This article contains a discussion of torture and suicide.
There are many similarities between Over the garden wall and Dante Alghieri Hellbut Cartoon Network’s cult classic miniseries actually has a direct counterpart to each of the Italian poet’s nine circles of Hell. Over the garden wall is full of parallels with Dante’s Hell (through CBR), which is probably why the show has had such lasting popularity. In truth, Over the garden wall is considered perfect for Halloween, and there’s even a 10th anniversary for Over the garden wall. Dante Hell has stood the test of time for centuries and is now a clear inspiration for Over the garden wall.
Several of the characters in Over the garden wall have direct parallels with figures in Hell. Wirt is Dante, the poetic traveler who needs to overcome his sin. Greg is Virgil, the bravest guide through the Unknown and Hell, respectively. Interestingly, both stories have characters named Beatrice. One is Dante’s lost love, and the other is the human-turned-blue bird who tries to lure the boys to Adelaide’s house, and both act as guides of sorts in their respective stories. The parallels don’t stop there, as each episode of Over the garden wall directly correlates to a Circle of Hell in Hell.
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The Gates of Hell – The Old Grist Mill
Dante and Wirt have similar beginnings to their journeys
Not Dante Hell nor Over the garden wall really start in Hell; both begin at the entrance to the underworld. In HellDante finds himself in a “dark wood“, while in Over the garden wallWirt and Greg get lost in an equally mysterious forest, and neither of them can remember how they got there.. Then, Dante found himself faced with three beasts: a panther, a lion and a wolf. Wirt and Greg find something similar at the old mill – Beatrice’s dog, which was transformed into a wild beast by the black turtles.
Greg and his Hell his counterpart Virgil ends up driving the beasts away from Wirt and Dante and then leading them deeper into their journey. The Woodcutter seems to parallel Dante’s description of the vestibule of Hell, where those who were selfish and “indecisive” in life were punished. In Hellthe selfish souls were forced to chase an elusive flag they could never catch, while the Woodsman was forced to cut down Edelwood trees to indefinitely power the Beast’s lantern, a task he did to serve his own desire to keep his daughter alive.
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Limbo, the first circle – Pottsfield
Limbo and Pottsfield are full of good-hearted people
Once they entered Hell proper, Dante and Virgil found souls trapped in Purgatory, the First Circle. Over the garden wallThe Purgatory version is Pottsfield. Purgatory was full of virtuous, unbaptized pagans, people who never had the chance to accept the Christian God into their lives. Meanwhile, Pottsfield is a reference to a “potter’s field,” which was a cemetery used for foreigners and unidentified people. Over the garden wall appears to have chosen the name Pottsfield specifically to draw parallels between the town’s residents and the souls who end up in Purgatory.
The residents of Pottsfield are not cruel or petty, and although they can’t seem to leave the Unknown, they are not paying for any particular sin.
Notably, neither Purgatory nor Pottsville are supposed to be an especially tortuous layer of Hell or the Unknown. Dante filled Purgatory with some of the greatest thinkers and “pagan” figures in history, such as Aristotle and Julius Caesar. The second part The Divine Comedy, Purgatoryexplains that souls in Purgatory were allowed to leave and enter heaven upon repentance, usually through prayer. Likewise, the residents of Pottsfield are not cruel or petty, and although they can’t seem to leave the Unknown, they are not paying for a specific sin.
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Lust, The Second Circle – Mrs. Langtree’s School
Mrs. Langtree and the animals are governed by their desires
Like a children’s program, Over the garden wall I had to be creative in how I represented the Second Circle of Hell, which was reserved for those who were slaves to lust. According to Dante, lust was inherently sexual, but it was also a sin committed by people who were unable to resist bodily desires and indulged excessively in earthly pleasures. Then, Over the garden wall portrays lust in two ways: through Mrs. Langtree and Jimmy Brown and through the school animals.
Langtree and Jimmy Brown are the most direct interpretation of Dante’s concept of lust. Langtree is obsessed with Jimmy and often breaks into spontaneous song to mourn her lost love. She is consumed by her earthly desire for love, and although she is not explicitly talking about sex, there is a clear connection to lust in the way she desires Jimmy.. Animals, however, serve as a less direct example of lust. They symbolize the idea that lust means submitting to bodily desires, just as an animal has no concept of anything beyond immediate needs such as food, safety and reproduction.
