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The Pilgrim as a Placeholder

The Inferno by Dante Alighieri is a retelling of the journey of the pilgrim Dante by

the poet Dante. By establishing the dual personas, Dante allows the readers to venture

hell in the eyes of a naïve newcomer for easier relatability and a sensible veteran for the

moral realizations.

As a retrospective individual, Dante the poet seems omnipotent with his

righteous and rational judgement on the sinners of hell, understanding immediately why

the sinner is aptly punished. Contrasting is Dante the pilgrim who is sympathetic to the

black-and-white system of punishment in the underworld. This is a very humane

disparity likened to how any common man will wont to view happenings in a logical way

only during higdsight whilst being a slave to emotions during it.

The Inferno is a Christian book meant to impart moral learnings and descriptions

of hell to the less fortunate of the time period. As such, relatability of the main character

was solidified by Dante through his setting of a journey in the middle of life. By stating a

vague circumstance, Dante the pilgrim can be a stand-in for any random person who is

similarly living midway through life. This is further emphasized when Dante chose the

wordings of “midway along the journey of our life”, implying that Dante the pilgrim is a

collective figurehead for the readers. Thereby, the transformation of the pilgrim, thanks

to his comprehension of sin, towards a being closer to God is the ideal route for the

readers.

Dante’s journey in hell begins with the gate of hell, of which from there he can

already hear the screams of the damned. After learning that these screams belong to
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the apathetic neutral who chose to do neither good or evil, Dante realized that hell is a

venue of punishment based on strict, rigid standards to serve the principle of rewarding

the virtuous and punishing the opposite. As such, those who were not virtuous, though

not sinful, still belonged to hell.

In consistency with relatability, the Inferno binds with the mind easily for long

times due to its use of famous historical and mythological figures. Besides, the use of

literary characters allows the readers to be familiar with the backstory of the sinner

without needing Dante to tell of their complicated backstory. In addition, Dante uses

everydays norms of his era along with intricate politics to let the audience immerse

themselves easily into his writing. This set of characters also allow Dante to introduce

innovations in the Christian hell such as including in it the virtuous yet unbaptized

“sinners”.

Dante described the state of the heretics in the sixth circle of hell through the

military figure, Farinata. As the latter has described, the damned can only view the past

and future and as the happening nears the present, the cloudier it is. This punishment is

fitting as a symbol of separation from the knowledge the heretics are proud of, that is,

the knowledge within the present. Using Farinata as the figure implies that the logic of

today, of which is the basis of man’s actions and beliefs, is insufficient in understanding

God. Therefore, sometimes blind faith is necessary.