Inferno Analysis

Contrapasso is a concept in Dante’s Inferno that serves as a form of poetic justice. It refers to the idea that sinners are punished according to their sins, and the punishment reflects the nature of the sin itself. For example, those who commit fraud may be forced to walk backward…

     I have selected the following passage from Canto I, lines 13—27, for close reading. But then, on reaching the foot of a hill which marked the limit of the dark ravine that had before so pierced my heart with panic, I looked to that height and saw its shoulders…