Dante Alighieri’s Inferno Paper Essay

Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. Inferno is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is described as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. Because Dante is an educated Christian, he uses mythological references to make Hell visually appealing. Dante is guided By Virgil because he believes Virgil represents human reason, something very important to Dante. The two poets begin their journey to Purgatory by descending into the first circle of Hell. The first circle of the nine is Limbo. Limbo is â€Å"a region on the edge of hell for those who are not saved even though they did not sin† (University of Texas). In Limbo, there is a castle with seven gates which symbolize the seven virtues (historylis ts.org). This castle houses the great poets Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan; it also houses great philosophers such as Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Heraclitus, Orpheus, and Euclid. Dante uses the allusion of Aristotle as â€Å"[a] man with honor and respect† (http://apliterature-sasd.wikispaces.com). The second circle is known as Lust. Lust consists of the â€Å"people who were overcome by lust† (University of Texas). The souls in Lust â€Å"are punished by being blown violently back and forth by strong winds, preventing them to find peace and rest† (historylists.org). The strong winds symbolize the restlessness of a person who is led by desire for another person. Dante comes across a couple, Francesca and Paolo, who were murdered because they were practicing adultery. Lust is guarded by the mythological creature Minos. Minos’ tail determines which level each and every soul belongs. Once a soul has told Minos why they are in Hell, his tail coils around his body and e ach coil represents a circle in Hell. Dante uses Minos as the â€Å"king of sinners† because Minos himself was surrounded by sinner during his lifetime. The Third circle is known as Gluttony. Gluttony is where the Gluttonous sinners suffer under a cold and filthy rain. Gluttony is guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed dog. Dante â€Å"adapts him to be more monstrous by his large size and ravenous bite, an apt symbol for gluttony† (foxtwin.com). Dante uses particular names for particular people in each circle. A prime example of this would be when Dante and Virgil come across Ciacco the most gluttonous  man. He warns Dante that their hometown, Florence, will be destroyed. The fourth circle, avarice and prodigality, is known for housing those who lust for material needs and those who keep their wealth all for themselves. The punishment for this circle is to carry around large boulders and bump against each other. â€Å"The boulder represents money and the weight of the boulder represents its weight in their lives† (University of Texas). Here, Virgil and Dante come across Plutus, the God of Wealth. Dante uses Plutus to symbolize â€Å"those that squander and gather money† (foxtwin.com). The two Poets also come across Dame Fortune, the spinner of the world. As a result of her spinning wheel, things turn from good to bad. Dante uses Dame Fortune to represent chance in a human’s life. The fifth circle represents Wrath and Sullenness. â€Å"Wrath is anger that is expressed and Sullenness is and that is repressed† (University of Texas). Dante and Virgil are transported across the Styx by Phlegyas,† the infernal employee†. Phlegyas is in Hell because he set fire to the temple of Apollo. The sixth circle represents Heresy. In Heresy, the heretics lie in tombs made of iron and engulfed in flames. While in Heresy, the Poets are temporarily halted and must wait for the help from Heaven. While waiting for help, Infernal Furies taunt and curse them. The seventh circle, Violence, is divided into three kinds of violence. The first is violence against neighbor s on the bloody River Phlegethon. The river is not made of water, but of blood. Here, Virgil and Dante come across the Centaurs, the half-man and half-horse creature. The poets also come across the Minotaur. The Minotaur occasionally eats seven young men and women, in which Dante uses to symbolize violence. The second violence is against self in the Woods of Self. â€Å"The souls of those who destroyed their bodies or their substance are here to be made into thorny trees† (foxtwin.com). Since the souls destroyed their own bodies, they were denied any resemblance to a body in Hell. The leaves of these trees were painfully eaten by the Harpies. The third violence is against God, Art, and Nature on the burning sand. The eighth circle consists of the fraudulent sinners. This circle is shaped similar to an arena with â€Å"ten concentric ditches where the sinners are tortured† (foxtwin.com). Each ditch is composed with different types of fraudulent sinners: the Panderers, the Flatterers, the Simoniacs, the Fortune Tellers, the Grafters, the Hypocrites, Thieves, and Deceivers. In circle eight, the Poets meet the complex monster Geryon. Geryon would lure  in his victims and then devour them, allowing Dante to use him as fraud. Dante also uses Pope Nicholas II as a symbol as fraud. The final circle is known as The Treacherous or Cocytus. Cocytus â€Å"is the coldest place in Hell† (University of Texas). This circle consists of four smaller circles: Caina, Antenora, Ptolomea, and Judecca. Dante uses three unnamed giants to symbolize â€Å"pride and other spiritual flaws lying behind acts of treachery† (University of Texas). Dante, in his work Inferno, uses several historical and mythological figures to show his Christian devotion and Greek mythological knowledge. He also used these figures to make the poem a better read and to make modern connections of the t ime.

