What significance does the house of sin in Pinocchio have?

Answer 1

There is no "house of sin" in either the original story "The Adventures of Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodi or in the well-known Disney adaptation Pinocchio, released in 1940. The question seems to refer to "Pleasure Island" which was an important part of the plot of the Disney film but not of the original story (see The Adventures of Pinocchio). In the original story, Pinocchio is convinced by the cat and the fox to bury gold in the "Field of Miracles" and leave it to grow. When he comes back, the gold is gone. He goes to the city of "Catchfools" to complain about the fox and the cat, but the judge there sends him to prison for his foolishness.

The plot of Disney's 1940 animated movie offers a much more moralistic and frightening version of the story. There the characters Honest John and Gideon convince Pinocchio to go to Pleasure Island, where boys indulge in gambling, smoking, getting drunk and destroying property, much the dismay of Jiminy Cricket. As they indulge their vices the boys who are "making jackasses of themselves" start to turn into real donkeys, and are then sold to work in the salt mines and circuses. These are elements completely absent from the Carlo Collodi story.