The Hapies' Wood 

Gustave Doré created "The Harpies' Wood" to illustrate Dante’s *Inferno*. Doré, working in 19th-century France, found himself amidst an era grappling with rapid industrialization and social upheaval. This artwork, steeped in the grotesque, plunges into a nightmarish vision of tormented souls. Here we find monstrous, feminine figures, who are part-woman, part-bird, trapped within gnarled trees. These are the harpies, agents of divine retribution, forever lamenting their fate. Doré was working within a well-established tradition of representing women as either pure or monstrous, often linking them to nature and the irrational. Yet, in his rendering, we can see the harpie's hybridity also speaks to broader anxieties about the destabilization of gender roles that were bubbling at the time. "The Harpies' Wood" is more than just a depiction of hell; it is a reflection of societal fears around gender, morality, and the body.