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Gluttony, The Third Circle – The Tavern
The regulars at the tavern beyond the garden wall are obsessed with getting more business
Dante’s Third Circle, gluttony, has the most abstract representation of the world. Over the garden wall. In HellGluttonous sinners are forced to live in a kind of rotting mud and endure freezing rain. They are also constantly attacked by Cerberus, a figure from Greek mythology who is most commonly depicted as a three-headed dog. Meanwhile, in Over the garden wallWirt, Greg and Beatrice arrive at a tavern on a rainy night. The tavern door is also held closed by a sleeping dog, and this dog rushes to close the door behind everyone entering or leaving.
Over the garden wallThe group’s connections with the Third Circle are not very strong, but they are present. There is a sense that the tavern itself is a symbol of gluttony, in that it is a place where the townspeople gather to indulge in food and drink. Later in HellDante even mentions “gluttons in the tavern mess“, which makes the configuration seem more pertinent. The tavern dog could also represent Cerberus. The closest the series comes to showing the tavern regulars as gluttons, however, is through the song about Wirt’s wedding, where they try to squeeze as much business out of him as possible.
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Greed, the fourth circle – Quincy Endicott Mansion
Quincy Endicott admits he is greedy and his
Dante’s Fourth Circle, Greed, has one of the most evident representations in Over the garden wall. Quincy Endicott is clearly affected by the sin of greed, and he says so himself numerous times throughout the episode. When talking to Wirt and Greg, Quincy often says things like “enjoy my unnecessary excess of wealth and luxury“, which makes it quite clear that he is a greedy person. Quincy not only fit Dante’s definition of the average inhabitant of the Fourth Circle of Hell, but they also fit the punishment inflicted upon them.
The Fourth Circle was reserved for two types of greedy people: those who accumulated wealth and those who spent it frivolously. In Hellthe two types of greedy people were forced to fight incessantly, throwing huge weights at each other. In Over the garden wallQuincy Endicott and Margueritte Gray fulfill this role. The two accumulate their riches and spend them frivolously – their mansions are so large that they connect without any of the aristocrats noticing. Both are also involved in the tea industry and even refer to each other as competitors, which mimics Dante’s depiction of greedy people fighting each other.
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Wrath, The Fifth Circle – The Ferry Boat
Dante travels down the River Styx, while Wirt and Greg travel on a river raft
Like lust, anger, the Fifth Circle in Hellhad to be portrayed intelligently to maintain Over the garden wall suitable for children. The Fifth Circle is situated on the banks of the River Styx, while Over the garden wall takes place on a river boat. The sinners of the Fifth Circle are separated into two groups: the actively wrathful, who are forced to stand in the marshy waters of the Styx and fight among themselves, and the passively wrathful, who are submerged in the mud and left to sulk. Over the garden wall portrayed both versions quite creatively.
The passive sinner is Wirt, who complains angrily to Beatrice about Jason Funderberker stealing Sarah from him.
In Over the garden wallthe actively angry sinners are the toad passengers on the ferry. When Wirt interrupts the song, they start crying and fighting among themselves. The passive sinner is Wirt, who complains angrily to Beatrice about Jason Funderberker stealing Sarah from him.. There is even a direct reference to the passive sinners wallowing in the Fifth Circle: the frogs jump into a mud puddle. The Fifth Circle was also the last layer that punished sins associated with giving in to base desires, while the later layers are sins committed by conscious decision. Using frogs instead of humans could be a reference to these basic desires.
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Heresy, The Sixth Circle – Aunt Whispers’ House
Aunt Whispers and Lorna look like witches, who populated Dante’s sixth circle
The Sixth Circle of Hell was reserved for heretics, and Over the garden wall took an interesting approach to this sin. The Sixth Circle was, for the most part, filled with common heretics, people who held views that directly contradicted Church teachings and Christian doctrine. However, witches and those who practiced magic were also considered heretics, and Over the garden wall uses them to connect to Hell. Both Lorna and Aunt Whispers evoke images of Puritan women, which was the same period in which the Salem Witch Trials took place. Lorna was also possessed by a spirit, which would make her almost a witch.
Both Lorna and Aunt Whispers evoke images of Puritan women, which was the same period in which the Salem Witch Trials took place.
Over the garden wall also makes a less literal allusion to Dante’s work Hell. The punishment given to the heretics of the Sixth Circle was to be locked in a burning tomb. Aunt Whispers and Lorna, the witches in the series, have basically isolated themselves from the outside world and locked themselves in a tomb of sorts.. Aunt Whispers also warns Wirt and Greg about Adelaide and the deeper levels of the Unknown, just as Virgil warns Dante about the deeper layers of Hell in the Sixth Circle.
