The Plain of Burning Sand and The Eternal Rain of Fire

As Dante and Virgil come across the third round of the seventh circle, they encounter the violent against God, nature and art. Each one of the three sins has its own punishment. The blasphemers must lay on their backs in the scorching sand. Dante watches in horror, "enormous herds of naked souls I saw, lamenting till their eyes were burned of tears; they seemed condemned by and unequal law, for some where stretched supine upon the ground... and others without pause roamed round and round,"(111). The sodomites are those who run around endlessly. Lastly, the usurers crouch on the sand. Fire and the burning sand are the main to elements of this punishment. Each of these two elements have specific archetypes which enhance Dante's words.
Circle seven, round three, is the first part of hell that uses fire of a punishment. Usually, when one thinks of hell, fire is one of the first things that comes to mind and vice versa. Dante uses fire to show God's anger toward the souls over their sins. Fire can destroy very easily since it is very hard to control, which imposes fear among people. Intense heat is also a product of fire which is very commonly associated with anger. The fire inside people is usually anger. Also, there are very few people who have never been burned in their life, so Dante uses fire and people being burnt to invoke an emotion in people and cause a slight terror so that they get a detailed mental image of the punishment.
The other element of this round's punishment is the scorching hot plain of burning sand. The great plain of endless burning sand is more or less a desert. Deserts are seen as endless, symbolizing the sinners endless punishment. Sand is also never considered full of life, it is mostly barren of any vegetation. Burning sand in particular puts another spin on this. Many people have made the unbearable hike from the ocean to the parking lot, across scorching sand, without shoes. This pain is one of a kind and imagining laying in said sand or running across it for all eternity sparks an emotion in the reader, which Dante takes advantage of. "In a never-ending fit upon those sands, the arms of the damned twitched all about their bodies..."(112). Dante's descriptive language and the symbols of the sand and twitching arms grab the readers attention. Dante's use of archetypal symbols shape the meaning and reaction of his words, intensifying them.