Seven Deadly Sins / Literature

• Older Than Print: In Dante's The Divine Comedy:
  • The Mount of Purgatory (described in the Purgatorio, the second part of the Comedy, where sinners who repented before death are purged of their sins) is arranged around the Seven Deadly Sins, from most-serious to least-serious (in Dante's evaluation):
    • The Proud, on the First (lowest) Terrace, walk carrying heavy stones on their backs, so that they cannot stand straight or look down on anyone else.
    • The Envious, on the Second Terrace of Purgatory have their eyes sewn shut. In life they envied what they saw; to purge their sin, they see nothing.
    • The Wrathful are on the Third Terrace, where they walk constantly, blinded by acrid smoke.
    • The Slothful are on the Fourth Terrace, being purged of their sin by constant running.
    • The Avaricious are on the Fifth Terrace, lying face down on the ground. This is generally considered a breaking point: the previous four sins were all about perverted or deficient love and are considered more severe, while this sin and the two that follow are all about excessive love for material things and are more excusable (although Dante thought it was a stupid sin to be guilty of).
    • The Gluttonous are on the Sixth Terrace and their penance is to pass through groves of fruit and by waterfalls of pure water without eating or drinking.
    • The Lustful are on the Seventh and last Terrace of the Mount of Purgatory, where their sin is purged from them in a wall of fire. They run through this in two directions: those who lusted after the opposite sex in one direction, those who lusted after the same sex in the other. (Yes. What?)
  • The Inferno is not strictly arranged according to the Seven Deadly Sins, although some do show up. Dante's Hell is divided between Incontinence (inability to control one's appetites) Violence (in three flavors- against others, against yourself, and against nature), and Fraud. The sins of Incontinence are the ones that align with the Seven Deadly Sins:
    • The unrepentant Lustful are in the Second Circle of Hell, constantly blown about by winds, symbolizing their surrender in life to their desires of the moment.
    • The unrepentant Gluttonous the Third Circle of the Inferno, where they lie in a slush of rain, hail, and ash, symbolizing the foul waste of their lives.
    • The unrepentant Avaricious (both the greedy and the squanderers) are in the Fourth Circle of Hell, pushing large, heavy weights at and into each other.
    • The unrepentant Slothful and Wrathful are in the Fifth Circe of Hell, which is the River Styx. The Slothful lie beneath the surface of the river, sunk in the slime and mud of the riverbed; the Wrathful are on the surface, tearing and yelling at each other as they swim. In this case, Dante folded Sloth into variant of Wrath as "Sullenness", ie, "passively wrathful": where your own anger makes you unable to see life's joys.
  • As for the other circles and sins:
    • The First Circle is Limbo, whose inhabitants aren't guilty of anything other than "not being Christian". As a result, they aren't tortured and don't really figure into the analysis.
    • Circles 2-5 address sins of uncontrolled desires.
    • Circles 6-9 address the sins of he who consciously seeks injustice and "by force or fraud bring harm to other men." Envy and pride are divided over several types of these sins—heresy,^note Pride: You think you know better than the Deep Mind Himself? suicide^note Pride: You think your life is worthless when it was loved into being by God?, simony,^note Pride, Envy, and Avarice all in one: you think you can buy the position of God's representative on Earth? etc.
• The titular Bateman in American Psycho manages to have his entire character fit into all the seven sins to a tea:
  • Pride: Bateman is clinically obsessed with his appearance, spending his entire morning in his own skin and appearance towards others, as well as flaunting his life style and achievements over others.
  • Greed: Patrick Bateman is a materialistic man who wishes to indulge himself in life’s finer things, keeping himself with the expensive suits, cars and restaurants.
  • Lust: Bateman is sexually lustful for the attention women give him through sex, occasionally having sex tapes play in the background and paying escorts despite his engagement.
  • Wrath: Bateman is rather unhinged, (possibly) committing spur of the moment brutal murders all the while having several lash out at people when emotional.
  • Envy: Shows to rather disdain his coworkers for achievements that they have over him, constantly comparing himself to them, showing anger when they mistake him for someone else, and even murdering Paul Allen for showing him up.
  • Gluttony: Overindulges in his lifestyle to an unhealthily degree, obsessive with going to the latest and swankiest restaurants and indulging in his lifestyle of drugs and women.
