Many people have contributed many good comments here. I'll just add that there have been some creative representations of hell (and purgatory) and heaven that are profoundly thought-provoking. Among those I'd include Dante's Inferno (and Purgatorio), Milton's Paradise Lost (though less so for this topic), and C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

One theme that animates them all: if there is a hell, then those in it were not put there by God, and do not necessarily view it as "eternal punishment." It's just the life they chose and its consequences. God really has very little to do with it; they never wanted God anyway. (Lewis has its inhabitants refer to it as the "grey town" where they also have a Theological Society!)