Murderer or Thief

One odd thing i have noticed about the circles of Hell is how Dante ordered the sins. For example murderers are in the seventh circle, the violent circle, and thieves are in the eighth circle, the fraud circle. Sins are ordered by how contradictory they are to god's will (unconditional love), but still I guess it's worse to steal from your neighbour rather than kill him.

Fitting Punishments

I have noticed that there is a bit of ironic humor in The Inferno. The punishment for certain sins are very fitting, punishment does fit the crime. For exapmle gluttons spent eternity wading in and eating human excriment, violent people are forced to headbutt and bite eachother waist deep in mud...makes you think.

Souls Leaving Hell

Onle on one occasion have people been able to leave Hell. Since Christianity was "founded" after the death of Jesus prominent old testament figures were in Limbo because they did not have the chance to have faith in Jesus, thus they could not go to Heaven. Angels were sent down to Hell to bring these souls to Heaven, Moses for example.

Lewis Hamilton – The feud with Alonso

Although he has never admitted it, Fernando Alonso, double world champion and McLaren’s new number one driver at 10 million pounds per season, must have though he would be the clear number one at his new team without much competition from his rookie teammate Lewis Hamilton, and on his way to a third drivers title. However, their relationship turned sour at the Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso’s home circuit, where Lewis finished second and ahead of Alonso, who was third. Lewis chalked up his fourth consecutive podium finish and was the leader in the driver’s championship. Alonso, instead of congratulating Lewis, could only blame the tires for his poor fourth place result. Tensions became greater when Lewis won in Montreal and Indianapolis where he was able to extend his championship lead over Alonso and the two Ferrari drivers, Raikkonen and Massa. Throughout the season it appears that Alonso worked against Lewis with subtle complaints about favouritism, Lewis being a British driver and McLaren being a British team. This all led to the Hungarian Grand Prix on August 5th 2007, where during qualifying it appeared Alonso had won pole position. Alonso had however, stayed in the pits for too long and left Lewis sitting behind him meaning he had enough time to complete his final lap where Lewis did not. Lewis was not completely innocent though, when Alonso was on a longer fuel burn Lewis should have let him pas but he did not. Alonso did not deliberately hold up his teammate, instead he was held back. Ron Dennis tried to diffuse the situation by saying that both teams are very competitive and want to win and that they are doing their best to balance the pressures within the team and things did not work today. As a result Lewis was given pole, on his way to winning the race, and Alonso was moved back to fourth on the starting grid. Lewis then stumbled in the last two races, not finishing in China and placing a disappointing 7th in Brazil, giving the drivers title to Raikkonen, who finished one point ahead of both Hamilton, and Alonso.

Lewis Hamilton – Wizard in Oz

“Wizard in Oz” is a chapter from the book and covers Lewis’ first race in formula 1. It is a metaphor describing Lewis Hamilton as the Wizard and formula 1 as the Land of Oz. It shows Lewis as the wizard in three ways, the first being the ruler of the Land, or the “king” of formula 1. Also the wizard in the classic novels is highly respected by the inhabitants of the city because he is the only man capable of solving their problems. This is also true of Lewis because he is also known as the “chosen one” and the boy who saved formula 1, parallel to the wizard of Oz. The Land of Oz is also a dream world and Lewis sees formula 1 as this as well, he says he is living his dream. After his first race in Australia, finishing third and on the podium, Lewis had this to say, “I’m absolutely ecstatic – today’s result is more than I ever dreamed of achieving on my grand prix debut”.

Lewis Hamilton – Hollywood Story

Lewis Hamilton’s childhood and rise to formula 1 is a story right out of Hollywood. His parents divorced when he was two and he spent 8 years with his mom and step dad. At the early age of six he showed a strong interest around everything automotive. Both his father, who visited often, and his mother took notice of this, and for his eighth birthday his father managed to scavenge together 1000 pounds to buy Lewis his own kart. Lewis and his father went regularly to the go kart track and Lewis immediately showed potential and started to race competitively. At the age of 10 he moved in with his father and his step mom to become a professional racer. Anthony promised to Lewis that he would make him world champion if he promised to keep his grades up. Lewis’ father Anthony took three jobs to support Lewis’ competitive racing at the start, but in 2001 when Lewis was 16 he had success in an internet business and was able to fully support Lewis. Lewis’ big break came when he met “Big Ron” Dennis, the boss at McLaren, and he said to Ron that he would race for him one day, and three years after their first meeting Lewis was signed to the formula 1 development programme, where 5 million pounds was spent on his training, and after a few successful years in formula 3 and GP2 Lewis was offered a job as the second driver, behind Fernando Alonso, for the McLaren formula 1 team. Lewis had to make many sacrifices during his childhood. He was not able to make many friends because he was always busy with racing and was never around to spend time with his peers. He had to fight racism throughout his life and even became a black belt at the age of 12 to defend himself from bullying.

The Conventional Story

I like how he talks about the conventional story. He gives the example of Moses in the Bible and says "That's a conventional type of story, the mysterious birth of a hero. It was told about a Mesopotamian king long before there was any Bible; It was told about Perseus in Greek legend; then it was passed into literature with Euripides' play Ion; Then it was used by Plautus and Terence and with other writers of comedies; then it became a device in fiction, used in Tom Jones and Oliver Twist". This shows that one story is used over and over again but in different ways, from a legend to comedy to American popular literature. He says that literature is timeless no matter what the story is and it can be used over and over again and every time it can seem different and refreshing, which is Frye's point in the chapter.

Interesting Title

One person by himself is not a complete human being.

What Frye means is part of being a human and the human experience is to socialize and interact with others. So much of life is interaction with other people who most importantly we learn from. Without other people the learning experience would be compromised therefore humanity would not nearly be as far advanced if it were not for the discussion between people.