  • Sloth: Despite his high position, Bateman barely does his job, more willing to stay at restaurants. With that, he shows to barely understand or research any of the topics, only attaching to what is popular to seem important.
  • And it’s argued that by the end of the book, Bateman falls into Despair, as the decline of his mental health and realizing the trappings of his own Ironic Hell makes Bateman’s fate rather fitting

• Dorothy L. Sayers lays them all out and explains them in her essay "The Other Six Deadly Sins" (other than Lust, that is, which is the one that gets all the attention).
• The premise of Gregory Walter's The Seven Ordeals centers around a priest being challenged by the Seven Lords of Hell, each representing a sin, and each secretly trying to tempt him during his quest to the Mountain of the Gods. They appear in order of severity.
  • Sloth — represented by the hermaphroditic Belphagor, disguised as an indifferent inventor.
  • Gluttony — represented by Beelzebub, disguised as a merchant cannibal.
  • Lust — Asmodeus, the one who suggested the game. Plays the part of a pimp, but also cuts a deal with Leviathan.
  • Greed — Mammon, offers a game of chance to the priest.
  • Envy — a female iteration of Leviathan, cast as a witch.
  • Wrath — Natas Amon, a masked warlord that traumatizes Peter.
  • Pride — Reficul, shapeshifts into a classic depiction of a seraphim, at the base of the Mountain.
• Behind the Glittering Mask by Mark Rutland discusses these at length, with Lucifer making his case against the Archangel Michael that these really ought to be called the Seven Great Autonomous Virtues.
• Each of the main characters in Tom Harris' Hannibal series represents a Deadly Sin. Clarice is Pride, Hannibal Lecter himself is Gluttony, Pazzi is Greed, Mason Verger is Wrath, Frederick Chilton is Sloth, Jame Gumb is Envy and Francis Dolarhyde is Lust.
• Garth Nix's seven-part Keys to the Kingdom series features a different villain in each one, named after a different day. Since the breaking of the Will, each of these Trustees has also been afflicted by a particular Deadly Sin.
  • Monday is Sloth — he allows his dominion to fall apart because he can't be bothered to do anything about it.
  • Tuesday is Avarice — he is desperate for Nothing, the raw material of everything, and his mining operations almost makes his Realm collapse into the Void.
  • Wednesday is Gluttony — she is cursed to eat constantly and has swollen to become a giant whale.
  • Thursday is Wrath — he flies into a rage at the drop of a hat, and actually killed his subordinates when they were incapacitated by a spell. When an officer points out they'll need trials before he can kill the entire team, he knocks her teeth out.
  • Friday is Lust — she is addicted to mortal experiences and uses her magic to steal them.
  • Saturday is Envy — she is resentful that Sunday rules the House, when she is the elder of the two.
  • Sunday is Pride. Thus far, he has refused to get involved in the battle for the House, believing there can only one result, and instead delights in his demesne, the Incomparable Gardens, and is fond of showing Saturday brief glimpses of it. He also controls the most powerful of the Seven Keys.
• Many people believe the four bad children from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to be representatives of sin: Augustus Gloop is gluttony, Veruca Salt is greed and envy, Mike Teavee is wrath and sloth, and Violet Beauregard is pride.
  • Interestingly, in the 2005 movie adaptation several of the parents also have a dominant sin. Mrs. Gloop as pride - though for Augustus, not herself - Mr. Salt as sloth, and Ms. Beauregard quite explicitly as lust.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld:
  • In the country of Lancre, one family went and named their daughters after the Seven Heavenly Virtues, Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence so forth. And out of a misinformed sense of continuity, named their sons along the lines of Bestiality and Anger (among others). Subverted, because each of the daughters came to embody the sin opposite of her virtuous name. Meanwhile, despite everything else, Anger is a kind and calm man, while his brother Bestiality is kind to animals.
  • In Going Postal, it turns out that there are actually eight virtues: Patience, Chastity, Silence, Charity, Hope, Fortitude, Tubso, and Bissonomy.^note  We don't know what those last two are either. Nor do people on the Discworld.
  • A street in Ankh-Morpork, near the University, is named eight deadly Sins.
• Some people have argued that each book in C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia focus on one of the seven deadly sins:
  • The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Gluttony since Edmund betrays his siblings for magical candy.
  • Prince Caspian: Lust in the form of luxury; the Telmarines want a highly ordered and civilized Narnia.
