"Libra" by Don Delillo Essay

      In Don Dellilo’s “Libra”, he portrays a character that is unable to relate to other people, displays shallow emotional responses to what others would consider more stimulating (whether negative or positive), has had a violent/troubled childhood, and requires a constant source of provocation, which leads him to act impulsively. Using these qualities, the author creates the profile of a violent sociopath. During this essay, I will support this conclusion with examples of tone, diction, and violent imagery.

       The author uses an emotionless tone to portray the observing qualities of the protagonist; he does this by punctuating his writing with short sentences and providing the main character with unaffected reactions to social traumas. This is first shown when he depicts the preteen girls sitting on the bench. He uses a very sexual connotation when describing the jingling of their ankle bracelets and the hum of their murmuring voices, but unlike most preteen boys, the protagonist is unaffected by their calls. Instead, he continues moving away from their charms with a smile on his face that you get the impression has nothing to do with the events transpiring around him. The next example is the way he addresses the woman on the bus next to him, Marguerite. Right away you realize that there is something wrong with the situation, since a child is publically traveling with a drunk female, but this is quickly resolved when it is revealed that this woman is actually his mother. During this paragraph he introduces his own mother as “Marguerite”, which is an example of the aforementioned disconnect with his emotions and the people around him, and it is a testament to how easily he disregards what some would consider a troubling situation. After all, his own mother is drunkenly discussing her shortcomings as a parent with her thirteen or fourteen year old son on a bus ride home from the beach. The third example is found in the fourth paragraph when the narrator graphically details a killing that happened in a candy store. When he describes this, it reads like a news report: “An Italian was murdered in a candy store, shot five times, his brains dashing the wall near the comic-book rack.” Again, this is a preteen boy describing the death of a man he might’ve known or seen around his town, and it sounds completely apathetic. Overall, the emotionless tone used in this passage shows his inability to relate to others his own age, demonstrates his dulled response to emotional sensations, and because of these things, further categorizes him as a sociopath.

      Along with the emotionless tone seen in “Libra”, there is also repeated, violent imagery that is a testament to his aggressive and abusive childhood. The first example of this happens on the derailing trip the protagonist takes with his intoxicated mother. While on the bus, she describes how she had to fire the nanny she had chosen AND move to a new section of town because she found welts on the protagonist’s legs from the nanny whipping him. This begs the question: where is his father? If this small family had had some kind of “protector”, they wouldn’t have relocated their house, so obviously he is not in the picture. This could be alluding to an abusive relationship between the protagonist’s father and mother, but the mother only relocated because the nanny was beating her son, not her. In my opinion, this text is insinuating an abusive relationship between the protagonist and his father that was great enough to cause the mother to leave her husband and move. Either way, it is definitely eluding to the protagonist’s violent upbringing. The next example occurs while the narrator is describing the death of an Italian man. As I mentioned in the paragraph above, it reads like a news report, even though this is obviously a very violent scene being described. But, there is only one thing keeping it from being completely apathetic: the word “dashing”. This is the only adjective used in the small portion of the paragraph describing the man’s death, and it is only used in context with the comic-book section of the candy store. This use of violent imagery is symbolic for the destruction of his youth using the comic books, shows the way that his abusive childhood destroyed his innocence, and demonstrates the way external violence can end a man’s life, literally and figuratively. Furthermore, the fact that protagonist seems unconcerned with all of these events supports my theory of his sociopathic tendencies that originated from a violent childhood.

      Using diction, the author creates a turn in the small passage. This turn occurs when the protagonist rides the subway up to Inwood in the seventh paragraph. Throughout this passage, the protagonist has been little more than bored, and he demonstrates close to no emotion when it comes to pain, trauma, death, happiness, or pleasure.  This is shown when, in the midst of all the terrible things the narrator talks about, he throws in phrases like “making him smile in his secret way”, “his mother sold stockings in Manhattan”, “a woman on the street, completely ordinary”, “a lazy radio voice doing a ballgame”, “It was Sunday, Mother’s Day”, as if the things the protagonist has experienced have had no effect on him, when in fact, many would be emotionally traumatized. After the turn, however, the narrator begins describing things that are alive instead of the death that has permeated the majority of this paragraph, and like the writing, it seems the protagonist has come alive as well. It is no longer enough to the ride the bus to the beach with his mother; he takes it into the dangerous parts of town where the beggars and crazy people live just because he can. Instead of riding it calmly and with purpose like the people who crowd in around him, he jumps the turnstiles, and rides in between the cars, “gripping the heavy chain” outside, and enjoys the fact that one small error in human methodology could kill him. But more than what is physically displayed here, is the psychological effect riding the subway has on him; he thinks it makes him “powerful”, more powerful than the people who are unaware of the energy his surrounding possess, and he feel like he was let in on a “secret” unshared with anybody else. He enjoys the “satisfying wave of rage and pain” the noise of the subway gives him. These impulsive and thrill-seeking actions also identify him as a sociopath, because sociopaths are always in need of stimulus, as they can’t tolerate the thoughts silence brings on.

