Compassion and Contempt: Dante's Moral Corrections of Shades in the Inferno

Abstract

In Dante’s Commedia, he uses his contrapasso as an enforcing justice of punishment as the mirrored consequence of sinner’s Earthly sin. The contrapasso is used as a tool of moral correction for how Dante responds to the shades’ choices committed in sin. Dante’s responses range from pity, contempt, and more rarely, violence. These instances of violence raise ethical questions to the reader that challenge preconceived notions about sin’s severity of punishment. These instances also include disassembling the dichotomy that is Dante auctor and Dante agens, by raising questions of historical narrative into his treatment of certain shades. This question of justice is prompted by the poet for the reader and for himself as the pilgrim. His responses are often guided or scolded by Virgil, who serves as his personification of reason, offering Dante the opportunity to extend this influence of reason to those in Hell who betrayed it in life