Michael Matthews
Mr. Munoz
Dual Credit English – 5 th
22 September 2014
Nature: Using the Good for Evil
Nature is defined as "the physical world and everything in it; such as plants, animals, mountains, stars, etc." (Webster) For society today, nature provides us with goodness and life. It also provides us with beautiful and spiritual gifts. Nature is present throughout the epic Inferno , written by Dante Alighieri. However in Inferno nature is not used to provide goodness and life.
Nature is used throughout the epic as a punishment for those who sin and go to Hell. In society, people take nature for granted; we do not realize what all that nature is capable of. Despite the goodness nature can bring; Dante created evil from the goodness for the goodness in nature from the book.
Nature is something that is present in our everyday lives. We can see it hear it,and feel it.
From the beginning of time, we all have been gift with the presence of nature. What exactly is nature? Nature is everything; it is life. Nature is the beautiful sunrise and sunset we see every morning and evening. It is the sweet songs of the birds we here as we walk outside. Nature is the cool breeze that sways trees as well as the rushing winds that can blow our minds away.
Nature is divine; nature is everywhere. Unfortunately, we, society, do not take the time to appreciate nature and relish in its serenity. Why is nature beautiful? Nature is beautiful for the same reason life is beautiful. In fact, nature is quite similar to life. Nature is alive, moving as well as reproductive. In nature we have the ability to observe the growth and development in

living things. Nature is beautiful because it possesses essential value that we need in order to live. Nature’s role in life is to protect society with all that is good and beautiful.
Dante Alighieri seems to be an author who is quite familiar and intrigued with nature.
Alighieri once stated that, “nature is the art of God.” Dante Alighieri used the aspect of nature throughout his divine comedy, Inferno. Regardless that nature is used as a symbol for life; Dante depicts nature to be evil and only uses to correspond with the dead. Moreover, Dante presents nature within Hell; using it for cruel and painful punishments among those who have sinned.
Alighieri portrays nature to be horrific and unappealing throughout Inferno . In researching about
Dante Alighieri, it is said that he was a pacifist; that he was not a violent man. After reading
Inferno , one would have trouble believing that. In his literary work, Alighieri writes with such anger and rage. Despite that he was a peaceful person; he was still human, in the sense that he is still capable of becoming angry. This is apparent in the epic because even though Dante is capable of anger, we wept at the sight of the suffering souls; in addition, he reacted with pleasure when his enemies are torn to pieces. Like any human being, he sought out for revenge. Instead of acting upon it, Dante took the revenge he sought and put it inside Inferno .
Nature being used as a punishment is obvious. The reader can infer this as Dante and his guide, Virgil, enter the first circle, “Limbo”. The sinners that are in “Limbo” were those were non-Christians people who were not baptized. The nature that was used as the punishment in
“Limbo” was fog. The fog was being used to blind the sinners. This relates to the absence of
God; blinding them with no hope and ever longing for Him. Here, Dante is taking such a simple nature to humans, fog and turns it into a toxic substance that causes the people to feel pain and suffer. Moreover, in life we all enjoy the cool wind because it makes heat tolerable. In Dante’s
Inferno, this is not the case. In the second canto, wind is the nature that is being used as the

punishment. The wind is used to create violent storms in which the sinners are blown by. The result to this is that the sinners are never able to rest. The reason why wind is used as a punishment in this canto is because this is how one would imagine life being if one lived purely off emotions; uncomfortable and never settled.
The nature that Dante used in Inferno , which really was shocking to me, was the way he depicted trees. When you think of a tree, you imagine it to be tall, majestic, and full; every tree is different from each other. In my opinion, I think trees are like people; they come in all shapes and sizes yet they are all equally beautiful. In Inferno , Dante does not depict trees to be like; he depicts the trees to be people. In the eighth canto of Inferno, trees are used as punishment toward the sinners in seventh circle, “Violence”. The sinners there are people who are violent against themselves. Their punishment is that they are turned into trees. Thus meaning they are immobile. In addition to this horrible punishment, the sinners are tortured and pecked at by the
“harpies”. Unfortunately, these sinners will never return to their original bodies; this is due to the fact that they did not properly appreciate their bodies in the first place. I was shocked that
Dante used trees this way, because in reality, trees play a vital role in providing us with life.
Nature and life are two similar subjects because nature is how life interacts with society and our existence. Understanding the beauty that nature brings, we are able to understand and see parallels within our own lives. Consequently, I believe that Dante Alighieri uses the aspect of nature as a punishment throughout Inferno , because nature is so attuned with our lives. Nature can be used as the explanation to everything in our lives; even as a punishment. From the beginning of Inferno , Dante was facing Hell, as he stated, “Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost.” (Alighieri) Nature was symbolized here as the “dark

woods” which was Dante’s way of facing his unknown fears and the “right road” was this journey to find God.