Dante’s Inferno and Seven:

Ode to Dante from David Mills’s (Brad Pitt) Perspectives

By Jasmine Sheibani

Ode to Dante,

How the murder confused me so,

This first murder was gluttonous and excessive,

I hadn’t caught on to your motivations yet, though

Ode to Dante,

Now a connection has been made,

The word greed scrawled along the lawyer’s floor,

Gave me a clue as to what the murderer’s intentions displayed

Ode to Dante,

The next murder portrayed quite a frightening scene,

The man bound and starved, emulated sloth,

Made it quite clear he’s one of the worst that I’ve seen

Ode to Dante,

His next action was not a pretty sight,  

The murderer held a lustful man at gunpoint,

And forced him to violate a woman of the night

Ode to Dante,

This one was quite sad,

A beautiful woman who had been given a choice,

Decided to take her life due to the face she had

Ode to Dante,

John Doe’s next move took me as a shock,

To find out he envied my life in such a way,

Taking my wife’s life & displaying her head in a box

Ode to Dante,

I had never experienced such wrath before,

This man’s life needed to end at my hands,

Somerset attempted to protest, yet I chose to ignore

Summary + Explanation:

My Manifold entry is a poem that combines the themes of the book Inferno written by Dante Algieri and the movie Seven directed by David Fincher, starring Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Gwenyth Paltrow. My idea for the poem is supposed to be an “Ode to Dante” from David Mills’ perspective in the movie Seven. David Mills, played by Brad Pitt, is one of the lead detectives in the case of the serial murderer in the movie Seven. The movie goes through a journey of 7 different murders that all emulate different deadly sins, which I intended to summarize through the 7 different parables. Each murder being uglier than the next, I choose to simply allude to the occurrence of the murder, rather than giving more graphic detail and to further describe Mills’ emotional journey throughout the investigation. There was one scene in the movie where Mills’ is reading Dante’s Inferno for clues as to who the murderer is and his motivations in which he proceeds to curse out Dante and use many different obscenities to describe his rage and frustration. This scene in particular sparked my inspiration for my poem, giving me the idea to portray Mills’ emotional journey throughout the poem. Clearly, the poem is an Ode to Dante and especially highlights how he initially gave the idea of the serial murders to the perpetrator, Johnathan Doe. I thought the creative approach of a poem would provide many emotional appeals as well as provide a bit of diversity within the manifold.

Works Cited:

1. Algieri, Dante. “Digital Dante.” The Divine Comedy – Digital Dante, https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/ Accessed 1 Oct. 2023.
2. Fincher, David, director. Seven. Warner, 1995, https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Brad-Pitt/dp/B004661J04/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3HAQT6Q0KNYQL&keywords=seven&qid=1700515253&s=instant-video&sprefix=seven%2Cinstant-video%2C172&sr=1-1. Accessed 12 Nov. 2023.
3. Picture from: https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/seven