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Inferno
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Dante Alighieri was a poet who wrote the divine comedy. The poem is often depicted as
the journey of the poet through afterlife. It is divided into inferno, Purgatory and paradise. The
structuring of the inferno can seem rather dry, however, the structure have implications in both
cultural domains, narrative and ideological sense. The inferno is not based on a Christian
template, rather, it is centered on several deadly sins. Each levels defines the kind of sin and the
punishment given. This essay therefore, argues that the ordering of the Dente sins is not even as
severity of the sin are not punished with the magnitude they deserve.
Punishment in Dante poem is derived from the crime itself, not from the damage it has
caused. This a breakaway from the common notion where the severity of the sin is determined by
the damage it has caused to others or the community. Dante’s determination of sin has
implication in the cotemporary evaluation of sin. The structuring of sin in Dante structure
outlines that punishment is more or less severe offensive to God than man. This argument seems
not to be fair in normal approach of how sin should be punished as it allows for milder sin to be
punished severe while severe sin get less punishment. For instance, hypocrisy and fluttery in

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Dante’s structure are lower than murder and robbery. In the contemporary society, fluttery is
considered a lesser sin than murder or robbery, however, Dante consider them more serous sin
probably because of their impact in society. But it does not change the common notion about
their severity in the society. Dante reversers the society or individual perspective of robbery and
theft, for normal society. It is common to many people that theft which often done in secrecy is
not as severe as robbery which often open and violent. Robbery compared to theft does more
physical harm to the victims. Perhaps for Dante, it is the secrecy that makes theft worse because
of the manner in which it is done. It also has potentials of opening other kinds of injustices such
incrimination.
Blasphemy in normal instances is worse than theft or murder because it is considered a
direct attack to God. However, for Dante, blasphemy is placed in the seventh circle while theft is
placed far below. Since God is the determiner of everything, an attack on Him would be worse
sin than any other sin, I would think that the structure would placed blasphemy as severe sin than
theft because it is a sin beyond the humanity or society, it is in the level of the Supreme Being.
For Dante, the most serious sin are those that are based on denial of political or social relations.
Capital sins are commonly discussed in relation to the sin they spawn. Ironically, for Dante, the
first five sins are presented without any subdivision while the last three sins (fraud, violence and
treachery) are subdivided into three. By emphasizing on the subdivision, Dante calls the readers’
attentions to the sins and therefore manages to shift the attention from the traditional view of sins
such as pride and greed as the worse of evil compared to treachery, fraud and violence.
‘Incontinenza’ being the last type of sin is punished outside of the city and it offends
Gods less and attract less punishment than those sin of violence. Incontinence separation from
other types of sin, alludes to the mediaeval theology that believed that Incontinenza is fully

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aware that he or she should not sin but he is led to it. In contrast, I would think that an
incontinent sinner does not like or enjoy sinning and is unable to prevent it.