Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with a series of ‘circles’ that depict different layers of hell – each designed for a different sort of sinner. These circles are designed to hold and punish particular types of people for eternity. In this essay, I will choose three literary characters and discuss which circle of Dante’s hell is pertinent to them. The characters I have chosen are Okonkwo from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, who I believe belongs in the first layer of Dante’s hell – ‘limbo’ – because he does not accept Christ as his personal saviour and, whilst he is not a bad man, this condemns him to his fate; the Narrator from Geoffrey Chaucer’s General Prologue of his The Canterbury Tales, who belongs in the eighth circle of Dante’s hell where those who commit fraud belong because he presents himself as being a gregarious character to the reader whilst he is actually perceived as being the opposite by his fellow characters, making him an untrustworthy individual; and finally, Utnapishtim from The Epic of Gilgamesh belongs in the fourth circle of Dante’s hell which is reserved for the greedy, because he knowingly tricks the rest of the world into un-ceasing labour so that he can benefit and achieve immortality.
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is a short novel which focuses on the colonialisation of Africa. It addresses it through the eyes of Okonkwo and other members of his tribe, as westerners bring ideas of Christianity and modernity to them. Okonkwo was raised by a lazy father, of whom he is quite ashamed; because of this, he endeavours to work hard and follow the ways of the tribe carefully but is acutely aware of his own son’s laziness and what Okonkwo thinks of as ‘effeminate’ behaviour because he is more open to new concepts and ways of life: when his son, Nwoye, begins to take on the Christian way of life, his father thinks: “To abandon the Gods of one’s father and go about with a lot of effeminate men clucking like old hens was the very depth of abomination.” (Achebe, 1996, p 108). As a result of this, Okonkwo would be assigned to the first layer of Dante’s hell, ‘Limbo.’ This is due to his inability to accept Christ as his saviour, and his dismissive attitude towards Christianity as being an ‘abomination.’ In Dante’s Inferno, Limbo is reserved for those who cannot accept Christ but may still be good people, much like Okonkwo who really only wanted what he considered to be the best for his son: “The words I heard weighed heavy on my heart; to think that souls as virtuous as these were suspended in that limbo, and forever!” (Dante, 1995, p 41) This demonstrates that although Okonkwo was a good, strong man, he would be unable to ascend to Heaven and would be cast down into Limbo because of his non-Christian beliefs.
The next literary figure that I have allocated into Dante’s Inferno is the Narrator from the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales, who I have placed in the eighth circle of hell which is reserved for those who are knowingly fraudulent. This decision was made on the basis that the Narrator presents himself to the readers as an unreserved and outgoing guide through the tales, but that in practice, as a character, he is perceived by his fellow characters as being quiet and stoic due to his constant note taking of events (for the meta-narrative purposes of narrating the story for the reader). He also chooses to present the other pilgrims however he chooses and goes so far as to give ludicrous claims such as “March is a dry month” (Chaucer, 1993, p 12) which immediately eliminates him as a reliable source of information – March being a traditionally wet month. This curtails him as being an untrustworthy figure with a changeable personality. In Dante’s Inferno, it states: “in the Eighth circle of hell (those of Simple Fraud” (Dante, 1995, p 195) which clearly indicates it is an area reserved for those are untrustworthy.
The third and final literary character is Utnapishtim from The Epic of Gilgamesh. He belongs in the fourth circle of Dante’s hell which is reserved for those who are greedy. Utnapishtim is the greediest of creatures because he willingly lures his neighbours and fellow men into a life of hard labour in order to gain immortality for himself from the God Ea: “Henceforth Utnapishtim and his wife shall be like unto us gods.” (Speiser, 1950). This declaration is made as a result of Utnapishtim’s trickery. His greed is certain to place him comfortably in the fourth circle of Dante’s hell: “At the boundary of the fourth circle the two travellers confront clucking Plutus, the god of wealth, who collapses into emptiness at a word from Virgil.” (Dante, 1995, p 5). This demonstrates the emptiness of those who dwell in the fourth circle of hell, and their preference of material over substance.
In conclusion, it is clear that Dante’s Inferno presents a circle of hell for all types of men (and characters) and that, in practice, these three characters of Okonkwo, the Narrator and Utnapishtim demonstrate this wholly. Dante clearly assessed the mortal flaws of men and wrote his book accordingly and since art reflects life, his fellow authors have carved characters out of very real circumstances: man is flawed and guilty. As a result, these characters fit into their respective circles of hell neatly and realistically.
References
Achebe, C. (1996). Things Fall Apart. Oxford: Heinemann.
Alighieri, D & Musa, M. (1995). Dante’s Inferno: the Indiana critical edition. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Chaucer, G. (1993). The General Prologue, Vol. 1, Part 1. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma.
Speiser, E. A. (1950). The Floor Narrative From The Gilgamesh Tablet XI. Retrieved from http://www.piney-2.com/Gilgamesh.html.