  • The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Greed — the dragon storyline, and the excessive riches each island offers.
    • Actually, all seven deadly sins appeared in that book. There were even seven swords in the film that represented conquering them.
  • The Horse and His Boy: Pride since the main characters assume they can stand alone. Rabadash also makes an ass of himself.
  • The Silver Chair: Sloth since Jill constantly forgets the signs.
  • The Magician's Nephew: Wrath since Uncle Andrew and Jadis are both very heavy-handed.
  • The Last Battle: Envy since Puzzle and Shift, desirous of Aslan's power, try to establish themselves as Aslan returned in order to manipulate the other animals.
    • Alternatively, The Horse and His Boy has the main characters envy the Narnians, and The Last Battle has Shift think he's better than Aslan, whom he doesn't believe to exist (Pride).
    • The Horse and His Boy also makes a good case for Lust considering the entire plot against Narnia is contingent on Rabadash's lust for Queen Susan.
• Four of the Seven Deadly Sins yield bigotry in The Cold Within. The first and second people are consumed by Pride, the third by Envy, the fourth and sixth by Greed, and the fifth by Wrath.
• The Redcrosse Knight meets the Seven Deadly Sins in the first book of The Faerie Queene. Their leader is Pride, who is, interestingly, the only one portrayed as a woman, when most personifications make Lust a woman (since All Women Are Lustful). Here, people are invited to party in their mansions, only to eventually end up rotting to death in their dungeon. Fortunately, Redcrosse's dwarf sidekick warns him in enough time to help him flee.
• Anthropomorphic personifications of the sins show up in Marlowe's version of Doctor Faustus.
• The Doctor Who short story collection Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins has the Eighth Doctor encounter seven powerful people who devote their lives to one of the sins, and making them experience a story from his past related to the sin.
• The Star Trek short story collection Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins ties each of the sins to a Planet of Hats. The Klingons are Wrath (specifically, in this case, taking the form of racial hatred between crested and non-crested Klingons, and the violent rage the tensions awake in them). The Romulans are Pride (with a tendency to under-estimate the other races due to their arrogant assumptions), the Mirror Universe is Lust; the Ferengi are Greed; the Cardassians are Envy (both as a society in general, as their worlds are resource poor and their neighbours have far more, and in the specific case of the protagonist, who feels her commander was promoted above her unfairly); the Pakled are Sloth (the title, Work is Hard, says it all); and the Borg are Gluttony (overconsumption in general, rather than overeating).
• Piers Anthony based the characters in his novel Ghost on this trope.
• An incomplete example (with one replacement) in Scorpion Shards.
  • Lourdes's parasite: Gluttony.
  • Winston's parasite: Sloth.
  • Tory's parasite: Vanity.
  • Michael's parasite: Lust.
  • Dillon's parasite: Wrath.
  • Deanna's parasite: Envy (I guess).
• Four of the seven deadly sins can be paired with worlds in Vorkosigan Saga. The warlike, uptight Barrayarans would be wrath. The Betans with their Free-Love Future would be lust. Jacksons Whole, which is ruled by system that resembles The Mafia and where anything can be gotten for money, would be avarice. Cetagandians the traditional enemies of the Barrayarans are obsessed with a genetic engineering program to convert themselves into Space Elves. They would be pride.
• In Michael Flynn's In the Lion's Mouth, Donovan observes that a smuggler's library is designed to cater to at least five of the seven deadly sins.
• A Little Vice: the Beasts of the Abyssal Forest each represent a sin.
• In The Last Cato, the main characters have to solve the mystery of the loss of several pieces of wood belonging to the Holy Cross, and to fulfill this they must pass several trials related to the seven sins, using The Divine Comedy as the guide to do it (Dante being a member of the secret society behind it all). Each of the sins takes place in an important city from Roman times that also symbolizes the sin:
  • Pride requires to make Greek Fire to activate a mechanism in Roma's Cloaca Maxima.
  • Envy consists of running through a labyrinth near Ravenna and then solve a musical riddle based on Pythagoras' "Harmony of the Spheres" theory.
  • Wrath requires to solve a riddle in a Jerusalem church using a prayer stone and a clue.
  • Sloth requires running from Marathon to a church in Athens in one night (and an answer coming from the previous test).
