Punishment in Literature

In many works of literature the idea of punishment sways the direction of the story. In Dante’s Inferno, the entire theme of the story is the punishment of sinners for the transgressions. Although all levels of Dante’s Hell have their own way of punishing the inhabitants, not all punishments are of physical torture. Dante’s hell gives out punishments in a way that reflects the sins that landed each particular soul in hell. The “virtuous pagans”, who receive their penalty in limbo, “In this alone [they] suffer: cut off from hope, [they] live on in desire.” (Volume 1 1224) Because the virtuous pagans were never able to have a relationship with Jesus, they are not permitted into Heaven, and live in the first circle of Hell, where they receive no physical punishment, but still live in eternity knowing they will never be closer to God. The opposite extreme of Hell in The Inferno is the ninth and last circle, where the treacherous sinners reside. Here the traitors spend eternity in agonizing, freezing pain. Here Satan himself resides, as he is the most traitorous sinner of all. This miserable level is the worst of all the levels of hell. It is the absolute furthest place from god, which is why everything is frozen. God is the absolute source of light and warmth, and from the first level of Hell, where no severe punishment is given, to the last and worst level of Hell, and all the other levels in between, the very foundation of punishment, is being away from God. This terrible punishment undergone by all the souls in Hell shapes the tone and theme of the story that the ultimate punishment is being away from God.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner major theme is the punishment of the mariner. The mariner is punished in multiple ways for killing the albatross. He, along with the crew, is initially punished by the loss of water and the overwhelming heat. The mariner explains the agony of the heat, “Water, water, everywhere, /And all the boards did shrink; /Water, water, everywhere, /Nor any drop to drink.” The mariner continues to be punished as, after days of agonizing thirst and heat, Death comes to claim his shipmates, but leaves him to suffer through the pain and endure the “curse in a dead man’s eye.” Although the mariner survives the ordeal at sea, he never fully pays for killing the albatross, and lives on in punishment for this deed. He continues to live, although the rest of his crew died because of his actions, and for this he lives in constant suffering with a need to tell his story to “the man that must hear.” His punishment has brought the story full circle, to the reason that he is telling his story to the wedding guest. He is being punished because of his deed of killing one of God’s Creatures, but his punishment has made those who hear his story “sadder and wiser men”.

In Goethe’s Faust, the idea of punishment impacts the story as the ultimate goal of Mephistopheles