Compassion in the Inferno

     In the Inferno, Dante progressively transforms his reactions to the sinners from compassionate and understanding to stern and indifferent. The reader is introduced to Dante as a man who has strayed from the path and is lost in life. Upon entering the Inferno, he shows extreme human emotion to stories such as Francesca’s in Canto V when Dante actually passes out, falling “as a dead body falls” (Dante 47 line 142). This is counterintuitive for the reader because one would assume that there should be no compassion from sinners who are plagued to Hell. 

     Dante’s reactions to the sinners in the early circles connect with the reader through pathos and confirm the fact that he is alive and not forever in Hell. Dante gradually loses this emotion and gains an unconcerned demeanor toward the sinners. In Canto XXXII Dante even says that the sinners condemned to their teeth in the ice look “doglike” insinuating that they look pathetic. Dante’s character development parallels his journey down the circles of the Inferno. The farther down him and Virgil venture, the less compassion and pity he shows to the sinners. This is until Canto XXIX when he spots a soul from his own family and weeps uncontrollably. This was a small hiccup in Dante’s transformation into an unconcerned observer of the sinners. 

     The types of sinners that Dante encounters as he travels down the Inferno could explain this character development. Dante the writer clearly sees betrayal and fraud as the most heinous of crimes, so that is why he puts those sinners in the ninth circle. It would make logical sense that Dante does not cry or pass out at these sinners because he truly does not feel any sympathy for their fates. Date’s approach to the lower levels of the Inferno was very uniform: get the sinners name, get the sinner’s crime, and get to the next ring. 

     Alongside his compassion development, the reader also witnesses Dante gain some bravery from this experience in Hell. In Cantos I-X the word “cowardice” was used on multiple occasions to describe Dante and his lack of bravery. As the epic progresses, cowardice is used less frequently and the reader sees Dante become a brave man. Dante’s experience through the rings of Hell taught him how to sympathize with the worthy, lack fear in times of chaos, and conquer the sins that could potentially place him in the Inferno.