When referring to Dante’s Divine Comedy, it is unavoidable to make any mention of the Inferno. While Dante’s Inferno only refers to the first canticle, it has nevertheless challenged the imagination of scholars and readers alike. The reason for this is because it is susceptible of many different interpretations. The analysis of what was really meant by the phrase, “ Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here,” to the description of certain popular religious figures in the inferno all present questions to every generation. One of these questions has to with what hell really is and who are those who belong to hell.
Hell is described as nothing more than just a symbolic instance of poetic justice. This is the Inferno, according to Dante, because it shows what sin really is and how the balance in the world is maintained by punishing those who have done wrong through poetic means (Fortune Tellers example). It must be pointed out, at this point, that there have been numerous other descriptions of what hell (Inferno) really is. The only commonality that exists between all of these descriptions is the fact that there is pain and suffering. There is punishment or rather atonement for past sins.
Since the Inferno is where people make up for the wrong that they have done, the question that arises as a consequence is why those who were not able to do anything were also punished. Pontius Pilate being one of those tortured souls; it does not show how he is being punished for his sins. The real question now is whether we all really spend some time in the Inferno because of something that we have done or is Inferno only for those who have, in the totality of things, done more wrong than right. Given the concept of Inferno, and of divinity, the question of who is worthy and who is not is something that must be decided…
