Explain the purposes behind Dante's development and use of the contrapasso. Your answer should be at least 250 words.

When you are constructing your response to this prompt, what you’ll first want to be sure of is the meaning of the word "contrapasso" in reference to Dante’s _Inferno_. Though the term literally translates into "against the step/pace," in reference to Dante’s _Inferno_, it is the idea that in hell, sinners’ punishments would be a type of poetic justice-not poetic in that there would be a rhyme scheme, for instance, but poetic in the notion that the punishment in hell would befit the sin on Earth. For instance, in Dante’s _Inferno_, those who were thieves on Earth, in hell, have their hands tied by snakes symbolically because it was with their hands they sinned by taking on Earth what did not belong to them. Dante used contrapasso as a means through which he could provide some information and even more explanation than that which already existed within the Bible.