  • Greed is about leaving a room under Fatih Camii (in Istanbul) where the main obstacle is violent winds being expelled from 12 cavities in the wall (corresponding to Aeolus' 12 sons) around Constantine the Great's tomb.
  • Gluttony is about exploring a tomb in Alexandria and being as fast as possible in taking off many leeches before they kill you.
  • Lust takes place in an Ethiopian town called Antioch, and requires people to get out of a ring of ashes without getting burned before being killed.
• Parodied in Rachel Flynn's I Can't Wait!
  "Jeremy Skinner! Gluttony is one of the seven vices. And idiocy probably is too, Mario Marati. And, Sam Lancer, ignorance ought to be one."
• In Patricia McGerr's Seven Deadly Sisters, each of the viewpoint character's seven aunts corresponds to one sin.
• In Carolyn Hennesy's Pandora series, Pandora is depicted as a teenage girl who accidentally released the Seven Deadly Sins from her father's box and must hunt down and place them all back into the box. The seven sins are all the same as the traditional ones with the exception of Gluttony, which is replaced by Fear. She only accomplishes her Timed Mission with seconds to spare. In some Laser-Guided Karma, though, Hera and her Roman counterpart, Juno, are sentenced by Jupiter (for trying and failing to stop Pandora) to work as maids at "Caesars Palace" in Las Vegas, and are turned into mortal twins to facilitate that.
• In The Screwtape Letters, the devil Screwtape gives his nephew Wormwood advice on how to tempt his "patient" to all of these vices in various ways. However, the concept that these sins are particularly deadlier than any others is implicitly subverted; the devils' main job is simply to keep people complacently unaware of their need for God. Screwtape even specifically cautions Wormwood against getting the patient to commit any spectacularly evil sins, since that could backfire (from the devils' point of view) by making him more likely to say "My God, What Have I Done?" and repent.
• Present in Divergent within each of the factions:
  • Erudite represent Greed in the form of knowledge. There's frequent mention of "Erudite greed" and they eventually seize power from Abnegation.
  • Dauntless represent Lust in the form of adrenaline. They will do anything for a rush, regardless of their safety. They're also known to be very physical with each other, whether the others like it or not.
  • Candor represent a different kind of Wrath. They're known for Brutal Honesty and no filter, with no thought to other people's feelings. Initiates are also forced to take a painful truth serum when they join.
  • Amity represent Sloth. They're pacifists but when people start dying in the other factions, they simply try to stay out of the conflict and ignore it.
  • Abnegation represent Pride because they strive to live without sin, which is itself a form of pride. The faction leader is also obsessed with maintaining a respectable public image that covers up his own abusive tendencies.
  • The Factionless represent Envy, as they are forced to live on the streets and resent the privileged lives of the others.
  • The Bureau in Allegiant bring out the Gluttony. They take children from their families in the fringe, wipe their memories and raise them in the Bureau. And they kill anyone who opposes this, not to mention intending to wipe the memories of an entire city. In this case it's human life itself that is being wasted.
• There are several examples in the villains of Codex Alera:
  • Aquitainus Invidia is named after Envy, and it's quite a Meaningful Name. She is ambitious, amoral, power-hungry, and started the whole plot going because she was jealous of Isana, who Gaius Septimus married instead of her.
  • Senator Arnos represents Greed (for glory and status).
  • Kord, a steadholder with no real ambitions beyond fulfilling his appetites and who tries to force Isana and Odiana into sexual slavery, is Lust.
  • Phyrgiar Navaris, an Ax-Crazy mercenary whose iron will is the only thing stopping her from slaughtering everyone around her whenever she's annoyed, is Wrath.
  • Kalarus Brencis is Sloth, since he doesn't want to make the effort to actually support anything and just wants to live in luxury. After his province dies and he crosses the Despair Event Horizon, he can't even be arsed to help save humanity, instead collaborating with the Vord in exchange for material pleasures.
  • Invidia's husband Attis is Pride, since he believes he's justified in conspiring against Gaius Sextus because he thinks he'll do a better job.
  • Antillus Raucus (though he's not really much of a villain and only opposes the heroes at first because he's a Noble Bigot), who's Hot-Blooded and still holds a grudge against Gaius Sextus for the Failure-to-Save Murder of Septimus, is Wrath.
  • The Vord Queens are Gluttony, as they want everything in the world to be for the Vord.