      In conclusion, the author uses an emotionless tone, violent imagery, and a changing diction to display the sociopathic tendencies of a young boy who would grow up to be the murderer of the 35^th President of the United States. 

Dante's Inferno Circles

·       Circle One: Limbo

o   Punishment: struck with grief from a lack of God’s presence.

o   Type of People: Limbo includes people who did not choose a faith so can be considered neither good nor bad, and good people who are not baptized, or lived before Christian faith, but lived virtuous lives.

§  Most of the people he lists are philosophers: Plato, Socrates, Democritus, Zeno, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Thales, Heraclitus, Diogenes, Dioscorides, Orpheus, Cicero, Linus, Seneca, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, and Averroes.

·       Orpheus: He was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in Greek religion and myths. Major stories focus on his ability to charm all living things (including stones) with his music, his attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld where he failed, and his death at the hands of those who could not hear his divine music.

·       Linus: He is considered the inventor of melody and rhythm in Greek religion and myths. Linus taught music to his brother Orpheus and then to Hercules, and he wrote the story of Dionysus and other legends in Pelagic writing. His life was ended by Heracles, who killed Linus with his own lyre after he reprimanded Heracles for making errors.

§  When Dante first enters the first circle of Hell, he meets up with three famous poets: Homer, Lucan, Ovid, and Horace. They know Virgil, and after sharing a few words just between themselves, they invite Dante over too their circle. Dante takes this as a sign of them accepting him.

·       Homer: author of epic poems about the war between the Greeks and Trojans (Iliad) and Ulysses' adventurous return voyage (Odyssey). Dante had no direct familiarity with Homer's poetry (it wasn't translated and Dante didn't read Greek).

·       Ovid: wrote Metamorphoses, mythological tales of transformations, often based on relations between gods and mortals.

·       Lucan: wrote Pharsalia, which is about the Roman civil war between Caesar and Pompey.

·       Horace: the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.

o   How the Punishment Fits the Sin: For the people who did not choose a faith, they are forced to chase a blank banner around while being repeatedly stung by hornets. The blank banner that the uncommitted souls chase symbolizes the meaninglessness of their activity on Earth and because these souls could not be made to act one way or another on Earth, hornets now sting them into action. For the virtuous non-believers, they are struck by sadness and loss of hope. They live in longing for God’s presence in their lives, which makes sense because they were good people but existed without faith.

o   Monsters and Demons: The ferryman Charon the guide who takes Dante across the river Acheron, which marks the real border of Hell.

o   Allusions: Cantos I-IV

§  “Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself / in dark woods, the right road lost.” By writing “our life’s journey” coupled with the generic phrase “the right road,” Dante links his own experience to the broader human experience. The dark wood symbolizes sinful life on Earth, and the “right road” refers to the righteous life that leads to God.

§  Psalms describes a human lifespan as being seventy years. Therefore, Dante would have considered man’s lifespan to be seventy years; so when he says, “midway on our life’s journey” he is making himself thirty-five, and placing the happenings in the year 1300.

§  The three animals that stop Dante on his way up a hill represent the sins of lust, pride, and greed. Also, the three beasts have a biblical allusion to Jeremiah: “Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, and a leopard shall watch over their cities.” In this situation, the Lion represents pride, the Leopard represents lust, and the starving she-wolf represents greed.

§  At the beginning of Canto II Dante invocates of the Muses, which is the traditional way to begin a classical epic, and this is reminiscent of Virgil’s call for the Muses’ inspiration in the opening of the Aeneid.

