2014+SH+P5+Seven+Deadly+Sins



**Aim: Hannah Stevens**

The seven deadly sins are seven words that have great meanings and they have a role in everyone's lives. The author added the seven deadly sins in Dante’s Inferno because main character sees each one of the seven sins as he makes his journey through the underworld. He can see them in the souls that were brought down there because of the sins that they committed. “The sinners that Dante encounters in the Inferno are each punished in accordance with which of the seven deadly sins they were most guilty of while they were” ("Seven Deadly Sins"). The author shows that the seven deadly sins are different in their own way but are also similar. The purpose of the sins in the story is to show that each sin can have an impact on someone’s life.

Works Cited: "Seven Deadly Sins." //7 Deadly Sins.// N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Aug. 2014. < [|_http://www.danteinferno.info/7-deadly-sins.html__] >

Rice, Kevin J. "The Seven Deadly Sins Page." //7 Deadly Sins.// N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Aug. 2014. < [|__http://www.justanyone.com/7deadly.html__] >




 * Audience: Daniel Marrufo **

By listing an individual and the punishment that they received based on what mortal sin that they committed, Dante Alighieri showed the world how cruel the inferno could be. Many who have read the epic poem known as “The Inferno” know that what Alighieri describes is nothing but pure evil. Those who are not Christian or share some type of belief with Christianity take in a sense of fear after seeing how cruel Hell can be after reading how the punishments for each mortal sin were described. The punishments of the sins were harsher with each individual circle until the sinner was placed with the devil or evil incarnate himself as they were the ones who committed betrayal in the highest form “As they descend lower and lower, the punishments (and consequently sins) become worse and worse until he reaches the bottom and discovers Satan” (“Seven Deadly Sins” 1). Those who have read Alighieri'’s Inferno find themselves questioning their own moral values and how they act in the world. Back during the fourteenth century when Inferno was written, the epic had managed to entice fear and worry among many people as they began to do anything in their power to avoid the fate that Alighieri described. As there was no discernable difference between church and state back then, this gave almost unimaginative power to the churches grasp as they were able to take control of the witless people. Alighieri's Inferno still manages to affect people for over seven hundred years. The old epic had a large affect on many of the worlds ways and has still continued to play a large role in how we act “He wrote most of his poetry in the Italian vernacular instead of Latin, a choice that would influence the entire course of western literary development” (“Dante Alighieri” 1).

Works Cited: "Dante Alighieri - Poet - Philosopher - Political Thinker." Dante Alighieri - Poet - Philosopher - Political Thinker. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Aug. 2014. < [|http://historymedren.about.com/library/who/blwwdante.h]>

"Seven Deadly Sins." //Seven Deadly Sins//. Faust, n.d. Web. 27 Aug. 2014. < []>




 * Historica **** l: Lui **** s Camacho **

The seven deadly sins have made a significantly large impact on the historical course of mankind. It is one of the founding principles of many major religions. While Christianity may have been the only ones to call the seven deadly sins by name, many other religions and cultures have made laws and formed restrictions based on the idea that crimes should be punished. When Christianity was starting to expand and become the main European religion, the seven deadly sins were some of the main concepts in the religion. People throughout history have argued which is the most sinful. “ The standard list of seven deadly sins was established by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century. He maintained that pride breeds all the other sins, and is therefore the most serious offense. St. Thomas Aquinas, author of the landmark Summa Theologica, reaffirmed that pride (or "vainglory") is rebellion against the authority of God” (Kastenbaum 1). The seven deadly sins have affected humankind’s course of history. Crusaders, pilgrims, and missionaries have been sent all over the world in order to convert people to Christianity and save the heathens from the circles of hell. Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno describes the seven circles of hell, each with their own trials and tortures that Dante must go through. The Crusades affected the text in a significant way because the protagonist, Dante, is a crusader. History was made from the text because no one had fallen as hard and as fast as Dante had.

