Dante Alighieri · Philosophy

Contrapasso: The Sin Seen Truly

Dante’s law of Hell - that every punishment mirrors the sin it answers, so the soul’s eternal condition is nothing but the sin itself made visible. Hell is less a place God sends you than the shape the soul has chosen and become.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that contrapasso (counter-suffering) means each punishment in Dante’s Hell either resembles or inverts the sin, so the penalty reveals the sin’s inner truth, and that Hell is best understood as self-chosen - the state the soul has made of itself. Explain both ideas in your own words.

Leads to Virgil.

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