§  Throughout Canto III, the organization of Dante’s Hell largely correlates with medieval Catholic theology, particularly the views of Thomas Aquinas. An exception to this is when Dante and Virgil descend from Limbo. Even though Aquinas believed that pagans who lived before Christ and led virtuous lives could have a place in Heaven, Dante shows less sympathy and automatically punishes those who did not worship the Christian God, regardless of their virtue.

o   Theme: Time: The use of intertemporality, the mingling of elements from different time periods, is seen within the Inferno. Take for example, Virgil: having entered into eternity he, like many of Dante’s other characters, can now see into times other than those in which he lived, which allows him to understand what Dante considers honest theology. This technique is sufficient within the context of Dante’s poem because his characters can see beyond what they lived on Earth, because in death, they exist outside of time. Basically, their time periods don’t matter because they exist in all of time simultaneously, and are able to see the error of their ways because they exist within the “big picture”.

·       Circle Two: Lust

o   Punishment: to be stuck in a torrential rainstorm, and to be whipped around and molested by wind.

o   Type of People: This circle includes people who let their passions get the best of them and committed sins of the flesh. It is for the Lustful.

§  The people in this circle are from the most well-known and infamous love affairs throughout history and mythology: Semiramus, Cleopatra, Helen, Achilles, Paris, Dido, Tristan, Paolo da Rimini, and Francesca.

·       Achilles: the most formidable Greek hero in the war against the Trojans. He was killed by Paris after being tricked into entering the temple of Apollo to meet the Trojan princess Polyxena.

·       Helen: wife of Menelaus (King of Sparta) was said to be the cause of the Trojan War: acclaimed as the most beautiful mortal woman in history.

·       Paris: Helen was abducted by Paris and brought to Troy as his mistress, which started the Trojan War.

§  Dante personally interacted with Francesca, lover of Paolo da Rimini and wife of Gianciotto da Rimini. Paolo da Rimini and Francesca: Francesca da Rimini and Paolo da Rimini are punished together in hell for their adultery: Francesca was married to Paolo's brother, Gianciotto, by whom they were both killed.

o   How the Punishment fits the Crime: the Lustful, those who were obsessed with “stimulation” in life, now have their nerves unceasingly stimulated by the storm. Also, they lie prone and in the dark, which are reminiscent of the conditions in which acts of lust generally happen. Finally, because they failed to restrain their inner emotions, external conditions now batter their bodies.

o   Monsters and Demons: Minos is the monster on this level, and he assigns an endless line of sinners to their torments. To enter Hell, the sinners must confess to Minos, and then he wraps his tail around himself a certain number of times, indicating the number of the circle to which the soul must go.

o   Allusions: Canto V

§  The monster Minos is from both the Aeneid and from ancient Grecian mythology. Dante mixes these different forms of religion a lot during The Divine Comedy, and this may speak to how closely mythology and literature intertwine with his own religion and theology.

§  Dante the poet tries to justify the existence of an objectively moral universe; yet he also tends Paolo and Francesca with great human feeling, with the sensual language and romantic with which he tells their story. This may be the deep love he had for a woman named Beatrice showing through. Something that also spoke to this was an allusion to Dido, a mythological queen who committed suicide because of her unrequited love for Aeneas. Most souls that have committed suicide end up far deeper in Hell, but Dante chooses to punish Dido for her lesser sin. This does not continue on throughout the poem, and only seems to pertain to souls who committed sins of the flesh.

o   Theme: Divine Love: As I mentioned in the allusion just above this, Dante seems to express favoritism for the souls who have committed sins of the flesh. In life, Dante was in love with a woman named Beatrice from afar, and even though they both married different people, he wrote The Divine Comedy and a poem called Vita Nuova for her. Actually, the whole journey he is going through is to reach her in Heaven, where she will become his spiritual guide.

·       Circle Three: Gluttony

o   Punishment: They are doused in excrement.

o   Type of People: Circle three contains people in this circle are those whose sins involved an obsession with pleasure, and who excessively pursued pleasure in life.

§  Ciacco: Dante wrote the Divine Comedy two years after he was exiled from Florence, Italy, his home, but it is set two years before the uprising happened. So, he using this man, Ciacco, to “predict” the political events of the next few years.  Ciacco’s depiction of Florence as a city divided refers to the struggle for control between the Black and White Guelphs at the turn of the century. Ciacco describes a bloody fight between the two factions that occurred on May 1, 1300, and which resulted in the Whites gaining power, though only for a few years. The Blacks subsequently returned to power and exiled hundreds of Whites, including Dante, who never forgave the people of Florence for his banishment from his beloved city.

o   How the Punishment Fits the Crime: This punishment is fitting because the people here are doused with the literal (and metaphoric) product of their greedy and wasteful consumption.  

o   Monsters and Demons: Cerberus is a three-headed dog that guards the entrance to the circle of gluttony. This dog is altered in Dante’s Inferno to be described as intent on finding his next meal, which is reminiscent of the souls who are sentenced to the third circle.

o   Allusions: Canto VI

§  Cerberus is an allusion to the classical underworld in the Aeneid, in which Cerberus is the guardian of the Underworld in its’ entirety.