Works Cited: Kastenbaum, Robert. “Seven Deadly Sins”. //Encyclopedia of Death and Dying.// N.d., 2014. 27 Aug. 2014. < [] >

“A Brief History of the Seven Deadly Sins”. //The Daily of the University of Washington.// 1 Mar. 2004. 27 Aug. 2014. < [|http://dailyuw.com/archive/2004/03/01/imported/brief-history-seven-deadly-sins#.U_63qvBX-uY] >




 * Cultural: Alex Zhao **

The seven deadly sins impacted modern society and the modern context of “Inferno” by Dante Alighieri because of the informal categorization of ways to commit wrongdoings or “sins” in a way that many individuals could recognize. With such a historic background on the originality of the seven deadly sins, they also act like an overall term to characterize someone based on their actions. The ideas of wrath, pride, greed, sloth, gluttony, envy, and lust in relation to the modern world are discussed in Iain Stewart and Romesh Vaitilingam’s article titled “Seven Deadly Sins: A New Look on Society through Old Lens”. Steward and Vaitilingam write, “It is over 700 years since Thomas Aquinas described the ‘seven deadly sins’. Do these traditional transgressions – of pride, anger, lust, avarice, gluttony, envy and sloth – have any relevance to society today? A full answer would probably require the input of philosophers and theologians. But they do provide an unusual lens for looking at some pressing issues of modern life: religious conflict, rage in children and adults, sexual behaviour, corporate greed, binge drinking, rising personal debt and political apathy” (6). Steward and Vaitilingam bring up points about how easily the seven deadly sins could relate to actual real life problems, such as “wrath” represented in angry children/adults and “greed” in corporate leaders wanting thicker paychecks (Guerrant 1; Steward and Vaitilingam 6-7). The ability to easily compare these words that mean much more than personality traits to something more common such as the greed for more money and the envy to keep insisting on wanting more money through whatever means it takes to get more money ultimately breaks down the exclusive use of wrath, gluttony, greed, envy, sloth, lust, and pride to mean more everyday and common ideas. By breaking down the barriers of using these words solely to mean the downfall of someone, it became a personality trait and a culturally recognized way to broadly describe an individual without getting into specifics (“The Seven Deadly Sins”).The article titled “The Seven Deadly Sins” states, “The Seven Deadly Sins are really attitudes that underlie sins [...]. They provide keys to understanding our faults and the actions that result, and a framework for self knowledge. If we understood how they factor into who we have become, we would understand much more about ourselves and our effect on others”. Using this information of the classification of the seven deadly sins to further describe oneself and accept one’s actions, it could lead to interesting observations about the characters, reactions, and the rationality behind the events and thoughts of characters and events in Dante’s // Inferno //. The normalization of the seven deadly sins in modern society allows for others to further analyze the usage of the seven sins to make deeper connections through culture, writing, and other works to bridge the cultural gap between the words to mean the potential downfall of someone to being an interesting characteristic and trait of an individual.

Works Cited: Stewart, Iain, and Romesh Vaitilingam. "Seven Deadly Sins: A New Look on Society through an Old Lens." //Seven Deadly Sins: A New Look on Society through an Old Lens//. ESRC UK, June 2005. Web. 26 Aug. 2014. < [|__http://www.esrc.ac.uk/_images/seven_deadly_sins_tcm8-13545.pdf__] >.

"The Seven Deadly Sins." //The Seven Deadly Sins.// Whitestonejournal.com, 17 Aug. 2009. Web. 26 Aug. 2014. < [|__http://whitestonejournal.com/seven_deadly_sins/__] >.

Guerrant, Bill. "American Virtues and the Seven Deadly Sins." //Sustainable Traditions.// Sustainable Traditions, 15 Aug. 2012. Web. 26 Aug. 2014. < [|__http://sustainabletraditions.com/2012/06/american-virtues-and-the-seven-deadly-sins/__] >.