The Movie, Seven by David Fincher and Its Similarities to the Inferno

The Movie, Seven by David Fincher and Its Similarities to the Inferno

  • Submitted By: cath08
  • Date Submitted: 03/07/2009 10:44 PM
  • Category: Book Reports
  • Words: 547
  • Page: 3
  • Views: 2

The movie, Seven by David Fincher, was very shadowy, dark and mysterious. It revolves around a detective named William Somerset and David Mills, who is the detective set to replace him at the end of the week, and a serial killer named John Doe, staging horrific murders, choosing victims representing the seven deadly sins.

First, an obese man is forced to eat until his stomach rips apart to represent gluttony, then a wealthy defense lawyer is made to cut off a pound of his own flesh as penance for greed. The list goes on. What is seen here that is similar to Dante’s Inferno is the concept of Contrapasso. The idea of Contrapasso is that the punishment you will get in hell would be the same style by the way you lived. The killer in the movie Seven also uses this idea of Contrapasso in his killing as a form of poetic justice and also as a way to accentuate the sin of the person. Another example of Contrapasso seen in Seven is what the killer did for the sin of sloth. The victim of sloth was bound to his bed for a year exactly. He lives but suffers from severe physical and mental deterioration. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, Sloth is the desire for ease, even at the expense of doing the known will of God. Sloth becomes a sin when it slows down and even brings to a halt the energy we must expend in using the means to salvation. The victim of sloth only received due punishment which is also what Dante’s Inferno applies only it is applied in hell.
Another similarity I noticed is the parallelism of the idea of a mentor. In Dante’s Inferno one see’s Virgil and Dante wherein Virgil is Dante’s mentor. In Seven, they pair up William Somerset who is about to retire and David Mills who is about to take over Detective Somerset’s job and is much younger. Detective Somerset, even when off duty, seems to be helping out David Mills. Their mentor and mentee relationship reflects the way Dante views Virgil as a mentor. The only difference however, is the attitude of David...

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