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Violence, The Seventh Circle – The Forest
Dante believed that suicide victims went to hell and the Edelwood trees represent suicide
One of the darkest aspects Over the garden wallits allusions and symbolism to suicide, represents the Seventh Circle of Hell, violence. In Over the garden wallEdelwood trees can easily be interpreted as representing suicide. The Beast attacks children who are lost in the forest and convinces them to abandon any hope of escape. When they do, they die and turn into Edelwood trees, and their decision to abandon hope has some similarities to many real-life suicides. Viewing Edelwood trees as victims of suicide allows Over the garden wall makes perhaps its most direct allusion to Hell.
Viewing the Edelwood trees as victims of suicide allows Over the Garden Wall to make perhaps its most direct allusion to Hell.
In HellThe Seventh Circle is divided into three rings: the first is filled with people who commit violence against their neighbors, such as Attila the Hun, while the third is filled with those who commit violence against God, art, and nature, such as blasphemers or , according to the customs of the 14th century, the sodomites. The second ring, however, is reserved for those who commit violence against themselves – victims of suicide – who are turned into trees and fed by harpies, mythical hybrids of women and birds. The parallels with Over the garden wallEdelwood trees, formed from suicide victims and harvested by the Lumberjack, are clear.
Wirt and Greg’s arrival in the forest also reflects Dante’s journey. The first ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell is a river of boiling blood, and Over the garden wall episode 8 begins with Wirt and Greg rowing down a river. Greg’s Dream is not an exact adaptation, although it shares some clear imagery. For example, the dream includes one of the few depictions of violence in the series, when Greg fights the North Wind, and also has several angelic figures. Furthermore, the city of clouds could be a reference to the punishment of the third ring, which consisted of extinguishing sinners with a rain of fire.
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Fraud, The Eighth Circle – The Real World
Wirt and Greg committed forms of fraud before entering the unknown
Each sin portrayed in Dante’s vision of Hell gets progressively worse as it descends. Dante considered fraud, the sin punished in the Eighth Circle, to be one of the worst things a person could do, and he condemned it more deeply than murder. It is useful to consider what Dante was trying to accomplish with The Divine Comedy. At several points in the poem, he specifically targets real people and uses them to expose corruption. As such, he makes fraud one of the most serious sins one can commit, as Dante considered corruption a form of fraud that destroys entire societies or organizations, such as the Church.
Over the garden wall does not share Dante’s description of corruption as a form of fraud, but uses a version of fraud. In the real world, both Wirt and Greg committed some form of fraud on Halloween. Wirt was desperately trying to appear cool to impress Sarah, which could be considered a fraudulent personality type. About that, Greg stole a rock from Old Lady Daniels, and Dante places simple thieves with the punished fraudsters in the Eighth Circle.. Neither brother is necessarily the core group Dante was targeting, but they meet the requirements to be considered fraudsters.
Dante’s description of the Eighth Circle is also represented in Over the garden wall. Each of the ten types of fraudsters he identifies are classified into trenches, and Dante and Virgílio travel from one trench to another by sliding down the walls of each trench. Likewise, Wirt and Greg enter the Unknown by jumping off a cemetery wall and subsequently falling down a hill.. They then fall into a probably freezing river, which takes them to the final Circle of Hell.
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Betrayal, The Ninth Circle – The Beast
The beast bears a striking resemblance to Satan and tries to deceive Wirt
The lowest Circle of Hell in Dante Hell it is also where Satan resides and is reserved for those who are guilty of treason. Dante describes the Ninth Circle as a frozen lake where traitors are trapped in the ice. The lake is divided into four circles, and the center of the circles is where Lucifer, also known as Satan, is trapped in ice as punishment for betraying God. Dante was also careful to portray Satan as having three different colored faces, which is important for Over the garden wallthe connection.
At the end of Over the garden wallWirt and Beatrice confront the Beast in the middle of a wintry forest, much like the frozen lake. The Beast tries to convince Wirt to take the Lumberjack’s place as lantern keeper to save Greg’s life, but instead Wirt discovers the truth. Wirt realizes that the Beast is trying to trick him, as the Beast’s soul is in the lantern, not Greg’s or the Woodsman’s daughter.. The Beast’s lie is a form of betrayal, as he took advantage of the Woodcutter’s trust to his detriment. As such, there is a clear link to the Ninth Circle.
After the Beast’s treachery is exposed, the Woodsman shines a light on the Beast and shows that his body is made up of several disfigured faces. This already sounds extremely similar to Dante’s description of Lucifer and his three faces. Additionally, Greg was trapped motionless in a growing Edelwood tree, while the Sinners in Hell were trapped in the ice. Happily, Over the garden wall continued its adaptation of Dante’s book Helland Wirt and Greg managed to escape the clutches of the Beast just as Dante and Virgil escaped the clutches of Lucifer.
Sources: CBR, Project Gutenberg, Dante today