Taylor Swift - Mean
I found a story from our news that truely struck a chord of moral outrage in me; it was regarding an episode of Cyber Bullying, where a bully (or rather two) built a Facebook page with the name and birth date of another person, and used the page to taunt and tease this person about her weight and alleged lack of intelligence. This story of bullying is especially hurtful, since everyone could see the posts and mean comments that were coming from this one Facebook page. A picture of a cow was set as the profile picture, and crude insults regarding her weight filled the page. At first she didn’t know how to react, but Ally Pfeiffer choose to fight back. After reporting to the police, and bringing them clues, Ally was approached by an old friend, who asked her to drop the charges; he had ganged up with another girl from their high school to try and humiliate Ally because “they were bored.” Ally was less than shocked to learn that her friend had betrayed and tried to hurt her. She told the Today Show, “I gave myself one day to cry after I found out about it and I decided I have to work for myself from here on out. My mission is to help other teens. I want to help anyone I can.” The two are now facing charges of criminal impersonation, conspiracy, and harassment. Intentional humiliation and harm are two very wrong things, and the recent increase in such events really bothers me. I feel that Cyber Bullying is worse than “in-person” bullying, since it is unavoidable. When a bully is a real-life person that you must face daily, you can prepare and try and avoid any attacks, but with a Cyber Bully, not only are you unprotected, but you don’t really know who is bullying you, so you can’t pin anything on anyone. Cyber Bullying makes me mad because it shows that the bully has enough problems of it’s own that it can’t handle doing anything in person. This aggravates me because an insecure person is harassing another insecure person when really, they could be working together to push through the hard things in life that they have to face.
Cyber Bullying is not addressed in Dante’s Inferno, obviously because the internet was not inexistence at the time, and also because bullying could be considered one of many different sins seen throughout Hell. Cyber Bullying is most definitely unique to our modern society, but the general bully, I’m sure, has been in existence for a much longer time. Strangely enough, I found Bullying to be most like Hypocrites seen in Bolgia Six of the Eighth Circle in Dante’s Hell. Bullies are like hypocrites in that they pretend to be perfect and have the right to point out the flaws in others. Bullies use the imperfections of others to distract from their own flaws, just as one might call another an “overachiever” to distract from their own slacking and underachievement. I do think that Dante would see and acknowledge my argument, but I think that if he lived in this day and age, there would be a specific place designated for those who have bullied to a great extent, causing more than minimal harm to others. I think that the location of this place could be in many different areas, but most likely it would be near the Violent Against Their Neighbors and the Hypocrites. So, I think that Dante and I would be in agreement that there is a need for a special place for bullies. The pain that these people cause is not the extent of their crime; these people are liars in that they pretend to be flawless themselves and violent in that they are harmful.
Information gathered from http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local-beat/Bristol-Woman-Fights-Back-After-Cyber-Bullying-111520759.html
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Trees of Death, Rather than Trees of Life?
In Round Two of Circle Seven the souls that are being punished are those of The Suicides. Their punishment is to be trapped inside of a twisted, gnarled, thorny tree. The Wood of The Suicides is filled with the souls encased in the trees, and the Harpies that oversee the souls eat at them. The Harpies' destruction of the trees allows the souls to speak, as the souls are only permitted language when bleeding from a wound. In life The Suicides used self-destruction instead of their words to express their feelings and emotions. In Hell, these souls need and rely on destruction to express their emotions and they feel the pain as they bleed from continual destruction. The Suicides not only ruined themselves, but they hurt many friends and family through the actions that they took.
The destruction of one’s own body is a crime insulting God, for he was the one whom gave these people the gift of live. This sin seems to have been interpreted by God as ungratefulness, even though not all the souls had intentionally insulted God. One soul addressed had only taken his life to escape further torture, not out of disrespect for his body and the creator that made him. He says, “My soul, in scorn, and thinking to be free/ of scorn in death, made me at last, though just,/ unjust to myself,” (p.104). The sadness and regret seen in the language used by this soul proves that not all the souls committed suicide out of depression and violence. No matter the reason, this sin is never punished on a case-by-case basis; all suicides result in the admittance into the second round of the seventh circle of Hell. The pain is a way for the trees to do both of two things: to express their emotions verbally and to also appreciate the privilege of speaking, further pressing the souls to regret their actions.
Generally, a tree is a symbol of life. This archetypal symbol is used by Dante to contrast against the types of trees that are seen in the second round of circle seven. Unlike the healthy, green, branchy, and leafy trees that one imagines, these trees were dark and twisted; “Its foliage was not verdant, but nearly gnarled and warped and tangled, bore poison thorns instead of fruit,” (p.102). The dark language Dante uses in this canto expresses the general dark and twisted temperament of these souls. As the archetypal symbol of a tree represents life, these trees represent death and darkness, which ultimately describes the nature of the sins in the circle. Dante uses this symbol to enhance his work; he uses the relatively positive image of a tree to emphasize the darkness of the sin of suicide.
