Dante's Inferno is a strange journey through hell, which at times seems familiar but then sometimes seems unexpected. As an American and a Christian it is possible to think that my opinion on this could be crafted from my religion and our society, particularly its media.In my mind I see hell as this place of immense torment bestowed on sinners. My faith has taught me that those who sin go to hell to be punished. Dante's adventure clearly shows that the souls of hell are punished, as I thought. Punishments range from living in filth to painful tortures.What my religion or any movies or television shows I've seen mentioned is the idea of a hierarchy. The idea of hell being made up of circles that descend based on sin. While this idea makes sense, I have never been exposed to that thought, so it a little surprising, but also interesting. My view of hell was this burning hole where all the souls of sinners kind of dwell together. I basically felt that a sin is a sin, this is probably because it was instilled in my somewhere in my childhood. Now I feel that this circle idea is a better one, possibly more just.Another thing that surprised me was the placement of sins in this hierarchy. The first few circles seemed plausible to me. The later circles surprised me. Traitors being higher up than those who are violent to people caught me by surprise. Killing another human has been something that I feel is a great sin, but it seemed like traitors belittled it. In life the violent ones are punished harder, so maybe that's why it surprised me.What also surprised me was the placement of Judas in the same rank as Brutus and Cassius. The latter two betrayed Caesar, who to my knowledge is very insignificant, compared to Christ (who was betrayed by Judas). My religious side cries out that this is not right. This even made Dante's beliefs of the power of the political party clear, which seemed wrong to me.Dante seemed to place a lot of ...
