Conceptions of Hell: Dante\'s Inferno

Conceptions of Hell:

Dante's Inferno and Sartre's No Exit

Central to much Western thought has been the concept of a place of punishment where the dead are punished for the sins have committed during life. From the medieval world of Dante Alighieri to the Twentieth Century writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, thinking men and women have pondered the nature of evil and the manner in which it might receive its just reward. Their imaginings of a hell that is physically real and palpable readily reflect the preoccupations of their own times and belief systems. The characters of everyday life find their reincarnations in the infernal regions, and the devices that both provoke and torment us in the here and now reappear in devilish guise in a terrible beyond. The tormented souls imprisoned in Dante's Inferno are as rooted in the realities of medieval society, as the characters in Sartre's disturbing No Exit are mired in the existential debates and anomie of the industrial world. While some things remain the same, others change radically. The medieval vision of hell is hierarchical and traditional; the modern fraught with the contradictions that befuddle the denizens of today's urban landscapes. Still, no matter the time, the occupants of hell struggle with the need to make sense of prejudice and limitation. They try to understand why certain things are permitted and other not. And perhaps most importantly, they try to comprehend why certain kinds of people are allowed to enjoy success and happiness, while others apparently must know only misery. Life on Earth can sometimes be an awful lot like living in hell.

A central qualification for admission to Dante's hell is ignorance of the truth, the more profound that ignorance the greater the evil. Dante wrote in medieval Europe, a world that was dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. According to beliefs shared by many faiths of the time, the gravest sin consisted of the failure to accept the Ultimate Truth as preached by a particular religion - in Dante's case, the creed espoused by the one and Catholic Church. It is highly significant that the very bottom circle of hell is occupied by Judas, the disciple who betrayed Christ, the Messiah and Son of God. Dante, in Canto IX, takes the reader directly into Judas' forsaken dwelling place:

From out of Judas' circle. Lowest place

Is that of all, obscurest, and removed

Furthest from heaven's all-circling orb. The road

Full well I know: thou therefore rest secure.

That lake, the noisome stench exhaling, round

The city of grief encompasses, which now 'We may not enter without rage."

As befits one who has denied the ultimate truth of God, Judas resides in a place that is farthest removed from the light of Heaven's wisdom, the light which, in our earthly world is symbolized by the sun. Yet, Judas' experience is not unique, at least not potentially unique. "The road full well I know," perfectly describes the lure of the temptations that surround us all. Sin is not the prerogative of one man or one woman, but a choice available to each and every one of us. Further, Dante's lowest circle is strangely like the typical medieval city, or rather its infernal opposite. Surrounded by a foul-smelling moat i.e. "the lake," it too erects walls against the forces of the world without. It is much the same with human beings. By the power of our own thoughts we keep out not only the bad, but also the good. Like Dante's most miserable prisoner, we must not allow ourselves to become besieged by our own sins, till we are also trapped in a dark city of our own making. Dante recognizes the invincibility of truth, and the terrible strength of lies. These distinctions remain important to day, and are concepts we should attempt to understand. They should rule our lives as they should have governed the lives of the medieval sinners of Dante's world.

Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit describes a hell that is similarly of our own making. Upon entering a place that appears to be hell, though it looks oddly like a coldly modern, windowless hotel, each of Sartre's characters expects to be tortured for his or her supposed sins. The wait; however, turns out not to be for the arrival of some "other," but rather the discovery that one's own self, and one's fellow human beings, perform the job perfectly well.

Garcin, like Judas, is consumed by the need to possess powers and capabilities beyond that of any other human being. Much as Judas cannot submit to the ultimate Divine Truth, Garcin fins it impossible to admit his own frailties. He detests Ines for recognizing his failings, but fails to see that his greatest weakness is his lust need for self-preservation despite the toll it takes on his psyche and his character. Garcin would, in his own mind, be a noble man, if there were never anyone to whom he could compare himself, but measured against his fellows he is nothing but a coward and a philanderer, utterly incapable of feeling for others. This too, is Judas' sin. Judas was not the center of creation any more than Garcin, but both behave in much the same fashion. Estelle, a potential foil for Garcin, condones adultery, murder, and suicide through her own actions. Yet, she fails to win Garcin while her own evil deeds do not provide Garcin with any reasonable excuse for his own conduct. Garcin tries to explain himself to Ines and Estelle:

GARCIN: Certainly not. And now, tell me, do you think it's a crime to stand by one's principles?

ESTELLE: Of course not. Surely no one could blame a man for that!

GARCIN: Wait a bit! I ran a pacifist newspaper. Then war broke out. What was I to do? Everyone was watching me, wondering: "Will he dare?" Well, I dared. I folded my arms and they shot me. Had I done anything wrong?

ESTELLE: Wrong? On the contrary. You were

INEZ: --a hero! And how about your wife, Mr. Garcin?

GARCIN: That's simple. I'd rescued her from-- from the gutter.

Garcin portrays himself in heroic terms, presenting his cowardice and treatment of his wife as actions worthy of praise. Misrepresenting the story of his life, he treats other human beings to a strangely sanitized version, playing on their need to believe that they are imprisoned with someone know less worthy than themselves. Better still, they desire to think they have been cast into hell with a true paragon among men. Garcin rationalized his choices by implying that whatever he has done it is for the best. His wife was better off with him than in her former life, and his country was best served by his sticking to his "principles."