§  When Virgil tells Dante that Ciacco will not rise again until the "sound of the angelic trumpet" and the arrival of the "hostile judge”, he is alluding to the Last Judgment. This is often referred to as the Apocalypse and the Second Coming of Christ. The Last Judgment marks the end of time when God comes to judge all human souls and separate the saved from the damned, the former ascending to eternal glory in heaven and the latter cast into hell for eternal punishment.

§  In 1300, Florence was politically divided between two rival factions known as white and black Guelphs. The white Guelphs were in charge in May 1300, when violent uprisings broke out between the two parties. By spring of the following year, most of the white Guelphs had returned while leading black Guelphs were forced to remain in exile. However, by 1302, six hundred leading white Guelphs (Dante among them) were forced into exile.

o   Theme: Time: In this Canto, Dante uses time to tell of a rivalry that is relevant throughout the entire Divine Comedy. Since he set the book two years before the year he was writing, he is using the element of intertemporality to “predict” what is going to happen in Florence through his friend Ciacco.

·       Circle Four: Avarice and Prodigal

o   Punishment: Two groups of souls push weights, and each group completes a semicircle before crashing into the other group and turning around to proceed in the opposite direction.

o   Type of People: the Avaricious and the Prodigal are people who, during their lives, hoarded and squandered their money. The Avaricious are usually corrupt clergymen, popes, and cardinals. Basically, they were not practical with goods that come with fortune.

o   How the Punishment Fits the Sin: The sinners crash together endlessly, disfiguring themselves and the people they are jousting with. They cannot control themselves, just as they couldn’t in life. In the same way they couldn’t help but spend their money on endless frivolity, they can’t help but hurt people who did the same things.

o   Monsters and Demons: Plutus is the guardian of the fourth circle; this creature is suitable to guard the entrance to the fourth circle because it is unable to do anything about them entering, kind of like the people in the fourth circle. Also, it has distinctly human-like qualities, such as the ability to speak/understand English.

o   Allusions: Canto VII

§  Pluto is the name usually given to Hades in Roman mythology, and obviously this creatures name is an allusion to it. Also, when Virgil and Dante reach this creature, it says some kind of satanic invocation, which supports this theory.

§  In the scene of the Avaricious and the Prodigal in Canto VII, we see Dante join these two sins by placing them within the same physical space. This notion of the value of prudence seems to stems from Aristotelian philosophy, to which Dante is guided by throughout The Divine Comedy. Aristotle’s philosophy was to praise the virtue of moderation; in his view, one should avoid the extremes of passion and guide oneself by reason.

o   Theme: Wisdom and Knowledge: This reference mentioned above to Aristotelian philosophy shows the intricacy of Hell in the Divine Comedy. In Dante’s opinion, all man’s work should be, in some way, devoted to honoring nature or worshipping God, and the Inferno can in some ways be viewed as doing just that.

·       Circle Five: Wrathful, Sullen and Lazy

o   Punishment: the wrathful are engaged in eternal combat with on another on the surface of the River Styx, while the bodies of the sullen are at the bottom, choking on mud and water.

o   Type of people: The wrathful are those who were consumed by anger their whole lives, while the ones who are completely submerged are the sullen, or those who muttered and skulked during their time on Earth.

§  Filippo Argenti: a famous politician and a citizen of Florence who was a part of the Black Guelph political faction. In life, Filippo once slapped Dante, his brother took Dante’s possessions after Dante’s exile from Florence, and Filippo’s family opposed Dante’s return from exile.

o   How the Punishment Fits the Sin: the wrathful are finally having to express the anger they walked around with their whole lives by ruthlessly fighting each other in very passive aggressive ways such as biting and hair-pulling. The sullen are forced to just sit at the bottom of the river stewing at how unfair everything is in their lives.

o   Monsters and Demons: the boatman Phlegyas takes them across the river Styx.

o   Allusions: Canto VII-VIII

§  The River Styx is from Greek mythology and is actually the river sinners are supposed to use to enter into Hell, but here it is seen in crossing from upper Hell to lower Hell.

§  Phlegyas is from Greek mythology, and in a fit of rage similar to the sinners in Circle Five; he set fire to the temple of Apollo because the god had raped his daughter. He was the son of Ares.

