Contrapaso within The Third Circle of Dante's Hell

  In this circle Dante encounters the gluttons. Dante writes," the frozen rain of Hell descends in torrents... Huge hailstones, dirty water, and black snow pour from the dismal air to putrefy the putrid slush that waits for them below.... here monstrous Cerberus, the ravening beast, howls through his triple throats like a mad dog over the spirits sunk in the that foul paste." describing the punishment and conditions of the Gluttons and the atmosphere that lay within the third circle. The gluttons over ate to an obsessive degree, and to Dante they also over drank in terms of being Alcoholics, there for they should be punished by being surrounded in waste to symbolize the food and waste they ate and produced during their stay on earth. The cold conditions within this circle symbolize the opposite feeling in which gluttons experienced on earth. They would always be warm from all the food they inhaled, therefore in Dante's hell, they should receive the opposite following the Contrapaso theory. The large dog like monster Cerberus, symbolizes the gluttons way of eating on earth, although, they get bitten and beaten up by the dog if they are to attempt to escape from the slush, to try to obtain freedom from the trapped feeling they receive when being surrounded in this putrid waste.

     Dante uses very descriptive words such as the line, " so the three ugly heads of Cerberus, whose yowling at those wretches deafened them, choked on their putrid sops and stopped their fuss." This line proves he has a strong dislike for this circle of Hell, especially when he uses words like wretches to describe the gluttons. Dante uses words like putrid sops witch is referring to the souls within the waste. Putrid, According to dictionary .com, means ," in a state of foul decay or decomposition, as animal or vegetable matter; rotten," This is a very strong word to describe how things smell and whether they appeal to someone or not. Through Dante's use of figurative language here, we can see that he very much disliked these gluttons and thought they should receive a foul punishment to fit their foul crime. The  Perhaps Dante was disgusted by gluttons on earth as well, although, whether he was or not, his description and dislike he imposes on them, through his use of figurative language and epic poetry, show how the gluttons deserved to be in hell and how their crime suited them, otherwise called Contrapaso.