This is related through the idea that the trees here are technically suicides...
The destruction of one’s own body is a crime insulting God, for he was the one whom gave these people the gift of live. This sin seems to have been interpreted by God as ungratefulness, even though not all the souls had intentionally insulted God. One soul addressed had only taken his life to escape further torture, not out of disrespect for his body and the creator that made him. He says, “My soul, in scorn, and thinking to be free/ of scorn in death, made me at last, though just,/ unjust to myself,” (p.104). The sadness and regret seen in the language used by this soul proves that not all the souls committed suicide out of depression and violence. No matter the reason, this sin is never punished on a case-by-case basis; all suicides result in the admittance into the second round of the seventh circle of Hell. The pain is a way for the trees to do both of two things: to express their emotions verbally and to also appreciate the privilege of speaking, further pressing the souls to regret their actions.
Generally, a tree is a symbol of life. This archetypal symbol is used by Dante to contrast against the types of trees that are seen in the second round of circle seven. Unlike the healthy, green, branchy, and leafy trees that one imagines, these trees were dark and twisted; “Its foliage was not verdant, but nearly gnarled and warped and tangled, bore poison thorns instead of fruit,” (p.102). The dark language Dante uses in this canto expresses the general dark and twisted temperament of these souls. As the archetypal symbol of a tree represents life, these trees represent death and darkness, which ultimately describes the nature of the sins in the circle. Dante uses this symbol to enhance his work; he uses the relatively positive image of a tree to emphasize the darkness of the sin of suicide.
This is related through the idea that the trees here are technically suicides...
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Gluttony: The Contrapasso We See
The sin of gluttony is addressed in the third circle of Dante’s Hell. In life on earth, the Gluttons had been engaged in excessive eating and drinking. The Gluttons spent their lives in the warmth that they acquired through their excessive eating. In Hell, as part of their eternal punishment, the Gluttons lied in wet, freezing cold slush. Hell for the Gluttons was a recreation of the opposite of everything that happened in their lives. As Dante is passing through this part of Hell, he describes what he sees, “Huge hailstones, dirty water, and black snow pour from the dismal air to putrefy the putrid slush that waits for them below,” (p.45). The tone and diction in this line shows the nastiness of the slush and how disgusting it must be to sit or lie in it. The words “dismal air” explain the status of the breathing conditions, and it explains the effect of the scent of garbage from the slush.
Throughout the lives of the Gluttons, they produced massive amounts of waste and garbage. In this segment of Hell there are massive amounts of garbage and a foul odor fills the air, coming from the putrid slush that is constantly falling from the sky. The rest of their lives will be spent in this place, where a punishment similar to their sin has been issued; the large amounts of garbage and waste that they each produced throughout their lives consumes this Hell. The people seem to be described as pieces of garbage themselves, as they lie in the dirty slush being eaten at be the three-headed dog. The dog is described as a beast that is ever hurting and attacking the Gluttons, “His eyes are red, his beard is greased with phlegm, his belly is swollen, and his hands are claws to rip the wretches and flay and mangle them,” (p.45). I see Cerberus, the three-headed dog, as both a fat wealthy gluttonous person, and as a poor street person looking for food. The beast’s large belly mocks the Gluttons as it reminds them of what they did to themselves, and often Cerberus acts as thought the Gluttons were the ones in charge of his motions. On the other hand, Cerberus seems to play the role of a desperate and determined street person scavenging for food. I feel as if the Gluttons were a giant dumpster and Cerberus is a street person ripping through the trash in the dumpster in hopes of finding something worth needed.
Throughout the lives of the Gluttons, they produced massive amounts of waste and garbage. In this segment of Hell there are massive amounts of garbage and a foul odor fills the air, coming from the putrid slush that is constantly falling from the sky. The rest of their lives will be spent in this place, where a punishment similar to their sin has been issued; the large amounts of garbage and waste that they each produced throughout their lives consumes this Hell. The people seem to be described as pieces of garbage themselves, as they lie in the dirty slush being eaten at be the three-headed dog. The dog is described as a beast that is ever hurting and attacking the Gluttons, “His eyes are red, his beard is greased with phlegm, his belly is swollen, and his hands are claws to rip the wretches and flay and mangle them,” (p.45). I see Cerberus, the three-headed dog, as both a fat wealthy gluttonous person, and as a poor street person looking for food. The beast’s large belly mocks the Gluttons as it reminds them of what they did to themselves, and often Cerberus acts as thought the Gluttons were the ones in charge of his motions. On the other hand, Cerberus seems to play the role of a desperate and determined street person scavenging for food. I feel as if the Gluttons were a giant dumpster and Cerberus is a street person ripping through the trash in the dumpster in hopes of finding something worth needed.
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