Student Paper 3

Dante depicts the first layer of hell as a never ending line. Limbo is the fate of the

souls undecided, where those who neither feared God nor betrayed him ended up,

waiting for a judgement day that would never come. My punishment for this would be to

force the souls to watch what could have happened if they had believed. They would

have to watch over, and over again how much happier they would have been. Daniel

Radcliffe would be on this level along with Kara Knightly who are both known atheists.

I believe Dantes punishment for lust was beautifully poetic and tragic. Lovers

forever being drawn together within touching distance only to be ripped away by a

unmerciful wind. I especialy appreciate his use of the storm as a metaphor for their lust,

strong, uncontrollable and uncaring of what it leaves in its wake. Like the poet I would

use a element with the same impact fire. The souls would have to forever see each

other but only through a wall of flames. Barely in reaching distance but as soon as they

reached out they would be burned the way they had burned the victims of their affair.

I would send Jessie James, not the American outlaw born in the 19th century,

but the man who had had multiple affairs with multiple women against his wife Sandra

Bullock.

The punishment for gluttony in The Inferno was that you are continuously pelted

with rain and hail, then forced to eat the putrid dirt from the effects. To add to the cruelty

they are forever eaten by Cerberus (in Greek mythology his is the dog of Hades,the god

of the underworld, and the guard dog to the gates of the realm) a monstrous, three

headed beast with an unquenchable hunger. I believe that is a bit drastic considering

that we could all be thought a gloton in some aspect. My punishment would be that the

thing they desired most in the world they would be able to get, but soon everything

would turn into that specific thing. The Midas touch, the ancient Greek king who desired
gold above all things. The gods granted him the the ability to turn whatever he touched

to gold: his food, drink, servants and eventually his only daughter. The sinner I would

include here would be Kim Kardashian .

For Greed I would allow the sinners to know what they desire most at the end of

a never ending labyrinth. They would search and fight for what they desired above all

else much as they did when they were alive, only now they would never obtain it. Here I

would put Donald Trump

The victims of wrath in the story would forever fight just below the surface of the

river Styx. Fire fits this sin just as well as lust but I believe it is serve as poetic justice to

use the opposite element here; ice. Because in their life they could not cool their

tempers, they are to forever wander subzero temperatures with little to nothing on or with

them. They would be forced to rely on the kindness of others to make their eternity more

bearable. A candidate for this punishment would be Chris Brown (who I believe should

have an even worse fate).

Heresy was punished by spending eternity inside a flaming tomb in The Inferno. I

however, believe a more fitting punishment would be that they are filled with confusion

and for ever being told a lie by others. If the guilty were to ask where they were, they

would be told somewhere completely opposite and any truth they were ever told would

be skewed and morphed until it was barely a fact, which may confuse the soul even

more. Much like the lies they had told the victims of when they were alive. No one more

fitting of this than the leaders of the Westboro Baptist Church.

To thoses who brought violence onto others, they would be subjected to varying

degrees of pain either matching what they caused others or 1000 times that depending

on the audacity of their crime. Serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer or Aileen Wuornos

deserve the absolute worst.

 Fraud is to be considered these such as corrupt politicians, thieves, hypocrites

and false prophets. Like the violence there are many different types and degrees of this

sin so the consequences should be equally as broad. These souls should forever have

something taken from them like they had taken from others. The politician who had

stolen millions of dollars from those who only wanted to continue their education should

have everything stolen from them then forced to see the effect their actions had on the

victims and the victim's family over and over again for the rest of their existence. Vice

President Spiro Agnew surely deserves this fate.

Dante saw this as the worst sin anyone could ever commit. To the extent to which

he thought they deserved to be forever chewed and eaten by the devil. My punishment

for this should be that they are to see all of the world's evil. I do not believe that those

who committed treachery deserve a worse fate than the ones who acted in violence. The

betrayal similar to Julius Caesar and his best friend Brutus is Robert Ford and Jesse

James (the American outlaw who was born in the 19th century). Jesse was shot in the

back like Julius was stabbed in the back. Both died at the hand of someone they trusted

in similar fashion.