NOT To Do

I am not sure if Dante the character or Dante the author changed dramatically. Nonetheless, after writing (or living) through such a novel and series of events it is inevitable to change at least the perspective of life. It changed mine, so definitely must have changed Dante, the speaker. Probably to a better sense, learning and being conscious of what the consequences are of our actions.

Witnessing Lucifer and the ultimate punishment did affect Dante’s feelings and emotions, “If he was once as handsome as he now… is ugly and, despite that, raised his brows… against his Maker, one can understand… how every sorrow has its source in him!” (Canto XXXIV, 33-37). Dis was a very disturbing image, and Dante’s feelings are touched: “…how every sorrow has its source in him!” The statement proves that Dante has an emotion towards the image. Including the feeling he had when he entered the Nith Circle Fourth Ring, “deprived of life and death.” This hollowness inside himself might lead him to wonder to a better place after going through hell. He is full of bitterness and “within a shadowed forest,” (Canto I, 2) since the beginning of his journey and at the end he is even more so. If I were to keep on reading Dante’s inferno once he is out of hell, I would be reading how he applies his experience to Earth to then go to Heaven, because ultimately what Dante is doing is experimenting sorrow “…and all the rest whose minds bent toward the good,…do tell me where they are and let me meet them;…for my great longing drives me on to learn… if Heaven sweetens or Hell poisons the.” (Canto VI, 81-84) Dante, the character, wants to learn, his goal in hell is to reach his “great longing”.
Once he is out of hell, he would go to Earth, back to where he had lost his way and felt lost. But this time, he would not feel that lost, even though at the end of the novel he is described as feeling sad and deprived. He would know what he supposed NOT to do. Dante then goes through a journey of a series of challenges, and in order to successfully exceed them, he needs to apply what he learned in hell. Once he knows what NOT to do, he goes to Heaven and learns what to DO.