Struggle Of Pity Within The Inferno

The Struggle of Pity

What is pity? Pity is simply the concern aroused by the misfortune or suffering of others. As the emotion of pity deepens, it can correlate itself with sympathy and lead to compassion (Baird 1). Dante comprises this idea of pity within the narration of his characters in the Inferno. Dante creates fluctuating moralities that contrasts with the narrative tale of the sinners to the protagonist. The contrasts that are made by the sinner are reflected upon by Dante, he refers to this as the struggle pity. The great struggle of pity is brought on upon by the sinners, whom create scapegoats to relieve blame from their own sins and to provoke pity from their audiences.

Dante's sympathy towards the damned souls gradually changes as he progresses in his journey through hell. At first his actions of pity were through his own ignorance and lost sense of moral disposition. Dante is led by Virgil, through limbo and on to the second circle of hell, lust. Here is where the souls, condemned by lust spend eternity blowing in the squalling wind. Dante encounters Francesca da Polenta of Ravenna, whom is one of the first damned souls to attest Dante and his sense of pity. Dante's newly met curiosity encouraged Francesca to share her lustful tale in which secured her fate in hell. Francesca vividly tells Dante of her tragic tale, which ultimately ended in her and Paolo's lives. "Love brought us to one death" (V. 106). Francesca's sin is lust; she tries to remove guilt by deviating the blame from herself to 'love', as the culprit. Francesca ultimately gives into her desires, which is her lust for Paolo. The love that Francesca and Paolo shared was not one out of romance, but one out of lustful desires. Although, Francesca has wronged, Dante feels sympathetic or pity upon her soul. "...Francesca, your torments/ make me weep for grief and pity" (V.116-117). Dante is captivated by Francesca's sorrowful tone in her story that he weeps in pity. Dante has in a sense morally fallen, in which he feels pity for Francesca, whom soul is damned in hell. Through this, it can be seen that Dante's moral disposition is distorted by Francesca's tale of her hardly romantic love for Paolo. Dante is foiled by Francesca's innocent tale of love, meanwhile sugar coating the reality of her sin. Francesca avocation of her primal lust ensured her own cause of torment in hell.

As Dante progressed in his journey, so did his view of pity. In contrast to Francesca's tale of her great love, Dante encounters the soul of Count Ugolino and his tale of great agony. Count Ugolino, like Francesca aimed to invoke pity from Dante. Throughout Ugolino's tale he consistently weeps and speaks of his great torment. His tale of his woeful imprisonment and death is meant to sway Dante's pity. "But when you learn what you cannot have heard/ that is to say, the cruelty of my death..." ( XXXIII. 19-20). Here Ugolino emphasizes his cruel death to Dante, pressing him to give Ugolino his undivided attention. Ugolino then tells Dante of the wrongful imprisonment of his children, which is another way to incite pity from Dante. "You are cruel indeed, thinking what my heart/ foretold, if you remained untouched by grief/ and if you weep not, what can make you weep?" (XXXIII. 40-42). Count Ugolino is in a sense mad at Dante for not showing any signs of pity towards the account of his children's fate. Dante in this aspect in quite peculiar, in that previous misfortune and suffering of other souls have gained some sense of pity from Dante. However, Dante naturally does pity the children, but he does not pity Count Ugolino for his sins show him as he really is. "Even if Count Ugolino bore the name/ of traitor to your castles, you still/ should not have put his children to such torture" (XXXIII. 85-87). Dante scorns the people of Pisa, not for the death of Ugolino, but for the death of his innocent children. Dante, during Ugolino's tale has evidently found a moral vantage point, in which he does not pity Count Ugolino. Ugolino, like Francesca blames the faulty of others for his sins and not of his own folly. "...And I began/ already blind, to grope over their bodies/ and for two days called to them, though they were dead/ Then fasting had more power then grief" (XXXIII. 72-75). Ugolino holds hunger has the culprit, whom was the cause of his sin. Although, the two tales Francesca and Ugolino are figuratively different, they do share common apathy for pity.

Dante suggests that the implication of pity in the Inferno is due to the sinner's apathy for self pity. These wretched souls play off of the reader or audience's emotion for their tormented nature. Guido la Pisa wrote, "The suffering of the damned souls should move no one to compassion, as the bible attests. And the reason for this is

...