In it, the narrator goes on a tour of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven and takes note of everything he sees there. Today's gospel reminds me of the moment when Dante's tour leaves Hell and starts up the mountainside that is Purgatory. Hell is darkness all the time. So is Purgatory. But there are two kinds of darkness.
Purgatory is different.
Dante has described the transition from disorientation and hopelessness to hope in a comprehensible kind of dark. We live in a culture that clamors for immediate release from pain and suffering. The souls in Dante's symbolic hell are outraged to be there. They're mad all the time and insist that a terrible injustice is going on. They are positive that they deserve not ultimate punishments, but ultimate rewards.