Reflection on Schrag reading and The Failure and Success of Great American Transit video

by | Mar 13, 2021 | Film studies

The reading and video for this reflection are on the
Schrag reading and The Failure and Success of Great American Transit video. The Schrag reading will be on a
file and The Failure and Success of Great American Transit video will be linked here. The Failure and Success
of Great American Transit video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACTp-ebzhP4 The Schrag reading and
The Failure and Success of Great American Transit video are the only sources you need for the paper. The
only part you need to watch for the video is from 33:00 onwards. If you have any questions please message
me. Thanks
Also, the teacher says that the paper needs to follow these 4 points

  1. Make sure to reflect deeply and analytically. Merely saying that something “surprised” you or that you didn’t
    know this information before reading may be a starting point for reflection but it does not, on its own, qualify as
    the type of reflection we are looking for. Aim to craft new insight from your engagement with the reading by:
    connecting the reading to your own personal experience in meaningful ways; posing innovative and highstakes questions about contemporary policy and planning challenges directly related to the material; and/or
    drawing interesting and important connections between the readings and other course materials.
  2. Summary is a starting point, not the aim of the paper. Synthesizing core concepts from the reading is an
    essential building block for reflection, but it is not the aim of the paper. For many of you, summary constituted
    80% of your paper and reflection only 20%. The ratio should be more like the reverse.
  3. Put the materials in conversation with one another. Our intention was not for you to write two different papers
    and then stick them together with a common concluding paragraph. Before you start writing, think carefully
    about concepts, mechanisms, actors, and insights that link the two pieces. A helpful thought exercise might be:
    how would the authors of the two pieces converse if they were in the same room? What would they agree or
    disagree on, or how would they build on each other’s arguments?

Sample Solution

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


This question has been answered

God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

This question has been answered.

Get Answer