Contrapasso

As we keep reading Dante's Inferno and we see the different sins being punished, the constant theme of contrapasso comes up over and over again. Contrapasso is defined as "suffer the opposite" in which Dante decides to punish the sinners through a process that resembles or contrasts their sins. For example the lustful who excited their bodies, are constantly excited by the winds. The gluttons have to rot in their filthy rain and mud while a disgusting Cerberus claws at them, or the angry who are constantly fighting each other by the Styx. This kind of suffering perfectly fits the sin for which they are being punished, making it an appropriate punishment.
While I was reading Volpone by Ben Jonson  for my British Literature class, this idea of contrapasso came to my mind again. In this play a man, Volpone, plots against other members of his society to gain favors from them by pretending to be dying and promising each one of them his inheritance. In this process he makes each one commit different sins. Volpone makes Corbaccio disown his own, makes Corvino agree to prostitute his wife to Volpone, and makes Voltore manipulate the courts. Volpone's plot becomes more and more complicated and at the end his plan backfires when his servant turns on him and hi plot is found out by the court and Volpone along with his servant and those he was trying to manipulate are punished.
In their punishment we see that Jonson was aware of Dante and his idea of contrapasso. Corbaccio, who was so greedy that he would disown his own son to prevent him from gaining his inheritance has his estate is taken away from him. Corvino, who was willing to prostitute his own wife and was acting very ungentlemanly is made to wear donkey ears to walk around town to show that he was acting like an ass. Volpone who decided to act as if he was sick to gain the wealth of others is punished by actually becoming sick and is sent to prison. Voltore who was taking advantage and making a mockery of the court system is disbarred and Mosca, Volpone's servant, who pretended to be the true heir to Volpone and thus imitated a noblemen, is made a galley slave.
So here we have see the influence of Dante even over two centuries late as Jonson was clearly aware of Dante's poetry and was able to use ideas from it co write his own play. Jonson also directly mentions Dante's Inferno by having a character in the play who is meant to represent an ignorant English woman who acts like she knows more than she truly does talk about it. This character say that Dante is hard to understand and very few can understand him. Since Jonson gives the line to a character that we are not meant to take seriously implies that Jonson actually does enjoy Dante and takes him very seriously. Another comparison is that Dante's "Comedy" has very harsh punishment, and Jonson takes this into account as "Volpone" is meant to be a comedy, but in Jonson's time comedies tended to end in a marriage and with people being happy, and yet he too includes very harsh punishments on the characters, so we can see the influence that Dante had on Jonson in this play.

Another image that comes to mind to me when I think of contrapasso is from the Simpsons where Homer is forced to eat all the donuts in the word because his sin was selling his soul for a donut.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3ZcZ2h4Ths
But I guess contrapasso does not work on Homer Simpson.