante is initially fooled, but as he progresses through Hell he becomes wiser. Sinners must then face their limits. One of the most shocking things about this hell is that despite their limitations, and even though they receive extreme punishments, sinners actually want to be there. They were instilled with a kind of desire to stay in hell. The inscription on the gates of hell insinuates that love created hell. Also, when souls pass through hell, they seem "impatient... because heavenly justice stimulates them, so that their fear is transformed into desire" (III, 124-126). If justice causes sinners to want to go to hell, then they must deserve their eternal fate. This is the conflict that Dante has the most difficulty with. Dante should not pity these people since they gave in to their desires. However, even if they do what they want, they always do it in extreme sadness. Dante naturally feels pity when he sees their sorrow. Just as hell is capable of transforming fear into desire, it is also capable of transforming fear into compassion. Virgil is a victim of this change. He challenges him by explaining to Dante that he was touched by “the compassion we take for fear” (IV, 21); Virgil has been so deceived that he believes compassion has turned into fear. Dante first accepts Virgil's inverted definition and therefore feels compassion for all. Although compassion in Hell is only for those who never had the chance to be anywhere other than Hell, it becomes more lax and extends to sinners as well. Dante meets Francesca de Rimani who has committed the sin of adultery. She tries to obtain absolution from him by explaining her actions under the guise of love: “Love, which frees no beloved from love, has seized me so strongly through its beauty, that as you see, he hasn't left me yet. » (V, 103-104). Although his words are very poetic and seem to blame his madness on love, a closer examination reveals that this is not the case. What really motivated her to commit this sin was lust. This can be inferred since she says that love arises from "one's beauty". What's even more obvious to Dante is that she wouldn't be in Hell if she hadn't done something wrong. She compares her love to the romance of Camelot, which is the saddest romance of all. Dante only pities her because he believes she is lying; “Francesca, your afflictions move me to tears of pain and pity” (V,116-117). Dante pities her because he believes she was punished for true love. Because of her deception, she may feel better about herself through his pity, but it will not provide her with absolution. Dante's quickness to grant sympathy continues to pose a problem for him since he shows sympathy for condemned acts. Before he can rid himself of this danger, Dante must understand the true nature of sinners and why they are damned. Dante only begins to understand the true reason why sinners are in Hell when he meets Farinata. He finds that evenin damnation, Farinata is elitist and contemptuous. He begins to understand that this man, who was otherwise a hero, is condemned to hell since he cannot break away from his vanity. Dante begins to understand that everyone who is punished in Hell is because of their inability to renounce their beliefs. Although Dante begins to understand this, he does not go far enough as he still pities Farinata and the other sinners. His pity extends once again to Pierre de la Vigna. Peter who committed suicide actively separated his body and his soul and thus received the body of a tree in this perverse punishment. Dante discovers this when he is reprimanded for breaking Peter's branch. Peter frightens him with the response “Are you without any feeling of pity?”(XIII, 36). Dante must feel sorry for this sad individual who, in desperation, committed suicide and must now live out eternity as a tree. However, even Pierre deserves this fate. Pierre is punished for his egocentrism. He believed that only he mattered and that jealousy of him caused everyone to turn against him. So he found himself alone and could only feel sorrow; “my delighted honors were transformed into sadness” (XIII, 69). Feeling that he could escape the pain of grief through death, he was “made… unjust to myself” (XIII, 72). Even if it is an act of desperation, pity is not warranted. First, Peter recognizes that he has committed an injustice and therefore must be punished for it. Second, if he felt he could escape his problems by using death to end them, then he must not believe in an afterlife, which made him guilty of being a heretical unbeliever. Despite Peter's heresy, Dante continues to pity him. Dante reaches his peak of pity for Brunetto Latini. Latini is punished for being homosexual. Dante cannot rationalize an eternity of damnation based solely on sexual preference. Dante views Brunetto as a sort of mentor and, in his admiration for him, finds himself unable to condemn him even if he is damned. Dante says to Brunetto: “If my wish were completely granted... you would still be among humanity, and not banished from it” (XV, 79-81). Dante went as far as