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The Concept of Love in The Purgatorio A significant idea contained within Dante's The Divine Comedy is the Augustinian concept of ordered and disordered love. Each realm of the afterlife symbolizes the type of love the inhabitants exercised while they were living on earth. For example, the Inferno represents disordered love, since the souls in Hell exhibited little love for mankind and little acknowledgement of God. Because the kind of love Hell symbolizes is the …

…wait. In many cases self-love has been the main reason why spirits are forced to repent in Purgatory. However, although the sinners did not know how to love in the proper manner while on earth, they are given another chance to ascend into Heaven via Purgatory. They realized their mistakes later in life, but this self-recognition proves that they have the potential to become better people, if not in the flesh, then in the spirit.