§  Phlegyas is also an allusion to the Aeneid because he appears in Virgil’s underworld as showing contempt for the gods.

§  Argenti is an allusion to the battle in Florence because he was a black Guelph, and the punishment he was given is much more appropriate, in Dante’s eyes, than the others. Some try to explain Dante's harsh treatment of Filippo as payback for an earlier offense--namely, Filippo once slapped Dante in the face, or Filippo's brother took possession of Dante's confiscated property after the poet had been exiled from Florence.

o   Theme: Compassion and Forgiveness: In this Circle, we begin to see the change happening in Dante. In previous circles, he showed empathy for the souls being tortured, but now he condemning them. This correlates with the transition between upper hell and lower hell, upper hell including circles I-V and lower hell including circles VI-VIX. Instead of being compassionate as he once was, he thinks their punishments are becoming more apt, and shows this when he feels no sympathy for the sinners in circle five, and instead just feels disgust. 

·       Circle Six: The City of Dis: Heretics

o   Punishment: the people here must lay in burning coffins for all eternity.

o   Type of People: heretics and false teachers; heretics deny the soul’s immortality and teach others this supposedly wrong theory.

§  Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti: he the father of Guido, one of Dante’s intimate friends, and asks if his son is dead. Dante replies that perhaps Virgil held Guido in disdain, and the father sinks back in despair, thinking this means Guido is dead as well.

§  Farinata: he was a political leader of Dante’s era, and they begin discussing politics. They are obviously on different parties, though which parties aren’t identified, but they treat each other cordially. This shade can see the future, but not the present, which is a punishment for the heretics. He predicts Dante’s exile.

§  Pope Anastasias: Dante believed him to be a follower of Plotinus’s heresy, which held that Christ was not divine.

o   How the Punishment Fits the Crime: Heretics believed that their souls would die when their bodies died. This is not the case. Because of their false belief, their souls are locked in burning coffins, representing their trapped bodies buried on Earth, and the souls ability to stay alive in spite of the body’s current circumstance.

o   Monsters and Demons: Fallen Angles, Furies, and Medusa

o   Allusions:

§  Apart from Farinata's mention of him here in the circle of heresy, the emperor Frederick II was important to Dante. Raised in Palermo, in the Kingdom of Sicily, Frederick was crowned emperor in Rome in 1220. He was central in the conflict of the empire and the papacy, and he was twice excommunicated before his death in 1250.

§  While the Florentine political parties of Dante's day were the white and black guelphs the blacks more favorable to interests of the old noble class, the whites more aligned with the rising merchant class--Florence before Dante's childhood participated in the more general political struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines on the Italian peninsular and in other parts of Europe.

§  We learn from Farinata all the damned possess the supernatural ability to "see" future events. However, their visual acuity decreases as events come closer to the present. Because there will no longer be a future when the world ends, the souls of the damned will have no external awareness to distract them from their eternal suffering.

§  All the monsters in this section are allusions to Greek Mythology.

o   Theme: Politics: Farinata is a member of the Black Ghibellines, the political party that overthrew the White Guelphs and exiled Dante. They have an in-depth conversation about politics, and even though they are form different parties, it is very civilized. Politics is a very prominent subject in Dante’s Inferno, and many times people who are on the opposing side of him will be punished more harshly (see Argenti).

·       Circle Seven: Violence

o   Punishment:

§  Tyrants and robbers are forced to swim in a boiling stream of blood, and if they emerge from it more than they are allowed, they are speared like fish.

§  People who committed suicide are turned into trees and furies sit in their branches and eat them. Hounds chase gamblers, and if they are caught, they are torn to pieces.

§  Sodomites, Usurers, and Blasphemers are condemned to a desert of blazing sand with a constant rain of fire.

o   Type of people: there are three types of people in the Seventh Circle: people who committed crimes against others, people who committed crimes against themselves, and people who committed crimes against God.

§  Sins Against Others

·       Alexander the Great: He used his authority to launch his father's military expansion plans. He invaded the Achaemenid empire, ruled Asia Minor, and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the

·       Atilla the Hun: he was one of the most feared enemies of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. He was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea.

§  Sins Against Yourself:

·       Pier Della Vigna: an advisor to Emperor Frederick, and that he was a moral and admirable man. But when an envious group of scheming courtiers blackened his name with lies, he felt such shame that he took his own life.

·       Jacomo da Sant’Andrea: a gambler.

·       Bush-Soul: a Florentine man in life who hanged himself.

