OPINION PIECE

Wandering around this desolate wasteland, you wonder what you have done to
deserve this torment. The smells of freshly ground sulfur and boiling blood fill your
nostrils, burning your insides. You cover your ears to muffle the agonizing screams that
fill your heart with pity and fear. The image of this horrible place vanishes as you
suddenly awake in a cold sweat. The place you just visited was Hell, the Inferno, home to
millions upon billions of God-forsaken souls. Dante wrote about this place, whether it
was to place fear in the souls of pagans or whether it was to bash his political enemies, in
great detail and attentiveness. As you will soon see, he had his opinions and we have
ours.

We believe that the punishments assigned in the Inferno have their way of being
oddly suitable for the crime of the sinners. Dante, the author, is unique with his
widespread use of symbolic retribution, which is the fact that the punishments dished out
mirror the sin of the offenders. In the various circles of hell, the punishments seem justly
given. For example, in circle 3, the Gluttons, these condemned were constantly gorging
themselves and were unnecessarily wasteful of food, etc. in life, so Dante assigns them to
the garbage dump of Hell, symbolizing their waste in life. In later circles, like the ones
we were assigned, it takes a little bit deeper thinking to realize the somewhat obvious
connection between crime and punishment. For example, in circle 8.5, the Grafters made
forbidden negotiations to make a quick buck so Dante places them in sticky, boiling tar
for all eternity. The tar hides them from sight, like the deals were hidden from the eyes of
men and it also serves as a symbolism of their “sticky fingers”. These come together to
form what makes the Inferno so inimitable.

We think that sometimes Dante has a tendency to place things in worse sections of
Hell than they might belong because of his religious and political bias. For example, the
Grafters are placed in the worst half of hell below the suicides, which could possibly
affect more people than grafting could. They are also placed below the sexual sins and
the Violent against God. Since Dante is a Christian, you would expect him to put the
violent against his Creator in one of the lowest circles of hell. Another example of this
bias is shown throughout the whole book. Since Dante is currently expelled from
Florence, he has a political bias against all Florentines, especially those not in his own
party. This is shown by him placing them in some of the bad circles and also giving them
some of the worst punishments. We think that possibly all authors are somewhat biased
when writing a book because, if it’s not important to you or others, why write a book
about it? And if you don’t know a lot about the subject or the matter in which you are
going to write, why take the time to complete such a project?

In our section of Hell, the Grafters probably had the worse punishments of the
two. They were immersed in boiling pitch that scorched them throughout eternity and
they are also presided over by these disgusting demons. The demons seem to be the most
lasting in our teenage minds. They are utterly and horribly cruel to these people (who
probably deserve the punishment) by tearing at them and ripping off chunks of their flesh
all the while mocking and tormenting them, both physically and mentally. Physical
punishment, in the mortal world, goes away with time but mental punishment is what
lasts and continues to torment throughout our life. The demons are so memorable because
not only in hell do the cuts and bruises never stop but the also must hear the mocking for
all of eternity. It’s a double-duty punishment, dished out by Dante, supposedly carried out
by God.

Our sections, 8.5 and 8.6, fall under the Sins of the Leopard which includes the
sins of the Fraudulent and Malicious. My section falls under the sub-category of simple
fraud. This section, accompanied with sins including Flatterers, Simoniacs, Hypocrites
and thieves aren’t nearly as the sins that come afterwards in the Compound Fraud sub-
category. Grafting was seen as a type of fraud because you didn’t exactly tell the people
who were above you or below you in status, “Oh yeah, I just totally let this prisoner go
free for a dollar. Sweet, right?” No, because then you would get your head chopped off.
Grafting could also be seen as simple fraud because it didn’t have the negative potential
to harm people like being treacherous against your country could. Grafting was pretty
simple fraud, like hypocrisy. The hypocrites in section 8.6 are considered part of this
section because they were hiding their hypocrisy from the eyes of men, therefore not
telling people what they truly believed and being a fraud. All fraudulent and malicious
are all sins of the leopard. As to why he chose a leopard to represent these sins, we do not
know.