In the Inferno, Dante, as brilliant as he is, is able to cultivate the readers with the way he makes them think through his odd, yet brilliant wording, the way he intrigues them with the unique and quite appropriate punishments he gives the sinners, and lastly, he cultivates making the text very relatable, whether the reader is a sinner, or a saint. Throughout the entire Inferno, the cantos that best demonstrate Dante`s ability to be in such control of his readers are canto 8, 23, and 32. Canto 8 is full of the wrathful and the sullen, which spend their eternity in the muddy, wretched river Styx. In canto 23, Dante finds the hypocrites of which are forced to wear heavy lead coats and walk in circles forever. And lastly in canto 32 Dante illustrates the sinners who have killed family members, these sinners are given one of the worst, yet most appropriate, punishments in the whole Inferno. In these three cantos, as well as in many others, Dante`s detail and unique ideas stick with the reader allowing them to become cultivated and intrigued in his work. In canto 8 lie the sullen in the river of Styx, they sit at the bottom of the muddy river doing nothing but blowing up bubbles to the top of the water, up above the sullen are the wrathful, of which wrestle and fight with one another constantly. The punishments fit the crimes, considering the angry are forced to be angry at each other and to be constantly fighting, as they did in their lives before the inferno, and the sullen are forced to sit sulking in muddy water, just as they sulked all their lives. Towards the beginning of the canto Dante talks to Virgil about these lights he sees flashing at one another, “By reason of two flamelets we saw placed there and for a far another answers them, so far that they hardly could eye attain it. “, this is a perfect example of how strangely Dante puts his words, rather than saying he could hardly see two flames signaling at each other, he says it so beautifully put, but unfortunately it is a little bit hard to get the first time when read, this allows the reader to study it more, which pounds the text into their heads. Later in the canto Dante and Virgil are not being allowed into the gates of Dis, the city entering into the next circle, and the demons come down and keep them out, this resulting in angels having to come and help them out, but back to the demons, “A little then the quelled their great disdain.”, and this shows even more how odd Dante`s wording is, this wording, as said before, forces you to think and this cultivates the reader, it makes them constantly have Dante running through their head and it allows them to not only better understand Dante, but to use Dante to better themselves as people. So wording is a huge influence on readers and Dante does a fanominal job cultivating his readers in this way. Secondly, Dante has great talent in intriguing his readers with his exotic, unique, and incredibly appropriate punishments for the sinners of each canto. Dante does an extordinarily good job in canto 32, Caina. In this canto, Dante begins to truly show good

judgement and Godly decisions. The setting of this ditch is ice, ice so thick a “mountain” falling on it would not even chip the ice, and in the ice are the sinners, frozen in, up to the neck. The sin of this ditch is those who have killed a family member, there are a lot of interesting descriptions of the people in this canto and Dante has trouble communicating with all of them, there were two in particular who were facing each other, them can`t talk because their faces are frozen with tears, so another sinner tells Dante they are the Bisenzio brothers, the two of them were brothers and they killed each other and now in the inferno they are forced to live next to one another forever, this is one of the most fitting punishments in all of the Inferno. Something odd about these sinners are that some refuse to tell Dante why they are where they are, this