Katabasis

While Hell is a physical place Alice and Peter traverse, it is also an allegory for modern academia. The trials the Shades are put through also symbolically mirror the saying, “academia is hell,” depicting academia as an infernal structure riddled with toxic expectations, power dynamics, and futile ambitions.

The physical settings in Hell are fraught with parallels to academia, literally styling academia as an infernal structure. No matter who traverses it, the “Eight Courts of Hell reflected the world of the living” (76). This is why Dante’s Hell was populated with “all the poets and artists and politicians he was personally familiar with over his lifetime” (77). For Peter and Alice, thus, “Hell is a campus” (77). The first few Courts of Hell embody parts of a campus: A library, a student center, and the edge of campus. Even after these parallels drop away, many facets of academia remain scattered through the Courts. In Cruelty, Alice sees Shades trapped in cages that remind her of “carrels at exam time” (384). Later, Gradus explains that Shades in the final circle write a dissertation about “[w]hatever we’re in for” until it “passes muster” and they’re allowed to reincarnate (401).