Still in Hell

Second week of Canto presentations. This week we went over Cantos 19-32. Anyway, I went this week. My Canto is the second half of the fraudulent counselors area, which is circle 8, malebolge 8, Canto 27. Anyway, it was actually a really...well, not fun per se, but it wasn't as terrible as it could have been. And...dare I say...I actually enjoyed it just a little? I feel like I'll lose my teenager card if I admit to enjoying a school project. So, anyway. My Canto is fraudulent counselors, and their punishment is to burn for eternity in a flame that fits perfectly to their body. The contrapasso is that they are being literally burned, just like they burned others figuratively in life. In my Canto, there were a TON of places mentioned. Like, the entire thing was basically cities and the current news about them. It was a bit boring, especially for somewhere that people were on fire. Guido da Montefeltro was in this Canto for giving bad advice to the Pope, and what's sad is that he only did it because the Pope said that he would be absolved of that sin and could go to heaven, but the a dark angel said that since he couldn't repent for something he wasn't sorry for he was going to hell. I feel really bad for Guido, but he did do something wrong, so he did sort of deserve to go to hell and burn for eternity. Sort of. Also, I am very proud of my visual for my project. I digitally drew a picture of a hand holding a burning match, and that represented how by giving someone bad advice you strike a match to burn them, but then the firs reaches your hand and it burns you later as well.

The other Cantos that were this week happened to be my friends' Cantos, so I'll talk about those next. Emily did Canto 18, which was panderers and flatterers (AKA pimps and seducers). The panderers were forced to run back and forth while being lashed by horned demons on either side of them and the flatterers were immersed in a pool of human excrement representing their words. Ew, in a word. That seems quite horrific, and I find that to be fitting for the crime. I can't stand people who lie and suck up to people to make them better liked. So they deserve to sit in a bunch of waste forever. Lydia's Canto sort of goes with this in that the punishment fits the crime. She had Canto 24, and in her Canto were thieves. They were bitten by snakes, and wherever they were bitten they burst into flames. Again, ew. That just sounds really gross. I don't really see the contrapasso here, except that maybe thieves get their bodies stolen from them over and over as they regenerate from the snake bites only to die again...? I don't know. There weren't really any interesting people in the Canto either. Well, I'm sure they were interesting, I've just never heard of them before this, so I personally don't care all that much about them. The only exciting thing that happens is that Dante freaks out because he doesn't like snakes and then he doesn't want to walk anymore because things are getting truly horrific. Which brings us to Canto 28, Sarah Fowle's Canto. In her Canto, people who split others apart get their just deserts and are split in various ways themselves, depending on the extremity of their crime. And sheesh, why is everything so disgusting? Like seriously, one dude got his head cut off because he was such a bad person. Others lost their hands or maybe just got themselves cut open but not completely disembowled. Lucky them! Anyway, I didn't really have a good idea of what "schism" was before seeing this Canto presented, and now I think I sort of do. Her visual was really cool. It was a Ferris wheel with popsicle sticks colored in various degrees of black to represent how the sinners walked around in a big circle, got attacked by the demon, and then slowly healed only to be sliced apart again. This project was overall very interesting to say the least, and I am looking forward to seeing the last few Cantos tomorrow.