Symbolic Structure and Content The journey of Dante through hell, in both its structure and content, symbolizes the nature of sin and punishment. The structure of the book takes the reader step by step through greater and greater sins. The content of the book shows the different punishments for sins, which they are symbolic of the sins themselves; it also, through its language, shows how hell compares to life. This book was written for Christians …showed first 75 words of 380 total…

…showed last 75 words of 380 total…at all, bellowing like the sea racked by a tempest, when warring winds attack it from both sides. The infernal storm, eternal in its rage, sweeps down and dives the spirits with its blast: it whirls them, lashing them with to punishment… those who make reason slave to appetite… now here, then there, and up and down, it drives them with never any hope to comfort them-hope not of rest but even of suffering less.”