WIA, Education, technical personel regulations Research Paper

WIA, Education, technical personel regulations - Research Paper Example Employees should, therefore, be retrained and encouraged to take up training geared toward their career advancements and the country’s economic stability. Employee retraining shifts the focus from the business to the development of the employee and addresses issues of low skilled workers and the demand for more labour in a particular industry. Employee retraining addresses the need for matching employee skills with technological advancements and industry needs. Employee retraining in America has been the sole responsibility of the federal government for over a century. However the rapid growth of the economy at the turn of the 21st century made it necessary for employers to come up with programmes that would not only help them retain their workforce but also equip them to cope in the changing business world. The Workforce Investment Act was introduced in 1998 and led to the creation of Workforce Investments Boards that focused on the development of workers across America (Perkins, 1998). The Workforce Investments Act of 1998 was put in place of the Job Training Partnership Act and was instituted to encourage the participation of businesses in the delivery of Workforce Development Services. The requirements of the act were to be driven by Workforce Investment Boards, which were chaired by the local community or members from the private sector. Work force Development was then divided into sector based and place based. It was further categorized into statewide and local workforce investments systems, job corps and national programs. Other acts also demand that employers train their employees on various areas to cover those protected by regulations like the Tittle VII of the Civil Rights Act on race, color, nationality, and religion. Employers are further forced to invest in employee retraining through federal laws that stipulate that the employee get a given number of hours of training in some industries. In the aviation industry for

Competition is Better than Cooperation In the Relations Between Essay

Competition is Better than Cooperation In the Relations Between Criminal Justice Agencies - Essay Example Intervention in regard to criminal justice system refers to the process of preventing or reducing the incidence of crime, as well as acts that minimize the potential adverse consequences of convicted offenders in the society (Gough, 2010, p. 22). Similarly, supervision in the criminal justice system is defined as the process of overseeing the tasks and behaviours of the convicted offenders within the correction component of the criminal justice with the view of ensuring that the imposed sanctions yield the desired outcomes. Supervision in the criminal justice system has also been defined as the process of regulating and controlling behaviours of the convicted through restrictions or rules with the aim of ensuring that at the end they can become responsible persons who can easily re-integrate into the society without posing any serious public safety threats (Church, 1985, 456). Over the years, there has been raging debate on whether competition is better than cooperation in relations between criminal justice agencies. The persistent question has been which between competition and cooperation facilitates effective achievement of objectives of the criminal justice agencies, and ultimately those of the criminal justice system. This paper will seek to address this question by focusing on the intervention and supervision stages of the criminal justice process. It will show that indeed competition is better than cooperation in the relations between criminal justice agencies. Customarily, the criminal justice system has not been operating as a coordinated whole. Instead, criminal justice agencies have heavily been emphasizing on their core legislative independence and functions, as well as on their operational imperatives. This arrangement has been informed by a wide range of factors. The first factor is that the criminal justice agencies have differing goals, functions, purpose, and roles and as such no single agency handles the case throughout the entire system. Seco ndly, the system is defendant focused, case and incident-based, an arrangement that makes the agencies to operate separately in order not to deviate from this arrangement (Gough, 2010, p. 25). Thirdly, a range of procedural and legal constraints keep information that had been obtained before out of the court consideration. As such, information held by a particular criminal justice agency about an incident, victim, or defendant is progressively filtered as it moves through various agencies of the system. The other factor that has contributed to the criminal justice system not to work as a coordinated whole is the power dynamic within the criminal justice agencies hierarchy and their widely diverse professional culture (Gebo, et al, 2006, p. 425). The criminal justice system has been witnessing myriad of challenges especially in regard to law enforcement and corrections. In particular, the rise of the rate of crimes such as burglary cases and rape and overcrowding in the correctional facilities has been some of the main challenges facing the criminal just

Research Portfolio Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Portfolio - Research Paper Example Specific examples of stereotypes are that obese people are lazy and thus are less productive workers; that they have no self-control when they are eating; and that they over-present a good-natured personality in their social relationships because they are afraid of being socially excluded. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this research is to explore the extent to which the everyday lives of obese persons are mediated by a set of socially constructed meanings and how those meanings are present in their social relationships. Moreover, particular interest is paid to the process of establishing and maintaining different types of social relationships and how those bonds are considered to be both meaningful and satisfying. The relationship between being obese and losing weight to be socially accepted will also explored as another area where meaning is socially constructed. Review of the Literature: Obesity and Stigma The subject of obesity has been studied sociologically since the early 1960's, most commonly within the concentration of deviance and social control. Specifically, much of this work has focused its attention on how obesity is a kind of physical deviance and is stigmatized because of the external cues it possesses. Stigmatization stems from the possession of an "attribute or characteristic that conveys a social identity that is devalued in a particular social context" (Crocker cited in Abrams et al. 2004). More widely accepted stigmas associate obesity with laziness, social and sexual undesirability, and the externality theory of eating, which states that an obese individual, if given the opportunity, will eat large quantities of food regardless of how hungry he or she is (Puhl & Brownell, 2003a; Maykovich, 1978). An example of a more remote stigma can be found historically and, to a lesser extent, currently amongst some traditional religious circles who stigmatize the obese on the belief that they are gluttons who lack a moral self  ­restraint in th eir eating practices that will lead to their religious damnation (Puhl & Brownell, 2003a). In his work on stigma Goffman (1963) briefly noted that the stigmatization of obesity is based on the principle of visibility, which he defines to be "how well or how badly the stigma is adapted to provide means of communicating that the individual possesses it" (p. 48). In terms of that communication there are three conditions which must be addressed in order to determine how visible and prevalent a stigma actually is. The first condition has to do with how much is already known about what causes the stigma for a given individual who possesses it (Goffman, 1963, p.49). To apply this notion, if previous interactions with an obese person were to have revealed that his or her obesity was caused by factors beyond his or her control and that argument was convincing, based on what knowledge was available to justify the presence of obesity, perhaps that obese person would less likely be stigmatized by whoever were included within those interactions. Moreover, because obesity is based on external cues, it may negatively affect an obese person's ability or willingness to include him or herself in situations that require social interaction. This addresses the second condition of the

