down dante's soul

This week I saw cantos 19-32. 19-28 are all having to do with fraud, while 29-32 are the first part of the falsifiers. Why people who falsified metals are below the violent, I'll never know. Dante really should have had some therapy. Anyways, canto 19 was the simoniacs, which is basically being corrupt in a church position of power (But aren't they all?). These sinners are upside down in a rock with burning feet. The magician canto, 20, was interesting. Although I don't see how a magician, practicing a hobby he enjoys, deserves his head twisted backwards, the punishment is pretty breezy compared to some we have seen. Then came the barrators, swimming in boiling tar forever. Then there was my canto, 23. I have dug so far into this canto and understood every metaphor I have come across. Their punishment of being hypocritical is to walk in lead-lined cloaks. Another walk in the park! (Except not at all.) The thieves of 24/25 were very metaphorically being tormented by snakes, because they were snakes in their moral life. The fraudulent counselors of 26/27 were shocking to me. They are in such a low counsel for a crime not as severe as many that we have seen, in my opinion. But nonetheless, Dante thinks they should be burning alive for the rest of eternity. Then comes the scandals and divisive of 28, being cut and mutilated by demon's swords. These are really not an equal punishment to the crime. Then, we get into the ring of falsifiers, starting with metals (29), then people, coins and words (30). Next was the canto 31 with the giants. I liked this canto because I would rather be a giant who makes up a wall than any of these other things. Finally, we are getting into the last ring of hell, the traitors. We got to 32, which was a traitor to kin or homeland. This probably happened to Dante himself for him to put them so low down here in Hell.

dipping into hell

This week, cantos 1-18 presented. Dante's mind disturbs me. Who could think up such things, for (in Dante's mind) crimes that are not so severe? The first few cantos aren't to exciting, as they merely are beginning to enter hell through mountains and gates. It makes me wonder why Dante didn't turn around, why he wanted to see any of this at all. The next few cantos, limbo, lust, gluttony, and greed are some basic sins, which I wouldn't imagine having the punishments they did. It goes from limbo not really having a punishment besides them being absent from god forever (kind of just hanging out down there), to only the next canto where you find sinners being forever blown in a storm of violent winds. This is a sizable escalation, leaving me wondering how Dante came about this idea. Gluttony showed the sinners being rained upon by human feces for eternity. I had canto 23, the hypocrites, who merely have to walk around with heavy coats on. I would rather walk slowly than do any of those things, including shoving heavy bags up hills or be tortured in River Styx. It's odd that I would rather be thrown into canto 23, than the first few cantos.
The wrath/violence circle is all pretty similar, just different types of wrath and some variations in punishment. This part has some really disturbing means of punishment like burning forever in graves or living forever in a boiling river of blood and fire. Goodness, where is Dante's mind through all this? These are thoughts I can't imagine coming up with. The suicide canto was honestly really hard to sit through. The punishment wasn't even just simple violence of a blood river, but a deep, disturbing metaphor that Dante tried to make work for a suicide. I have dealt with more suicide than I knew possible for a 16 year old. No human being who has been brought to the point of taking their own life could possibly be in hell. I am comforted by the fact that I don't believe a hell exists at all, because I couldn't live thinking people I hold dear should deserve any more suffering after they die. Dante talks like they "disrespected" their bodies, like the were belonging to a god. I believe your body is yours and absolutely no one else's, so this is hard for me to take in.
After the violent, we started to just dip into the fraud circle, with flatterers, (who are somehow worse than all of the violent people...what?) who are punished by the beating of demons. I really can't see through Dante's eyes on this, but I'll keep trying.

twenty 4

Reflection

The past short week in class, we were finishing the presentations of the tragic hero posters and were slightly introduced to Dante's Inferno. My group presented on Tuesday this week, which I was nervous for. I actually ended up feeling good about our presentation and the points we made. My piece of presentation was the hubris and hamartia of John Dillinger in the movie Public Enemies. I feel as though I really understood my piece and presented it well, I really took a lot of time to look into it. Simone wasn't there to present her part, so there was a bit of a gap in the unity and understanding of it.

I really liked some of the posters and presentations this week. I have been meaning to see the movie "Seven", which was one of the groups. I loved their poster with the pictures on the paper clips. The blood dripping from their letters looked really realistic. The plot of the movie sounded really cool, I really want to see this film now. The introduction to Dante's Inferno was a little confusing, but the concept was very interesting. Religion and ideas like heaven and hell are very interesting to me. I don't really believe in either, but I'm interested in all religions.

Hell

Hell would be a place that you were always in constant discomfort and without happiness. It would we full of ignorant, arrogant people with no concept of respect. You can't escape hell, if you ever deserved to be there, you should stay there forever. I don't believe in heaven or hell, I believe when you die you're dead and there is nothing more. But of course I could be wrong, and in that case, most people deserve to be in hell, in my opinion.

