weight (and not the kind you lift)

Though there are many interesting and disturbing descriptions of creatures or punishments described through the few chapters we’ve read, one of the first to catch my attention was the she-wolf. I was intrigued by Dante’s comparison of the She-wolf’s oppressiveness to the anticipation of loss a gambler feels. She is the physical embodiment of depression, as simply her presence “weighed down his spirit”. Her glance filled him with terror. And the anticipation of what she would do, or possibly even make him feel, was something so terrible it was seen as equally as painful as having it all and then losing it all in gambling. As someone who’s spent their fair share of time playing Texas hold’em, I can attest to the mental and emotion sucky feeling putting in all your chips, only to lose to a slightly better hand makes you feel. It’s a feeling of having spent so long accumulating so much, and then in an instant having it all taken from you in a way that is almost completely out of one's own control. No, I don’t have a gambling problem, but I can’t imagine how it would feel to lose big time. Maybe Dante is drawing a comparison to those who gamble with life, only to lose and end up in hell. Maybe Dante is drawing a parallel to the loss one feels by having the valuable things in life taken from them without any control over the situation. But these losses are often to switch flipped that drives good, sane men into a deep depression, just as the she-wolf drives Dante away from where he is traveling to, until only darkness is visible. The sun is void and the feelings of despair and desire to weep are the only things available to him; All these terrible things being attributed to this she-wolf, or who I’d prefer to rename, Depression’s weight.

I comme\nted on Cade and Zane's posts. :)