Inferno by Dante Alighieri

The gates of hell are littered with monsters, and the monsters are the gates to the sinners' hearts. In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, monstrosity is not only shown through the punishments of the sinners in each circle of hell; it is also shown in the grotesqueness and violent traits exhibited by each corresponding demon that Dante meets. Cerberus, the Harpies, and Lucifer are just some of the prominent creatures inhabiting the underworld, all exhibiting the ugliness of the sins portrayed in their own circles -- gluttony, suicide, and betrayal.

As Dante enters the gates of the underworld in Canto VI, he is met with "monstrous and cruel" (12) Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the entrance of the dead. Cerberus is a fearsome creature, a giant beast that claws at the sinners of the first circle: gluttony. In classical Greek mythology, Cerberus is nothing but a fearsome...
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