he could to pity these individuals. In a way, he crossed the line. Hell has played with his desire, so that he now desires something sinful. He is trying to give absolution to someone who has been condemned by the highest authority. Latini deceives Dante into considering the Tesoro, his major work and therefore his offspring, as special. Thus, thanks to Dante, Latini will live forever. Even though he commits this major transgression, from this point on Dante's pity for sinners diminishes. Dante always feels sadness for others: “Your present state had not fixed in me contempt, but sadness - and so deeply that it will only slowly disappear. " (XVI, 53), but at this point he has already reached his peak in his sadness and although he will still feel sadness for others, he will quickly become numb to hell. This happens because as As he travels deeper into Hell, he begins to have a better idea of ​​the crimes these people are punished for and why they are in Hell. The higher levels contain those who have animal desires. they do not constitute serious sins because they are bestial and are only indirectly harmful to selfishness. The following levels deal with those who have committed violence or animal violence. These transgressions are more serious since the violence requires the. intention to harm others This is not the worst transgression since it still requires a certain animality.The deepest and most damned concerns those who have fraudulently harmed themselves. This is the worst kind of transgression, because only humans, those with the capacity for such betrayal, can carry it out. By better understanding why sinners are punished, Dante ultimately loses his ability to pity them. Dante finally punishes someone when he confronts Pope Nicholas III. The Pope, guilty of fraud, cannot receive any pity from Dante “Remain as you are, for you are justly punished” (XIX, 97). This is the first time Dante has turned on someone and is therefore a big step forward. This reprimand symbolizes that Dante's pity has all but disappeared. Virgil then kisses him. This is extremely dangerous, because it is the embrace of the damned. This means that as Dante deepens his understanding of hell, he gets closer to this hell. Virgil goes on to guide Dante further by asking him to trust fate even when dealing with the frightening Malebranche. However, since fear had already twisted emotions and reactions to hell, it once again proves effective, this time acting as a turning point. Virgil finally concedes that his faith in the absolute character of destiny is misplaced (XXIII, 25-30). From this point on, Dante and Virgil are equals even though Dante still refers to and considers Virgil as his guide. Together they continue to encounter sinners. Next, Dante encounters the thieves whose bodies have been transformed into snakes. The punishment is to represent that those who stole are now having their bodies stolen. Thanks to this, Dante realizes that all these punishments are justified and that everyone who is in hell deserves their fate. The last person to make a respectable effort to receive Dante's pity is Ulysée who uses his verbal skills to try to deceive Dante, but at this point Dante knows too much to be so easily deceived. He sees that Ulysée is damned for his talent for verbal betrayal. Dante gained effective practical knowledge of hell. With such an understanding of hell, Dante reverses the game and plays the role of the trickster rather than the deceived. His only reason for being in Hell now is to escape, and he will do so while gaining more knowledge. He no longer feels any sadness for those in hell, because he understands that everyone in hell deserves to be there, and that they are there because their pride does not allow them to repent of their sins. Without any sympathy, he encourages Guido da Montefeltro to explain his story. Guido explains to him that he tried to preemptively repent of his sins. However, it is impossible to truly repent for something that has not already been done, which is why he is taken to hell. This is an important lesson for Dante. Unfortunately, Dante, now well informed about hell, is at his worst. He tries to convince Bocca degli Abati to tell him who Bocca is. Bocca doesn't want to do it. To achieve his ends, Dante tries to use deception, the worst sin, on Bocca after having already punched him in the face; “I am alive and I can be valuable to you if you want glory” (XXXII, 91-92), but Bocca refuses to tell him that flattery will not work on him. Dante threatens serious violence and Bocca still refuses. Unfortunately for Bocca, he is betrayed by another sinner. Dante's actions show that he is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his ends. The irony is that in trying to get through Hell, Dante commits the same acts that are responsible for sending these sinners to Hell in the first place. In his current state of understanding, Dante only needs one more encounter in Hell. Finally, Dante confronts Lucifer. At this point he has seen all that Hell has to offer and is therefore..