The Importance of Canto XXIV

Canto XXIV of Dante 's Inferno

Canto XXIV is where the readers see Virgil and Dante enter the Seventh Bolgia of the Eighth Circle of Hell . Here they see thieves . These sinners are naked and masses of serpents surround them . The serpents continually bind and bite the sinners . Once they are bitten , the sinners immediately catches fire , burns in flames and are reduced to ashes From the ashes , the sinners are formed again into human flesh and the torment repeats . While Dante and Virgil moves on there are variations on the burning

as both serpent and sinner exchange substances and transform into each other 's form horribly

Canto XXIV is the most important Canto in Dante 's Inferno because it summarized the historical , allegorical and literary aims of the author The success of this piece of literature can be illustrated by this Canto alone

For one , the of the relationship of the thieves and the serpents symbolizes the literary format the author used in the book . The serpent also commonly known as the snake is a creature that has both good and bad connotations but Dante used the snake as a symbol of a bad virtue . Thieves have been connoted as snakes

The writer DH Lawrence has a poem entitled Snake ' wherein like in Dante 's Inferno is seen living in the underworld . Lawrence in his own literature emphasized the serpent 's surreptitious lifestyle that is hidden in darkness of life , wallowing in the emptiness of the world . In the lines , For he seemed to me like a king . Like a king in exile uncrowned in the underworld (lines 69 and 70 . The serpent is like a thief where to be able to succeed in stealing , has to hide his true motives and appear rid of sin

Most parts of the book successfully takes a sinner into that part of Hell that as the sin becomes grave , the punishment becomes equitable to the sin . The reader is also guided by the parallelism of the sin to the punishment . For Canto XXIV , on its later part , the author depicts the thieves and the serpents as exchanging substances which literally shows that the author regards thieves as snakes . And these are also seen in other Cantos . If you are a glutton , your punishment will be eating excrement . If one is lustful in their life , all blown away by the passions of the loins , in hell , the punishment will be doomed to ferocious storms . This for one proves the author 's ingenius use of symmetry in symbolisms

Second , mentioning Vanni Fucci as a sinner found in this Canto clearly narrates the success of the book in narrating the historical situation of the times . The book becomes both a creative statement against corruption happening in Florence and soon after centuries , the book becomes a creative historic account

The book is full of characters that are found in that era of Florence where Dante was banished . Vanni Fucci in Canto XXIV is a Tuscan...