Plot & Events
Dante and Virgil travel through this part of the 8th circle.
→ Answer: What is Malebolge?
Dante’s guide through Hell.
→ Answer: Who is Virgil?
The idea that punishment reflects the sin.
→ Answer: What is contrapasso?
The boiling pitch symbolizes hidden, sticky corruption.
→ Answer: What represents the barrators’ secret dealings?
In Canto 22, sinners are submerged in this substance.
→ Answer: What is boiling pitch?
The group of demons who torment the barrators.
→ Answer: Who are the Malebranche?
The hypocrites represent this contrast.
→ Answer: What is appearance vs reality?
Heavy cloaks lined with lead symbolize this burden.
→ Answer: What is false virtue or hypocrisy?
Dante and Virgil escape danger by moving into this next bolgia.
→ Answer: What is the bolgia of the hypocrites?
The crucified sinner walked on by hypocrites.
→ Answer: Who is Caiaphas?
The demons show that evil is full of this trait.
Answer: What is deception?
Snakes represent deception and this biblical idea.
→ Answer: What is sin/temptation?
Virgil carries Dante down the rocky slope to escape the demons.
→ Answer: What happens in their flight from the Malebranche?
The sinners punished in boiling pitch for corruption.
→ Answer: Who are the barrators?
The thieves’ punishment shows the loss of this.
→ Answer: What is identity?
Transformations of thieves symbolize instability and loss of this.
→ Answer: What is human form/identity?
In Canto 24, Dante encounters sinners who constantly change form.
→ Answer: What happens to the thieves?
The sinners in Canto 24 who are bitten by snakes.
→ Answer: Who are the thieves?
Across these cantos, Hell is shown as a place lacking this.
→ Answer: What is trust (or order)?
Caiaphas being trampled represents the consequences of this action.
→ Answer: What is giving false counsel or hypocrisy in leadership?