Question: Setting

Answer: Setting affects character behavior, which drives the plot.

Setting affects the feelings of a character.

It helps to create a story’s mood.

Question: How do Chaucer’s views of suffering differ from Dante’s?

Answer: Chaucer believes Fortune decides someone’s suffering, while Dante believes that suffering is a consequence of sin.

Chaucer’s characters are punished for wrongdoing while they are on Earth, while Dante’s characters are punished for sins in the afterlife.

Question: What do Chaucer’s “The Monk’s Tale” and Dante’s Inferno have in common?

Answer: Both discuss the fates of famous men and women.

Question: Which lines from the Inferno best reflect Dante’s message that “God is an ordered and fair God”?

Answer: From there we reached the border that divided / The second from the third ring, and there / I witnessed the horrendous art of justice.(Canto XIV, lines 4 - 6)

Question: Which lines from the Inferno best reflect Dante’s message that “it’s better to live a Christian life than suffer in Hell for eternity”?

Answer: O vengeance of God, how much you ought to be / Held in fear by everyone who reads / The things that were revealed before my eyes! (Canto XIV, lines 16 - 18)

Question: Which lines from the Inferno best reflect Dante’s message that “how life is lived on Earth determines how life is lived after death”?

Answer: “And, if they lived before the Christian era, / They did not worship God in the right way: / And I myself [Virgil] am one of those poor souls.” (Canto IV, lines 34 - 39)

Question: Imagine a story in which the main character is stranded at sea in a lifeboat. What is most likely the allegorical meaning of the story?

Answer: The main character is unsure of his or her purpose in life.

Question: Imagine a story in which the main character is trapped in a giant human maze. What is most likely the allegorical meaning of the story?

Answer: The main character is trying to navigate difficult life choices.

Question: Imagine a story in which the main character is trapped in a barred cage with a lock. What is most likely the allegorical meaning of the story?

Answer: The main character is trapped by a life choice and must figure out a way to escape.

Question: How does the real-life Dante differ from the fictional Dante?

Answer: The real Dante has uncompromising ideas about religion and human nature.

The real Dante holds highly unfavorable views of his political enemies.

The fictional Dante is more naive about worldly issues.