The archetypal symbol that Dante uses in round one of circle seven is a river of blood. Rivers and blood archetypal symbol is life, which is exactly what these people took away from others. Dante cleverly intertwines this sin of taking away life with the archetype of the river of blood.
The way Dante utilizes this archetype through the contrapasso of the sin and punishment. Because people took the lives of others in life, they now wallow in the blood of the lives they took. Each person stands in the amount of blood equivalent to how many people they killed. This is shown when Dante notices the fall in amount of blood, “We came in sight of some who were allowed to raise the head and all the chest from the river… Thus, as we followed along the stream of blood, its level fell until it cooked no more than the feet of the damned,” (97). This is when the river and blood archetypes begin to show the lives taken by the sinners as the amount of blood shrinks.
Though life sound like the opposite of what these sinners of circle seven now have, the life of the river of blood represents a time when they were alive. Dante uses the archetype to show the contrapasso of the level in Hell. The river of blood is only one of the three archetypes used in circle seven, including trees and deserts of fire.
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