In Canto 30 of Dante’s Inferno, the reader is led through a lengthy, crowded section of hell where a collection of souls who are suffering eternal punishment for a wide range of sins are clustered together, mired in their own collective filth, which reflects some of the religious imagery of the times.

This “valley of disease” that serves as the setting for this canto is characterized by rot, decay, and disfiguring, foul illnesses that are often symbolically related to the crimes of the sufferer. For instance, the only character who is given any extensive dialogue in order to aid in his characterization, Master Adam, is swollen with a disease called dropsy, which is symbolically related to his crime of being “swollen” with the stink of greed during his life as a counterfeiter.  He describes and taunts the other souls around him who are, much like him, miserable, but unable to do anything but lash out at others around them. The characterization of the entire place presented in this canto then reflects not only its inhabitants, but the crimes they committed, which label them as being diseases upon society. From incest to fraud, this gathering of sinners is unlike any other found in this poem by Dante. Part of the reason for this is that the author uses broad and symbolic characterization to communicate his ideas as opposed to a more focused, character-specific approach as used in previous cantos where one character was the subject of scrutiny.

In terms of characterization, instead of relying on mere language to communicate his sentiments about the plights of the multitudes in the bolgia that is filled with disease, Dante the poet relies on metaphor and symbolic characterization to present readers with notions regarding crime and the most appropriate form of punishment . By connecting issues of crime, punishment, and the animalistic, base nature of criminal behavior itself, the poet not only offers commentary on how the punishment in hell fits the crimes in life, he is also able to create characters who are defined by what they symbolize as opposed to by what they say in a narrative sense. In addition revealing that which is animalistic, Dante the poet literally interprets the crimes these citizens of hell physically. The ultimate effect of the combination of animal characterization and the use of symbolic characterization of the crimes committed is that the reader understands associations between crimes and their most just, fitting punishments. Hence, it is only just that this den of souls suffering for a multitude of sins that vary in scope and severity are diseased.  The final effect of these characterizations is a deepening of the reader’s understanding of naturalism as it exists in this text. Suffers become literal interpretations of what their most grotesque sins and are characterized and presented in an “everyday” manner as enacting the torturous results of their mistakes in life.

With the braying of the madwoman in the background, two of the first images the reader clearly perceives are those of two pale shadows biting at one another, just “a boar does, when from the sty turned loose.” These two shadowy figures do not merely nip at one another defensively, but attack, going for the jugular, with one dragging the other with its teeth across the ground. This implicit and explicit relationship to animal behavior, as suggested by the connection between the shadow’s behavior and that of a wild boar, does more than set the tone for this canto; it establishes a mode of symbolic characterization that will be sustained throughout Dante and Virgil’s stay in the bolgia and will even begin to have an effect on Dante, which draws condemnation from his master.
One of the most compelling traits the characters in the tenth bolgia bear in terms of symbolic characterization is that they are essentially animalistic, and are described by the poet as “goading beasts.” Not only does the reader imagine them to be crowded together in a pit where they walk over one another as pigs in a pen might do, they bite one another and behave basely to those around them. This is in marked contrast to other sufferers in Dante’s hell who are often self-absorbed and mired in their own lamentations about their life gone by and the eternity of torture that stretches ahead of them. All elements of the setting and characterization of Canto 30 reek of animal filth and the sounds one imagines, with the barking woman who is forever unable to express herself meaningfully, aid in this sensation. The characterization in this canto occurs in tandem with these associations of animal nature as they are all guilty of base crimes that are weaknesses of the flesh (lust and greed for instance). In short, by falling to prey to the negative side of the core of human behavior, these sufferers literally become like animals themselves. They are doomed to lives of filth, petty bickering and gossip, and the biting and jostling of animals in a pen. For these souls in this region of hell, the poet seems to see little need to expound deeply upon their cases through narrative or by offering most of them any explanatory dialogue; they are merely characterized by their current state as animals in a diseased pen.
Aside from the general setting that reeks and sounds like a den of low, dirty animals, the overall characterization of this region of hell is defined by the ways its characters are punished for their sins. Although there is a sense of poetic justice for most of the characters who suffer punishments that can be symbolically tied to their crimes, this is particularly striking in Canto 30. Unlike in the case of other sections Dante’s poem, characters present here have little depth and are characterized more by their punishment than any other distinguishing features. They appear as frightening, grotesque characterizations that represent symbolically just punishment as individuals. Most cantos until this point have either focused on one figure (Ulysses or Ovid, for example) or clusters of sinners (such as the suicides) but not necessarily in the “horror show” format of Canto 30. In this particular Canto, the reader is guided along and introduced to these figures of torment who occupy Dante’s vision of punishment for a wide range of sins, including something as taboo as incest to the relatively minor crime of counterfeiting.

The overall effect of this canto is on the reader is that it becomes possible to see these characters as individuals guilty of base crimes that can be tied to animalistic or instinctive desires (lust and greed). With their fitting punishments do, although it could easily be argued, is to gather up any of the “remaining sins” that had not been covered in the text and lump them together into the pit of disease. The characterization of the setting itself is that of a random collection of people who were themselves diseases upon society. These souls are now left to linger in their filthy torment along this “dismal road” that stretches on for eleven miles but is thin and crowded. Interestingly, the setting itself causes a change in the character of Dante as he is scolded by Virgil for succumbing to their petty gossip. It seems  that the base, primal drives that landed many of the souls present in this region are also drives that Dante possesses, even though he has nothing but disdain for the reeking souls he surrounded by.

It is much easier to begin to see Dante’s new character trait that emerges toward this end of Inferno to have dismay for these dead rather than outright pity. The characterization of many of the other souls he has encountered do encourage the reader to sympathize with what drove them to their sins and while some have deserved more scorn than others, the characterization of this den of people who were blights upon their society discourages that in the reader and in Dante. The final effect of this canto is to communicate through characterization (as opposed to dialogue or narration) the conception of fitting punishments for sins committed during one’s life and to ultimately characterize sin as base human desires that are not rejected by the higher moral force in all of us.