“I reached my hand a little in front of me and twisted off one shoot of a mighty thornbush-and it moaned, “why do you break me?” then after it had grown darker with blood, it began again and mourned, “Why have you torn me? Have you no pity, then?”(Canto XIII 29-34) People as trees, awesome. That is a very cool creative punishment. It sucks for the person but is an interesting idea. When Dante first observes the trees he describes them as the leaves not being green, the earth hued, boughs not smooth, knotted and crooked forked, no fruit but poisoned thorns. All the individuals cast to this layer of hell have brought death upon themselves. Now as trees, which cant move, cannot harm themselves.

Before I started reading this book I always thought of Heaven and Hell as two nonrelated places. But now I think that hell is a part of heaven and if God does not see you worthy enough to enter heaven he will send you to hell. Hell is so orderly and divided into its own separate layers that divide people by crime. Another reason I think Hell is controlled by god is that the people are punished. Since the people did not worship him in there short lifetime he is making that up to them my punishem them for eternity.