Blog Post 1: Prompt 3

Circle three of Dante's visit in Upper Hell is one that stood out for me when relating the sinners punishment to the law of contrapasso. Contrapasso, in a sense, is the idea of a punishment being the same as a sin or similar because they are one of the same. Circle three is the sin of gluttony. Gluttony being the indulgence of food in a negative and greedy way is a sin. Food is portrayed as something that makes you happy or satisfied. It is usually a way for people to forget their problemsor brings temporary happiness and warmth to a person. It brings comfort and a feeling of peace or completion. When food is used for any reason of more than hunger it is considered gluttony. Dante describes circle three as a filthy and dirty place. It has stinky snow, freezing rain, and is a slush place. He writes how Dante sees it as a 'gigantic garbage dump' and makes it seem as if the filthy is almost unbearable. Circle three is a dark place with no new life. Everything there is rotten and spoiled. As a contrapasso the punishment of gluttony is exactly what it is; gluttony or greed. With food causes spoiling and obesity. The food spoils and becomes rotten. Gluttony is a nasty thing to be and is a sign of being dirty and filthy; or spoiled.

Dante uses Cerberus along with language and imagery to utilize this circle and help the reader get a better idea of what circle three may have been see as. He uses words such as dirty, swollen, cold, hungry, black, sodden, or spoiled and drowned. As Dante walks through Circle three with Virgil he discovers that this is a bottomless pit of spoiled mess and foul mess. He explains how the Gluttons were just souls in pain and there was grief all around. The Glutton sin of gluttony was the exact same as their punishment. They had an overindulgence of food with symbolized a filthiness and spoil of food so they were to suffer in that lust for food. Dante also uses the Cerberus as a use of imagery to compare to the environment of the circle and the ways of the people. He describes Cerberus as having red eyes, beard greased with phlegm, swollen belly, and claws. Cerberus could be a depiction of what the Gluttons were. They were all in lust for food and their physical appearance could see exactly that; which was what Cerberus was portrayed as.

Dante seems to be asserting that Gluttony was a sin less severe than others. It was worse than lust however but then again lust and gluttony can be considered one in the same because of the idea that lust for food is considered gluttony. The punishment that he chooses for gluttony is one of disgust rather than torment and torture. This suggests that, to him, gluttony was not necessarily a sin that was deserving of a torment or agony in punishment but rather one of disgust and foulness.