I am writing an essay on the use of imagery and simile in Dante's Inferno. I need to focus on two cantos in particular. Any suggestions on which I...

As nearly
every singlein Inferno concerns a portion of hell containing an ironic
punishment that is described in vivid detail, it would not at all be difficult to choose two
cantos to discuss . Just to narrow it down, it might be interesting to find two cantos which
stand out from the rest of the subject matter in terms of imagery. Two that always seem to jump
out are Canto XIII, which concerns the relatively still woods of the suicides compared to the
violent nature of punishments that precede them, and Canto XXXII, which introduces a still, icy
lake of frozen sinners that sharply contrasts the violence and noise of Malebolge just above.


can also be found throughout Inferno and very easily
in the cantos already mentioned. A prominent one can be found in the previously mentioned Canto
XIII. Dante describes the rooting on the souls that will grow into trees in the forest of
suicides, saying that after they take root, they sprout up "lusty as any tare," which
is a common and troublesome weed in biblical terms. In Canto XXXII, Dante happens upon two
sinners who are frozen so close together that one's mouth is above the other's head, gnawing on
it. Using simile, Dante compares the gnawing head to a hat for the lower
head.