Monday, February 24, 2014

Malebolge

My canto is XVIII which is the first pit and second pit of Malebolge. In my lovely slice of hell I have panders and flatters, which basically have to do with people seducing women or selling them for their own means. It's definitely a interesting canto with very unique punishments. Such as being forced to run back and forth in a pit for all of eternity all the while horned demons whip you if you don't run or get within reach. Or if running isn't your style you could sit in a pit of human waste… for all of eternity. The sins themselves have a certain level of awkwardness about them because panders are people who sell women into prostitution. Therefore this project so far has been very informative even though I wish I could delete the majority of that information from my memory.

It's very eyeopening to read this epic poem because some of the sins are so obvious wrong that it leaves you wondering how anyone could lack morals to that severity. Like with my canto, in the first pit Dante talks with a man who's there because he sold his sister to a marquis. Then the man goes on to say how many people there was in the pit with him. I know that this was written in the middle ages, but did people really have to taught that selling their family members into prostitution is a sin? Also seducing people to gain your own means is just a really bad thing to do. The people in my canto really deserve the punishment that has been given to them.




Monday, February 17, 2014

Hell

Hell for me does exist because it saves me from holding grudges against people. So if someone does something complete and morally wrong, hell is a nice backup in case that karma fails to get around to the person. My church also believes in hell but it's rarely ever mentioned.

To get into my hell you would have to treat another person poorly and not feel remorse for your actions. So if you repeat the same mistake over and over again even if you do feel remorse you are still going to hell. Also you also have to know what you are doing is wrong because everyone doesn't know everything. An example being that constantly discriminate against a person even though you know that that person is your equal then you are going to hell. If you take advantage of helpless such as nature and animals, even though they cannot talk doesn't mean they are less than a person. I really don't care about adulterators because less than 3% of mammals are monogamous and so the idea being with one partner for life is more society's idea of a relationship than nature's. The last way that you can get into my hell is that if you left the world in worst or the same shape as it was when you were born. I really don't care what type or how big of impact you made on the world as long as it's positive. If a person is too self-centered to look around and see the ills of the world and other people then they deserve to go to hell. That it how a person ends up in my hell.

Now for the punishment >:)  People who treat other people badly repeatedly will be put a total white room with no doors or windows. They will not be able to talk/make sound, sleep or feel anything. So the person won't be able to feel hunger, pain, happiness or anything that makes them human. So they will be able to move around this white room as they please yet no matter how far they walk in one direction they will never run into the wall even though they can see it in the distance. I chose this punishment because they will feel lonely and helpless just like their victims. If someone kill another person then as a punishment they will have to live the victim's family's heartbreak over murder again and again until they were truly sorry. Over all the punishment would match the sin or crime committed.

To go to my hell you would start your jounray on a tightly packed elevator that plays the most annoying music possible. The elevator slowly descends into hell and the closer it get to hell the more the lights dim until you are in complete darkness. When the elevator stops and the doors cheerfully ding open you gaze upon hell. Which happens to be a meadow with happy sunflowers and prancing kittens. Of course you are shocked because you thought that hell would be this dark place with a devil and a pitchfork. So you race forward towards to lush grass and warm sunshine only to find that it's made of mist, an illusion. From there you fall towards the place were you will punished until you redeem yourself and rise to the heavens.



People can escape my hell because I believe that people can change for the better. If a person repented their crimes that they committed in their moral life then they would be forgiven and sent to heaven. Yet if a person in complete apathetic to the damage that they caused in the moral world then they will stay in hell until they have changed. Everyone would be able to leave my hell if they changed because every person makes mistakes. Also it doesn't seem just that for  a poor lifestyle choice you are condemned to hell for all of eternity. So therefore anyone can leave my hell if they deserve to get out.

The symbol that represents my hell the best is a sandwich. No I don't hate sandwiches it just works. The reason being is that on your elevator ride to hell you are dreading going because you think about the fires of damnation and all of that lovely stuff. So that dread that you feel is the bread of my hell sandwich because I have never met a person who really likes the bread of a sandwich. When you order a sandwich you order it for the filling not the bread. Anyway when the elevator doors open you see a happy meadow with sunflowers and prancing kittens so you feel relieved and happy. Therefore the end of the elevator ride is the middle, meaty part of the sandwich. Then when you run towards and realize that it's a illusion and fall into the fires of hell. That last part is the bread again. See it's a sandwich of dread, hope and then dread again so maybe it's more like pie…




Now for who is in my hell. There's not really any particular person I would put in my hell just types of people. I guess some people from congress because they care more for their pride then the people they represent and they lie through their teeth so down in the fires of eternal damnation they go. Also any people like them who is a complete fake so I guess there goes most of Hollywood into my hell.  It's hard to figure out who belongs in your hell because it doesn't seem fair to pass judgment on people before they are dead. If a person is still living they have time to turn their life around but if they're dead then it was quite obvious that they can do nothing about their action. Yet for some reason it's almost taboo to speak ill of the dead so therefore it's almost impossible to name people who belong in my hell.  













Monday, February 10, 2014

Catastrophe

Catastrophe is the point in the tragic hero's downfall where everything just falls apart. So there's a hero just being awesome (or so they think) and being a jerk to one or more people. Then all of a sudden the rug to yanked from under their feet and they find themselves sprawled on the ground. While all their former "friends" are mentally and physically distancing themselves from the fallen "hero" or they are bawling over the loss of the hero. In my mind there are two types of tragic heroes. One type is the actually tragic hero where the audience is deeply saddened by the fall of the hero. The hero might of been arrogant but they really didn't deserve the fate they were given. The other type is the one where the "hero" was extremely arrogant and did deserve their fate. The audience still feels sorry for the latter type of tragic hero but at the same time they knew it was bound to happen at some point. 

Sadly or luckily, however you want to look at it, the tragic hero that my group studied was the tragic hero who was a complete jerk and deserved his fate. It probably didn't help that our film was from the "villain's" point of view so the hero was extreme jerk to gain sympathy and get the audience on the villain's side. One of the things that the tragic hero project has taught me is that when a tragic hero falls it's not only the hero that get severely impacted. In Oedipus Rex when Oedipus finds out the truth about what he has caused his mother/wife commits suicide and since since his children were interbred they will live as outcasts for the rest of their days. So not only did Oedipus become blind and exiled he also caused the death of his mother/wife and the social shunning of his children. In the film my group studied, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, when our hero tries to kill the villain he ends up being throw across a room, experiencing pain for the first time in his life and killing his girlfriend. Also since he was the hero of the city and he is now unable to protect it, the villain has free reign of the city. So the hero ended up kill his girlfriend and basically handed over control of the city to a villain. When a hero falls everything around thing around them falls too.