§  Sins Against God:

·       Capaneus: one of the kings who besieged Thebes, he is extremely defiant about his chosen punishment.

·       Brunetto Latini: a counselor to Dante during life, but there is an implication here that Latini may have raped or molested Dante when he was kid.

·       The three men: Dante knew them from his time in Italy. They ask how Florence is doing, and if it is still in its’ former glory. Dante replies no.

o   How the Punishment Fits the Crime:

§  Sins Against Others: having to swim in boiling blood makes sense because in death, they are doused in the blood they lusted over in life.

§  Sins Against Yourself: They are turned into trees because they refused their human form by killing themselves, so they no longer have the privilege of living within that skin. The harpies eating their branches represent the pain that was eating them inside while they were alive.

§  Sins Against God: The blasphemers, whose lives were devoid of God, and the Sodomites/Rapists, whose lives were devoid of love, are forced to walk in the desert because like the desert, their lives are devoid of love.

o   Monsters and Demons: Centaurs spear the people who emerge too far from the river of blood; harpies eat the branches of the Suicides trees.

o   Allusions: Cantos XII-XVII

§  When Virgil comments in Canto XII about the broken rocks he and Dante must navigate, he alludes to the earthquake that, according to the Gospels, occurred upon Christ’s crucifixion. The changes in Hell mentioned here correspond to two divine events: the Harrowing and the Last Judgment. After this second event, time will disappear altogether.

§  In the trees punishment, having discarded their bodies on Earth, these souls are rendered unable to assume human form for the rest of eternity. The implication here is that they will be returned to their bodies after the Last Judgment.

§  When Florence was Christianized, it abandoned the god Mars as its patron and turned its allegiance toward John the Baptist. The Bush-Soul mentions this when discussing the history of Florence.

o   Theme: Time: In this Circle, you see the first act of real defiance against someone’s punishment, and that is the King of Thebes. This illustrates the reason no one can repent from Hell: sinners refuse to give up their sinister ways. This brings in the idea of time and eternity because in their refusal to change, they condemn themselves to an unending cycle of punishment.

·       Circle Eight: The Malebolge (“Evil Pouches”) Fraudulence

o   Punishment:

§  First Pouch: Pimps and Seducers run back from one side of the pit to the other because there are demons who sit on either side waiting to whip them, forcing them to the other side.

§  Second Pouch: The false flatterers are plunged in a ditch full of human excrement.

§  Third Pouch: The simoniacs are in the ground headfirst with only their feet protruding, and flames are lapping their feet.

§  Fourth Pouch: The false Diviners –magicians, astrologers– walk in a circle with their heads twisted on backwards so their tears of pain fall on their buttocks.

§  Fifth Pouch: Barterers are submerged in a pit of black tar, and if they come out of it, they are skewered and torched by demons called the Malabranche, or “Evil Claws”.

§  Sixth Pouch: Hypocrites walk around in lead-lined cloaks that are bejeweled on the outside.

§  Seventh Pouch: Serpents are raping Thieves and they sometimes inhabit the sinners’ body, and if the sinner gets bitten, they burn alive.

§  Eighth Pouch: the False Counselors burn alive in individual flames for all eternity.

§  Ninth Pouch: the Schismatic people are eternally split in half and forced to walk in a circle until they get split in half again. 

§  Tenth Pouch: the Falsifiers are plagued with leprosy and continuously scratch off their skin.

o   Type of People:

§  Seducers and Panderers: those who deceive women for their own advantage.

·       Jason: A hero from Greek mythology who traveled with the Argonauts to recover the Golden Fleece. He married Medea but broke his vows and married the daughter of the king of Corinth. When Medea found out, she cursed her the woman’s wedding dress so the new bride would burn alive.

·       Random Italian: he lived in Bologna and was sent here because he sold his sister to a noble.

§  False Flatterers: those who use words they don’t mean to get what they want.

·       Alessio Interminei: Dante had a hard time recognizing because of his filthiness. He was there because of his flatteries.

§  Simoniacs: those who bought or sold ethereal pardons or offices.

·       Pope Nicholas III: He elevated three of his closest relatives to the cardinalate and gave others important positions. Dante not only predicts him being in Hell, but also Pope Boniface VIII and Clement V. 

§  Diviners: individuals who used unholy powers to see ahead in life.

·       Amphiaraus: an oracle who predicted the failure of the Seven Against Thebes siege, and instructed his son to kill his mother once Amphiaraus was dead.

·       Eurypylus and Calchas: they were Greek augurs involved in choosing the sailing date for Troy by using unholy powers.