• Even Dr. Seuss wasn't immune to this trope. In the 50th Anniversary edition of Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories, Seuss scholar Charles D. Cohen pointed out that Yertle and Gertrude each display six of the seven sins. (The seventh, lust, is excluded as these are children's stories.)
  • Yertle:
    • Greed: He wants to be a more powerful king.
    • Pride: Every time he expands his kingdom, he boasts about how powerful he is.
    • Sloth: He spends the whole story sitting on his throne.
    • Wrath: Every time Mack complains, no matter how politely, Yertle screams at him.
    • Gluttony: Yertle always wants more turtles for his throne.
    • Envy: He is jealous of the moon for being higher than him.
  • Gertrude:
    • Envy: At the beginning, she is jealous of Lolla's tail.
    • Greed: She decides she absolutely needs a similar tail.
    • Wrath: When Dr. Dake advises against Gertrude getting a new tail, she throws such a huge tantrum that he finally gives in.
    • Gluttony: She eats all the berries.
    • Pride: She is so proud of her new tail that she thinks Lolla will die when she sees it.
    • Sloth: Her tail makes it hard for her to move.
    • In fact, if the original Latin word luxuria is taken to mean "extravagance" rather than "lust", Gertrude also has that sin: she grows a huge tail with three dozen feathers.
• A Confederacy of Dunces
  • Ignatius, unsurprisingly, manages to embody them.
    • Ignatius considers himself to be above others in intellect, and refuses to consider the feelings of others.(Pride)
    • Ignatius refuses to do any actual work, spending most of his days loafing around. (Sloth)
    • He is obese, forces Irene to buy him junk food, and steals the hot dogs from the Paradise Vendors stand. (Gluttony)
    • He envies Myrna for her intellectual pursuits. (Envy)
    • He constantly chokes the chicken and has very hidden desires for Myrna. (Lust)
    • Even when he earns money, he refuses to give any to Irene to help her pay off her debt. (Greed)
    • He has a mean temper, and often mistreats Irene. (Wrath)
  • Other characters in the story embody them too.
    • Lana Lee squeezes her employees and deals pornography under the table, even posing for some pictures. (Lust and Greed)
    • Mr. Levy doesn't do much by lie around, not taking any interest in his factory. (Sloth)
    • Mrs. Levy constantly belittles her husband and forces her ideals onto others, believing herself to be right. (Pride)
    • Frieda, Betty, and Liz are boisterous and often attack people. (Wrath)
• Brazilian publisher Objetiva did a series where each novel was based on one of the sins (the first two had English versions):
  • Lust: House of the Fortunate Buddhas, where a woman recalls her very sexual youth in a period of repression of conservatism.
  • Gluttony: The Club of Angels (by Luis Fernando Verissimo), the story of ten privileged men, who meet every month to dine fabulously.
  • Wrath: Chess, Trick and other Wars, a satire involving various people involved in the Paraguayan War and what angry thoughts move them.
  • Envy: Secret Evil, centered around a love triangle.
  • Greed: Therapy, having a businessman bordering a nervous breakdown undergoing an unorthodox treatment.
  • Sloth: Canoes and Ripples, where a man goes to an island searching for his daughter, but barely rushes to it.
  • Pride: The Queen's Flight, following a journalist whose investigative work is mostly fueled by an attempt to prove himself better than the subjects, and who also gets possessive of a co-worker.
• Cersei Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire represents all of the seven:
  • Pride: Cersei's pride is her main character feature. She's extremely arrogant and egocentric; the whole purpose of her walk of shame is to Break the Haughty.
  • Greed: Cersei desires power, which is one of the reasons she wanted to be the queen.
  • Lust: Cersei sleeps with many men and women, and even her own twin brother.
  • Envy: Cersei is jealous of Margaery's beauty and how she replaces her in the royal court.
  • Gluttony: After she and Jaime fell out, she started to drink hard and it too much, which affected her.
  • Wrath: Cersei has a short temper, reacting with anger every time someone disobeys her.
  • Sloth: Cersei ignored many problems the kingdom had to face, as she was busy fighting Tyrells and creating a new, Yes-Man government.
• Mythic Misadventures: Pandora releases the Evils, which align mostly with the classic lists of sins (fear replaces gluttony) from a box and must recapture them within a set time period. Each Evil settles in a different location and starts exerting its influence on the local populace.