1. What do you have to do to get into your hell? To be in my hell you would have to be ignorant.(Either in general, or specifically like racist, sexist, agist, ext.) It is a quality I cannot stand, especially when mixed with arrogance, and a triple threat when both are accompanied by apathy. I know too many people who think they are better than all people around them, who constantly put people down and make fun of them without knowing anything about them or about life. These people would be in my hell so fast, and not come out. Things like abuse or rape would easily get you into my hell; harming animals at all or people for the wrong reasons, especially if you do these things without caring or to feel powerful (arrogance). The other worst thing is lying. You will be in my hell so fast being a liar.
2. Punishments of hell would be the loss of happiness. If you could take away someone's happiness without even caring at all, you are sick and don't deserve happiness yourself. If you inflict yourself in someone else's life for the worse, especially without knowing anything about them, you deserve the worst of punishment. You should have the same things happen to you that you have done wrong.
3. It is hard to say what my hell would look like. It would make most sense for it to fit each person to be a place of discomfort. If it were to be discomforting to me, it would be cold and windy, with irritating sunlight. Not the cold you can enjoy, like when you're skiing or it's dark and beautiful and snowing or raining. None of these luxuries. It would always be dirty and unorganized. The worst commercials will constantly be playing really loud, like that Snickers on with Robin Williams, and the awful Greatness Awaits Playstation one.
4. No one can escape hell. If you ever deserved to be there, you don't get to come back. If you would be released, you would somehow go back to your old ways. That's just the way I think people are. Maybe I'm wrong, but these are my experiences. Letting people out of hell would just fuel their arrogance.
5. A symbol of my hell might be the sun. It seems nice but you get to know it better and it burns you. Maybe a little, maybe enough to get skin disease or cancer. The sun can be the worst most uncomfortable weather. It hurts your body in so many ways, but we think we need to be in it. People are like this too.
6. A lot of people I know would be in my hell, unfortunately. I guess I don't have a ton of good people surrounding me. As I said before, people with qualities like ignorance, apathy, and arrogance. These qualities are found as a triple threat in a lot of the worst people. Once you add lying to this list, how could it be worse? I won't give specific examples.

robbin williams commercial

One of the worst qualities a person can have

Playstation Greatness Awaits commercial

Lying

Hard Work & Dedication

This week has been a little crazy. Working on our poster didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped, and last minute changes had to be made, which made me a little anxious. We finally finished on the last day with seconds before the bell rang. I think the poster actually turned out really well, there's really deep analytical components to it and the presentation looks really good. I'm excited to present because the movie shows really good examples of all components of Aristotelian tragedy and looks amazing. My favorite part of our poster is the money falling out of the money bag. The hundred dollar bills get more and more burned as the go along, until its crumbs and pieces of blackened money. I also really like how the tragic hero's name, John Dillinger, is moge-poged in one hundred dollar bills and is falling down as well.

The posters that have been presented have been really cool. My favorite was definitely the one for Seven Pounds. The poster was beautiful, and the movie is so sad and perfect for a tragic hero. The present on their poster were really cool, representing the organs he gave away, and how the ribbon got darker and darker until it was the black present, his heart. I also loved the jellyfish on their poster, it looked real and added a lot of emotion to the poster, for it being his cause of death. I also really liked the poster for the Great Gatsby. The gold designs on the tops looked so cool, as did the way Gatsby was written in tin foil in the cool letters. The daisies on the poster that got more and more tattered and destroyed were sad and beautiful.

Sinking Ship

This past week in class has been a struggle for me personally. Missing class on Tuesday was hard because I missed the Titanic tragic hero video, and felt like I missed out on a lot that would have helped me to plan for my essay and the poster. My group spent all of this week planning our poster. I think we're having a hard time coming up with the right ideas. I'm not sure if the rest of my group feels the same way, but I really want our poster to look amazing. I hope it will come together beautifully, the way we plan. It's been hard to plan or get anything done when someone from out group was gone everyday. I've definitely been feeling the stress. However, I do feel better now that I have gone ahead and bought some materials and things for our poster and started the first stages of my essay.

This week I also watched the movie for our poster, Public Enemies. I'm not sure if I like the film, it's very dark and heavy. There is so much violence and blood, and so many guns. If you can see past this surface, I think there is a really emotional side to this movie. My feelings for the main character, John Dillinger, are really conflicted. He is a criminal, a bank robber and has killed people. But Dillinger is so hurt, so broken underneath the surface. He is self-absorbed, but underneath it all, he doesn't love himself. He might even loath himself. If he truly loved himself, he would not be so careless, almost like he wanted to get caught.