·       Michael Scot: a magician who was said to have turned a coven of witches to stone.

§  Barterers: people who accept bribes.

·       Navarrese: served in the household of King Thibault and went to the fifth pouch because he accepted bribes.

§  Hypocrites: People who say one thing, but do another.

·       Catalano and Loderingo: had been chosen to keep the peace in Florence, and had acted hypocritically.

·       Fra Catalano: he was a man who had counseled the Pharisees to let one man, rather than a nation, suffer, and others in the same counsel were also impaled here. He was the man that suggested they only crucify Jesus rather than all the Jews.

§  Thieves: people who steal from a sacristy.

·       Vanni Fucci: he stole a treasure from the Church of St. James in his hometown; he had accused an innocent man, Vanni Della Nona, with the crime, for which Della Nona was executed.

§  False Counselors: people who give deceiving or conniving advice or gifts.

·       Ulysses and Diomedes: they were being punished for the fraudulent scheme of the Trojan Horse.

·       Guido da Montefeltro: it is a man of Romagna who first was a soldier, then a friar trying to make amends for his misdeeds. However, the Pope had asked his counsel for his illegitimate warfare against Christians. The friar had not wanted to compromise his soul, but when the Pope offered to absolve him in advance, the friar gave him the advice he wanted.

§  Schismatic: people who instigate evil doings.

·       Mohammed: he is the prophet of the Muslims and he is there because he divided two religions to create this one.

·       Bertran de Born: a man who made a father and son hate each other, so his head was cut off.  

§  Falsifiers/Counterfeiters: Falsifiers of money and identity and whatnot

·       Master Adam: a counterfeiter who was told by his brother and others to make false coins, and he wants to get his revenge on them still.

·       Myrrha: a Princess who disguised herself as someone else to trick her father into having sex with her.

·       Gianni Schicchi: he disguised himself as Simone Donati's uncle Buoso Donati in order to name someone the sole beneficiary of Donati’s fortune.

o   How The Punishment Fits the Crime:

§  Seducers and Panderers: In life, they moved women like merchandise, but in death, they are the ones running from the demons.

§  False Flatterers: Their punishment makes sense because…wait for it…they were so full of shit!

§  Simoniacs: their punishment is suiting because the holes are similar to those that are used for baptizing; they are being baptized in the flames of their sins.

§  Diviners: Since they looked to see too far forward in life, they are forced to continuously look backward in death.

§  Barterers:

§  Hypocrites: Their cloaks are bejeweled on the outside to represent the falsity of their words, while the lead represents the true meaning of what they say.

§  Thieves: Since they stole things in life, they are forced to continue stealing each other’s bodies for all eternity.

§  False Counselors:

§  Schismatic: they caused division and warfare, so they are continuously being divided.

§  Counterfeiters/Falsifiers:

o   Monsters and Demons: Demons whip the Pimps and Seducers so they run back and forth, the Malebranche torture souls who emerge from a pit of black tar, serpents torment the thieves and one main demon there is Cianfa, a demon with a sword slices the Schismatic’s in half, and the lower edge of the Malebolge is guarded by a ring of titans and earth giants who are chained there for going against God.          

o   Allusions:

§  Icarus is mentioned of pg. 177. His father, Daedalus, created bronze wings that were sealed with so they could escape from the Labyrinth from Grecian Legend. Sadly, he flew to close to the son and the sea, which loosened his straps and made him fall to his death.

§  Jason and the Argonauts were the crew who procured the Gold Fleece.

§  “….Layman or Cleric” The people in the privies are so soiled you can’t tell if they are a priest or a nonordained member of the church.

§  Simon Magus was a sorcerer who was sent by God to save Ennola who a fallen angel, reincarnated into Helen of Troy. He was also known for paying off people in the church to get what he wanted.

§  Cacus stole cattle from Hercules and was struck by him 100 times with a club even though he had died after the tenth.

§  Jupiter’s wife, Juno, was so angry at her husband’s infatuation with Semele that she killed her. She also took revenge on Semele’s sister, Ino, who was married to Athamas. Juno caused Athamas to become mad enough to mistake Ino and her sons for lion cubs, so he beat them to death.

§  Hecuba, the queen of troy, witnessed the killing of her husband, the King of Priam, and the sacrifice of her daughter, Polyxena. Then, he son’s body, Polydorus, washed ashore after his uncle killed him. This caused her to become mad and she threw herself into the sea.

