Sin's_Role_in_Society

Sin’s Role in Society: A Comparison between Inferno and The Scarlet Letter Sin can take on many different forms, shapes, or appearances to work its way into the lives of individuals. It can consume all thought. It can bring out hidden portions of people that they themselves never knew existed. For these reasons, sin is difficult to bring into literature without it damaging the entire work. In the novel’s The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Inferno by Dante Alighieri, both authors have accomplished an amazing feat by bringing in the elements of sin and its effects on society into both of their works of literature, but instead of letting those elements ruin either of their works, they use the sin they have written about to demonstrate what kind of awful examples of people sin can bring out and to demonstrate a lesson of basically what not to do. But it seems that the world literature work of Inferno has done a better undertaking of illustrating the effects of how sinister sin can be once you allow it into your life either through yourself or those that you surround yourself with. The Scarlet Letter was published in the spring of 1850. Originally it was to be part of a smaller collection of works done by Nathaniel Hawthorne, but he was pushed by his publisher to expand on the already brilliant work he had in the making. Even Hawthorne’s wife thought this was a terrible idea. Little did she know thou that the Scarlet Letter would go on to be an instant best seller and one of the first mass produced books in America. Controversy rose though of the way Hawthorne portrayed the Puritan’s in the books pre-face ‘The Custom-House’. In the story we open with a young woman, Hester Prynne, in a 17th century Boston, Massachusetts Puritan village. She has recently been named an adulterer in the village. This leads her to be forced to wear a scarlet ‘A’ on her chest to let all know of her crimes and as a symbol of shame and guilt for Hester. Not only is she forced to wear the ‘A’, but she also has the responsibility and guilt of now caring for the child that has come out of this affair, Pearl. Her husband, who had left her to go to Europe has returned, but in disguise and under a different name, Roger Chillingworth. No one knows of this secret identity besides Hester, who has sworn to secrecy. Years past and Hester has become an outcast. Along with Pearl, she lives on the outskirts of town, where the government has made repeated attempts to take Pearl away from Hester, but thanks to an elderly man by the name of Arthur Dimmesdale, all the attempts are unsuccessful. Throughout the rest of the story you see the struggle between good and evil as Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, although friends in the opening of the story when Chillingworth moves in with Dimmesdale to take constant care of him fight to be the most influential man in Hester and Pearl’s lives. Sin is the constant theme that is present throughout the entire book. The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale is similar to that of the story of Adam and Eve because, in both stories, sin results in isolation and anguish. But it also results in knowledge—specifically, in knowledge of what it means to be human and the consequences that human’s go through once they allow sin into their lives. For Hester, the Scarlet Letter functions as "her passport into regions where other women dared not tread" (Chapter 18), leading her to wonder about her society and herself more courageously than anyone else in New England. Other examples of sin throughout the book include on including Dimmesdale, the "cheating minister". His sin gives him "sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his chest vibrates in unison with theirs" (Chapter 11). His expressive and powerful sermons come from this sense of empathy. The narrative of the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is quite in keeping with the oldest and most fully authorized principles in Christian thought. His "fall" is one of a fall from grace and higher position of power in the church to his own damnation; he appears to begin in wholesomeness. He ends in corruption. The subtleness is that the minister is has the pilot of his own downfall, convincing himself that even through every step of his own evil deeds that he was still saved and pure in the eyes f God. Sin is not just shown through characters throughout the book, but also throughout symbols as well. For example, the rosebush, its beauty a striking contrast to all that surrounds it, like the intimidating size, color, and presence of the jail door. The same goes for the scarlet ‘A’. It is held out in part as an invitation to find "some sweet moral blossom" (Chapter 6) in the ensuing, tragic tale and in part as an image that "the deep heart of nature" (Chapter 7) may look more kindly on the sinful Hester and her child than her fellow Puritans do. Throughout the work, the beautiful and light nature images contrast with the Puritans thoughts and their harsh government and religious systems. Another example is Pearl. Although she is a character, Pearl herself is the embodiment of the Scarlet Letter, and Hester clothes her in a dress of scarlet, embroidered with gold thread, just like the Scarlet Letter that Hester wears on her chest. Pearl, in the mysterious prenatal world, imbibes the poison of her parents' guilt. On the other side of this argument, we have the story Inferno by Dante. Inferno is part of a three part series of books called the Divine Comedy written between 1308 and the year of Dante’s death in 1321. Each book has 33 chapters, which if you add the prelude in Inferno, gives the complete serious 100 chapters. The story is also divided into segments of 3 lined stanzas. It was the eye for detail that Dante had that gave you hints as to how much detail each level of hell would contain as well. In the story we have the poet Dante wandering through the Dark Woods when approached by three different animals, each of which represent of a different level of severity in sin. There is the she-wolf which represents self indulgent sins, the lion which represents sins of violence, and finally a leopard which represents sins of malice. Also in the dark wood he meets one of his biggest idols in the poetry world, Virgil. They then find the gates that will lead them to hell, and their exploration of the world of sin and what it has to offer you in the afterlife begin. Dante creates an imaginative relation between a person’s sin on Earth and the punishment he or she receives in Hell. The Sullen chokes on mud, the Wrathful attack one another, and so on. This idea provides many of Inferno’s moments of imagery and symbolic power, but also serves to highlight one of Dante’s major themes which are the perfection of God’s justice. The inscription over the gates of Hell in Canto III states that God was moved to create Hell by Justice. Hell exists to punish sin, and the suitability of Hell’s specific punishments testifies to the divine perfection that all sin infringe. Early in Inferno, Dante builds a great deal of strain between the impartial impersonality of God’s justice and the character Dante’s human sympathy for the souls that he sees. As the story develops, however, the character becomes less and less inclined toward pity, and repeated comments by Virgil encourage this development. Thus, the text affirms the endless wisdom of celestial justice: sinners receive punishment in perfect quantity to their sin; to pity their suffering is to demonstrate a lack of understanding and to not be able to fully grasp the error of the soul’s ways on earth. Sin basically is the storyline of Inferno. It stands as a testimony of what awaits those who commit such sins and why they should instead strive to live a life worthy of God and Paradisio. It also shows examples of some sins that sometimes you are completely unaware that you are committing such sins. For example, in Circle 2 of hell, you find the story of Francesca and Paolo, who were so madly ‘in love’, that it didn’t seem to even phase them that Francesca was already married to someone else. Not even just anyone, but to Paolo’s brother. But since they were so entranced with each other that there seemed to be no sin to them because in their eyes, it was just love, it was what they knew. Francesca even tried to pass one of Dante’s own works of poetry as a justification for why there was no sin in their love. This is where Dante realizes the real power of not only his poetry, but all poetry in general can be taken out of context of how the author intended his or her work to be read. So in conclusion, which work, Dante’s Inferno or Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, does of more efficient job of providing a stirring look at what kind of effect sin can have on the human life' I would have to argue that although Hawthorne’s presentation of sin and its effects is more realistic in which it is set in a more reasonable setting and provide characters that are more relatable, Dante has written his story that is completely shocking to those who read. It provides a real sense of what awaits those who don’t realize the error of their ways. It gives you a sense that should practically scare you into doing the right thing and to live your life in a way that you know God would find acceptable so you do not have to suffer the fate of any of the characters that Dante comes across in his Inferno. Words: 1,660