Last Name 1
Student’s Name
Ms. Palacios
World Literature Honors
10 March 2010
Like humans in general, certain characters within fictional literature have
earned themselves a place in Hell through their actions. Dante originally created
the Inferno to exact a literary sort of revenge on the people who wronged him.
While these characters have not wronged anyone corporeal, they still belong in
these parts of Hell due to what they have done to other characters.
Jocasta of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King would most likely be thrown into the
8th Circle meant for Frauds, specifically the section dedicated to Hypocrites.
When Oedipus is mulling over how he believes Creon and Teiresias are plotting
against him, Jocasta dismisses the prophet as, “… Apollo / failed to fulfill his
oracle to the son / … So clear in this case were the oracles / so clear and false.
Give them no heed, I say;” (Sophocles 448) She belongs in the 8th circle of Hell
due to the fact that while she says not to take notice of them, she will later beg
Oedipus not to see them as they are correct. The punishment for hypocrites is to
wear a beautiful cloak while weighing as heavy as lead, and it fits Jocasta
brilliantly as she is beautiful and lovely in appearance but ugly, vile even, in her
hypocrisy. Oedipus later decides to seek out the truth of his birth, prompting
Jocasta to cry, “I beg you—do not hunt this out—I beg / you, / if you have any
Last Name 2
care for your own life. / What I am suffering is enough.” (461) Suddenly faced
with the possibility of Oedipus finding out the truth, Jocasta shows the reader what
she really believes, thus revealing her to be a hypocrite. There could be no other
level for her but the 8th because. Jocasta, while having many different places in
Hell she could go to, would be sent to the 8th Circle for Frauds due to the fact that
she is a hypocrite in how she treats oracles and prophets.
Heathcliff from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is noted many times for
being as cruel as a monster, so it is only appropriate that he be sent to the 5th
Circle of Hell for the Wrathful. Once Isabella arrives at Wuthering Heights after
marrying Heathcliff, she asks Ellen, “I sometimes wonder at him with an intensity
that deadens my fear; yet, I assure you, a tiger, or a venomous serpent could not
rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens. He told me of Catherine’s
illness, and accused my brother of causing it; promising that I should be Edgar’s
proxy in suffering, till he could get a hold of him.” (Bronte 144) As someone
fitting the title of demon, Heathcliff is only able to express his anger and
frustration in wrathful, violent ways. Considering that the punishment for those
who are wrathful in the 5th Circle of Hell is to fight against one another forever, it
fits him and his life too perfectly. Once Heathcliff locks Cathy and Nelly inside
Wuthering Heights, Cathy tried to take the key from him to escape “but, ere she
had well secured it, he seized her with the liberated hand, and, pulling her to his
knee, administered, with the other, a show of terrific slaps on both sides of the
head, each sufficient to have fulfilled his threat, had she been able to fall.” (271)
Last Name 3
Heathcliff does not seem to understand settling a dispute without the use of brute
force, solidifying his status as a wrathful being. Assaulting other wrathful people
while also being assaulted would be suitable punishment as it is the only thing he
knows how to do. Due to his violent nature, aggressive tendencies, and disdain for
resolving anything without violence, the only place suitable for him would be the
5th Circle of Hell reserved for the Wrathful, so he can live out his cruel and
furious nature for all eternity.
Okonkwo of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart could be sent to the 5th Circle
as well, but he commits a far graver sin—suicide, and thus a one-way ticket to the
7th Circle of Hell, specifically the 2nd Ring. When Okonkwo’s body is
discovered, Obierika informs the Commissioner, “‘It is an abomination for a man
to take hid own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it
will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch
it.’” (Achebe 207) Despite the different cultures, Obierika understands that it goes
against nature to kill oneself, and that to do so is unforgivable. While not the main
punishment, one of the consequences of committing suicide is not being able to be
reunited with one’s body of Judgment Day, instead having to hang it on one of the
suicide-trees; seeing as how Okonkwo killed himself by hanging, this fits perfectly
for him. As Okonkwo’s body is taken down, Obierika sorrowfully remarks, “That
man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and
now he will be buried like a dog…” (208) Any kind of self-inflicted harm is
enough to get one into the 7th Circle, suicide topping it all off. Being denied their
Last Name 4
body on Judgment Day serves as a very effective punishment as it disgraces those
who committed suicide by further taking away what they chose to throw away and
now suffer for; for Okonkwo, whose real downfall was his own hubris, this would
be the ultimate insult. Okonkwo chose to commit what his own clan’s worst sin
and one of the most heinous in Dante’s version of Hell, and like all other sins, he
chose it for himself; therefore, he must suffer the consequences of his actions.
Whether or not Hell actually exists, humans will always have to deal with the
consequences of any wrongs they have done. While Dante’s Inferno may have
been a simple exercise in revenge at the start, by the end of it, it came to serve as a
warning to others of what could be awaiting in Hell. Readers should come to fear
the penalties of any ill deeds they commit, and seek to rectify them before they are
faced with anything like what lies in Dante’s Hell.