§  Potifar’s wife is “the false-one” who accuses Joseph of raping her after he refuses her advances.

o   Theme: Poetic Justice: This is a theme throughout all the punishments in Dante’s Inferno. Poetic Justice means that the punishment absolutely fits the crime, and that is a major theme especially in the Malebolge.

·       Circle Nine: Treachery

o   Punishment:

§  Caina: This first level contains people who committed fraudulent acts between individuals who share special bonds of love and trust. It is named after the biblical Cain (first child of Adam and Eve), who slew his brother Abel out of envy after God showed appreciation for Abel's sacrificial offering but not Cain's. Traitors to kindred are here immersed in the ice up to their chins.

§  Antenora: this second region contains those who betrayed their political party or their homeland. It is named for the Trojan prince Antenor who plotted with the Greeks to destroy his city. People here are imprisoned in the same way as the traitors in Caïna.

§  Ptolomea: In the third zone of circle 9 suffer those who betrayed friends or guests. It is named after one or both of the following: Ptolemy, the captain of Jericho, honored his father-in-law, the high priest Simon Maccabee, and two of Simon's sons with a great feast and then murdered them. Or Ptolemy XII, brother of Cleopatra, arranged that the Roman general Pompey be murdered as soon as he stepped ashore. Traitors punished here lie supine in the ice, which covers everything except for their faces.

§  Judecca: It is the innermost zone of the ninth and final circle of hell reserved for people who betrayed their masters or benefactors, and committed crimes with great historical and societal consequences. It is named after the apostle who betrayed Jesus. All of the sinners punished within are completely encapsulated in ice, distorted in all conceivable positions. The traitors who committed the ultimate sin, treachery against God, are being eaten by Satan.

o   Type of People:

§  Caina:

·       Mordred: a character in the Arthurian legend, known as a notorious traitor who fought King Arthur at the Battle of Camlann, where he was killed and Arthur fatally wounded.

§  Antenora:

·       Count Ugolino: he was placed here for a series of betrayals against Pisa and her political leadership. In an effort to appease the Guelphs in Tuscany, Ugolino gave Pisan castles to Florence and Lucca. The decision to sell the castles caused a rift between him and his grandson and between their Guelph followers. So, got his grandson exiled by joining forces with Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini. Then the Archbishop betrayed Ugolino, and had him arrested and imprisoned. They were held in the tower for eight months until it was decided to nail shut the door to the tower and to throw the key away. They all starved to death, after Ugolino had eaten his children and grandchildren. He is portrayed in the Inferno as eating the back of the Archbishop’s head.

·       Bocca degli Abati: belonged to a Ghibelline family that remained in Florence after other Ghibellines were banished in 1258 for their role in a foiled plot. Pretending to fight on the side of the Guelphs (as part of the cavalry), Bocca betrayed his Guelph countrymen at a decisive moment in the battle--as German mercenary troops attacked in support of the Tuscan Ghibellines--by cutting off the hand of the Guelph standard-bearer.

§  Ptolomea:

·       Fra Alberigo: He invited people over to for dinner and had an assassin waiting to kill them. The assassins cue? “Bring in the fruit.”

§  Judecca:

·       Judas: betrayer of Christ.

·       Brutus and Cassius: betrayer of the divinely appointed ruler, Julius Caesar, which caused the destruction of a unified Italy.

o   Monsters and Demons: traitors to Christ or divinely appointed leaders are in Satan’s mouth, being eternally chewed.

o   Allusions:

§  The lake Cocytus is one of the rivers in the classical underworld, from Greek meaning "to lament", is a deep pool of water that encircles a forest and into which pours sand spewed from a whirlpool.

§  Tityus is a giant from Grecian Mythology most famous for the rape of Latona, mother of Apollo, and is forever tortured in Hell by having a vulture eat his liver.

§  Typhon is an allusion to Greek Mythology as well because he attacked the Gods, lost, and was allegedly trapped under a mountain. In the Inferno, he guards the entrance to the ninth circle of Hell.

o   Theme: Time: The two poets escape Hell by climbing down Satan's ragged fur. They pass through the center of the earth (with a change in the direction of gravity, causing Dante to at first think they are returning to Hell). The pair emerges in the other hemisphere just before dawn on Easter Sunday. This is important because it appears that time has no meaning while in Hell. Take the protagonists emerging, for example. When Dante left and when Dante returns, it appears no time has past, giving the impression that time either moves slower or doesn’t exist at all. Also, the sinners are being tortured for all of eternity, which is not a measurable period of time.