Should Women be allowed in combat Research Paper

Should Women be allowed in combat - Research Paper Example with, the skeletal system of the women is less dense and is more prone to fracture (Journal of the American College of Nutrition Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2011). According to Center for Military Readiness, most of the female soldiers are shorter and smaller than men. Their upper body strength is less than 45-50% compared to males, and their aerobic capacity is lesser of 25-30%. (Center for Military Readiness, 2004) Physiological Concern. It is nature to women about their menstruation that happens monthly. At this state, they are believe to be incapacitated during that period as they are prone to accidents due to their limited action. This was observed during World War II. However, there are some sectors who refute the claim with certain evidences and studies that women do perform equally even during their menstrual period. (Poulos, 1996) Psychological Concern. Relationship could develop between a man and a woman soldiers. This projection could put the unit at risk in an actual combat. Thus, women are banned in the front-line combat situations. The fear to be in the front-line of combat might drive women to get impregnated so as to avoid being in it, which is far very critical for the combat attack plan. (Center for Military Readiness, 2004) Female soldiers could also be objects of capturing, torture, and sexual assailment that will make the combat unit vulnerable. Males on the other hand have no record of sexual assailment but high percentage on physical abuse. Females have the highest percentage of sexual assailment in units. (Louise Slaughter, 2011) Conclusion. With physical, physiological, and psychological concerns that are based on facts reveals that women should not be allowed in a combat. Their presence in the combat will put at risk the combat units and make them

Polities please see attachment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Polities please see attachment - Essay Example In the matters of shaping the hospital policies and advocating for health reforms, nurses hence ought to rise from their slumber to ensure that policies are well advocated for and engage in arenas that are less familiar where laws and regulations that are result oriented are made and scarce resources made available (Abood, 2007). I admire Michelle Obama. She is equipped with the leadership skills, which surely will always give me the reason to have her as my role model. Basically, she can be viewed as a primary controller and a promoter. As a promoter, she is goal oriented, makes deliberate solutions and fears no threat. I might not possess these leadership qualities, but, she remains my best as compared to Hillary Clinton. Michelle knows to say what she thinks unlike Hillary. Women can lead, mentor and change the world. In the same way, nurses should do so in the health care

Global englishes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Global englishes - Essay Example Starting with the British Isles’ invasion by the German tribes of the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles, the English language has come a long way. English has undergone numerous transformations since its creation to date. Various historical events have played a role in its transformation that include but are not limited to Britain’s Christianization in the year 597, the Invasions of the Viking, the Conquest of the Norman, Bible’s translation, William Caxton’s introduction of the printing press, the Renaissance, and the British Empire’s expansion (Wilton, 2001). All of these events have helped English language be what it is today. English language also derives its popularity and power from the advancement of science and technology in general, and the emergence of the US as the world power. Given the popularity of the English language and its significance in the contemporary age, this paper makes forecasts about the future of the global Englishes disc ussing different aspects like the growing influence of the English language and its tendency to take over regional languages. ... of us can guess what the English language will be like in a hundred years time [and that] the history of the language in the coming century will depend on the history of the community itself† (Barber, 1993, p. 276). While Barber is right, English’s status today and the surfacing of the variety of Englishes all over the world have caused people to predict the future of this language. Changes in the English language’s status are influential upon a large population of the world in general and its linguistic choices in particular. Considering the profile of spread of English in the past, it can be estimated that English language would spread even more in the future than it has so far. Mori Arinori, in the 19th century, proposed to replace the Japanese language with another language that is stronger and better like French and English. He emphasized on the need to adopt one of these languages in these words: â€Å"The march of civilization in Japan has already reached the heart of the nation – the English language following it suppresses the use of both Chinese and Japanese. The commercial power of the English-speaking race which now rules the world drives our people into some knowledge of their commercial ways and habits. The absolute necessity of mastering the English language is thus forced upon us. It is a requisite of our independence in the community of nations. Under the circumstances, our meager language, which can never be of any use outside of our islands, is doomed to yield to the domination of the English tongue, especially when the power of steam and electricity shall have pervaded the land† (Mori cited in Kachru, 1992, p. 5). English cannot Extinguish Other National Languages Although English has attained the status of an international language, and is