Blog Post 1

In Dante’s inferno, as Dante completes his journey through hell and toward redemption, he takes on fewer religious qualities. Although Dante successfully completes the journey out of hell with his guide Virgil, he never abandons his opinions of a sin he condemns, pride. In Canto II, Dante’s opinion of himself is confirmed. “Where are your daring and your openness, as long as there are three such blessed women concerned for you within the court of Heaven and my words promise you so great a good?” (Dante 19). Dante begins his novel with a confirmation that he is indeed worthy of a personal guide to redemption in the kingdom of heaven. In this way, Dante expresses a pride that surpasses many of those who are punished in hell. Dante’s pride is further fostered in Canto VIII. In this canto, Dante encounters a man who had wronged Dante in his life. Dante feels angry toward this man, and is indignant toward his suffering, even wishing additional suffering onto him. When Virgil sees this, he confirms Dante’s reasonable indignation by calling the man a dog and pushing him. Dante’s opinions of himself and his life are, expectedly, represented in hell. Dante believes that his party and his way of thinking is the correct and only way to think in Florence. His pride in himself and his party is validated by Virgil’s approval.

In a similar way, Dante finds a strange source of pride during lines 28-30 of Canto XX. “Here pity only lives when it is dead: for who can be more impious than he who links God’s judgment to passivity?” (Dante 179). Before these words were spoken, Dante was weeping in pity for souls punished in hell. Virgil corrects this behavior, stating that by weeping for those deserving of the punishment Dante is questioning God himself. I feel that this is another source of pride for Dante. He has followed in God closely enough to warrant a personal guide to redemption, and he should feel superior to those he observes and learns through. The people being punished deserve to be there, while Dante is living and simply using their suffering as a guide to salvation.