Telling a story is narrating events or giving an account. In literature, narrative becomes a frame within a frame, a story within a story. A character from the outer frame of the book creates a smaller frame in the form of his story. As Dante descends through Hell into his Inferno, he and his guide Virgil listen to many damned souls tell stories. Some sinners predict the future, as do the suicide of Canto XIII, the gluttonous Ciacco of Canto VI, and the heretics of Canto X. Others, like the Jovial Friars and the Barater Navarese, identify other sinners and explain punishments distinct from their own. Most of the stories told by the damned, however, are personal confessions. The structure of each confession is usually tripartite, consisting of the sinner's identification of himself, the narration of the occasion of his particular sin, and the description of his punishment. The suicide of Canto XIII, for example, begins his long confession to Dante and Virgil by identifying himself: "I am he who kept both the keys of Frederick's heart and transformed them..." (Canto XIII, lines 58-59) . He then explains how he was driven to suicide. He tells Dante and Virgil that he has become an object of envy due to his great influence on Emperor Frederick. This envy, says the sinner, "inflamed the hearts of all" against him (Canto XIII, verse 67), and he committed suicide, believing that he "could escape indignation through death" (Canto XIII, verse 71). The damned soul then completes the three-part confession structure when he provides a vivid description of the punishment for suicides, who become brambles in Hell and are eaten by harpies. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay These confession stories serve several functions. The confessions not only identify real historical figures in the Inferno, but also highlight some differences between Dante as the author and Dante as the character. By identifying an individual soul and its sin, each confession provides a specific example of a particular sin. Because the author Dante places historical figures in Hell, their confessions allow him to identify those people, thus condemning their earthly actions. The author creates the system by which these souls are eternally damned, and also invents the tortures with which they afflicted these sinners, but the character Dante sometimes feels pity for a confessing soul, as he does for Francesca in Canto V: "Francesca, your afflictions / shed tears of pain and pity" (Canto V, lines 116-117). Therefore, the stories, since they identify the sinner who speaks, provide an opportunity for the distinction between Dante the character and Dante the author the unique punishment of a sin, confessions give an idea of ​​the structure of Dante's punishment system Bertran de Born, for example, in the eighth circle, where the sewers of the schism are punished, explains why he is punished with his head severed. from the body. He says: I have made enemies of the son and the father... why have I severed those so united, alas, my brain has separated from its source, which is in my trunk law of counterpenalty. (Canto XXVIII, vv. 136, 139-142) This "law of counterpenalty" ensures that the punishment is adequate for the crime. Bertran de Born severed father and son, and so in Hell his body is severed from his head. Most of the sins in Dante's Inferno are punished with counterpunishments. Suicides, for example, must never be reunited with or resemble their bodies because, as the bramble explains to Dante and Virgil, "it is not right that any man should have / what he himself has thrown aside" (Canto XIII, lines 105 -106). An additional function.