Eventually, everyone dies. At some point, most people wonder what will happen in the after death. Is there a heaven and hell? Are we punished for our sins? Or is death just the end, there is nothing afterwards? Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in part to describe what he viewed has the afterlife, and the movie, What Dreams May Come, is a loose adaptation on Dante's view of hell, described in the Inferno. There are many similarities and differences between Dante's Inferno and What Dreams May Come.
             Because the movie is based on the poem, there are many similarities. One of the main similarities is that both Dante and Chris have guides on journeys. In the Inferno, Dante's guide is Virgil, a poet from the Roman times. Dante sees Virgil as a mentor because The Divine Comedy was written to model the Aeneid, written by Virgil. In What Dreams May Come, Chris' guide, at first, is his son, Ian. It the beginning, Chris thinks that his guide is Albert, a doctor who was his mentor from the past. Chris believes this because in the afterlife, Ian chooses to look like Albert because in life, Albert was the only person that Chris listened to. Another similarity is that the afterlife reflects the physical life. In Dante's Inferno, some souls are punished by physical pain, which they can still feel. Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, are doomed to eternal chewing in the mouths of Satan, in which their blood and puss from their bodies mixes with the spit of the Devil. In What Dreams May Come, souls in hell also seem to resemble their physical bodies. However, in hell, do not seem to look as they choose. Punished souls are faces in the ground; their whole body is buried in the ground, except for their head which sticks above. Although the punishments both resemble the physical life, the souls are there for very different reasons.
             There are also many differences between Dante's Inferno, and What Dreams
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