More or Less

Inferno by Dante Alighieri is the story of a man's journey through the nine circles of Hell.In Inferno, it is clear that Dante is equating his depression, after the loss of his love, to going through Hell. In fact, he even states in Canto I, "When I had journeyed half of our life's way.." by use of this pronoun "our" he is implying that the road he is on is apart of the wider path of life that everyone on earth is also taking.

Throughout the story Dante goes through different levels of Hell where different people are stored for different kinds of sin. Because of their sins, each person inside of their respective circle is forced to go through some form of pain and torment. Inside of the fourth circle, Dante comes across the people known as "The Avaricious" and "The Prodigal". These two groups of people are trapped in a never ending cycle where each group is forced to push a stone around in a circle. However, both groups only complete half of the circle because they constantly clash with each other. Each time they collide, the Avaricious yell out "Why do you squander?" while the Prodigal retort, "Why do you hoard?".

It is plausible to say that each level of the Hell Dante depicted was a different lifestyle he went through while being depressed. Inside of the fourth circle, it is most likely that he went through a time where he became became very wasteful, not caring about what he owned and letting everything he owned waste away, and then a time where he tried to cover up his depression by surrounding himself with possessions. Both of which are very common symptoms of depression. Because of this, Dante was forced to endure the burden of both a hoarder's and a spender's lifestyle and frequently found the two clashing when he either gathered so much stuff that he had no more money to spend or, since he found no solace in what he hoarded, wasted everything he bought.

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