The treatment of eve in Paradise Lost
We can see the poem deals with the entire story of man's fall from grace, including background for Satan's motives. In Paradise Lost, Eve was tricked by Satan, who assumed the form of a serpent, into eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Satan had whispered into her ear when she was asleep, and when he spoke to her later, he used his cunning to mislead her:
He ended, and his words replete with guile
Into her heart too easy entrance won.
Fixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold
Might tempt alone, and in her ears the sound
Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregned
With reason, to her seeming, and with truth,
(Paradise Lost, 733-739).
In the poem we get the picture that Adam is lamenting for the mistake they have done and specially blames and insults Eve's female nature and wonders why do god ever created her. She begs his forgiveness, and pleads with him not to leave her. She reminds him that the snake tricked her, but she fully accepts the blame for sinning against both God and him. She argues that unity and love c...
Plaskow writes about how Eve was mystified to see another woman like herself that was so powerful and her curiosity made her want to learn more about this strong woman. It’s inspiring that instead of the making the women hate each other and fight for Adam and God’s love, Plaskow makes it so that they find love and acceptance from each other and plan to build a future for themselves based on their sisterly love.
Susan Donnelly’s “Eve Names the Animals”, is a short poem written to try to show the independence and importance of Eve which is not shown in the biblical story in Genesis. She uses this as her platform to show that women are able to do the same jobs as men, and that even one of the most important jobs, naming the animals, could be done by a woman. Eve feels as though Adam went about naming animals carelessly, and only named them based on appearance. It is a story of attempted separation and self identity, things that many people will struggle with in their lives. The story of Adam and Eve is used to help people better understand Donnelly’s views on women’s rights and abilities.
In Paradise Lost, one of the differences God is aware of the betrayal his creations unlike Frankenstein. There is a point where Adam desires a companion to share the world with, thus God creates Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. He is in a predicament now, due to there are now two beings to love now, but who deserves the more affection. He “can neither love himself adequately nor love Eve as himself unless have love God adequately – and so make his love for Eve, the unity of their shared self, an expression of that higher love” (Gross 95). This scene displays one of Adam’s limitations of his free will. Thus creating her in being the submissive which eventually became her downfall, Adam’s and the rest of humanity. Eve is flawed, she has the inclination of self-love, a quality she should not be capable of possessing or acting upon. The only love that she should be expressing is her love for Adam in a way also loving God. This becomes their weakness. Satan learns about this weakness and exploits it as his advantage to enact his scheme. He influences a susceptible Eve, by coercing her into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. He claims to Eve about the fruit “By the fruit? It gives you life To knowledge by the threat’ner? Look on me, Me, who have touched and tasted; yet both live” (Book 9 l. 686-688). Satan is able to persuade them to consume the fruit that provides them
Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is a complex character meant to be the evil figure in the epic poem. Whenever possible Satan attempts to undermine God and the Son of God who is the true hero of the story. Throughout the story Milton tells the readers that Satan is an evil character, he is meant not to have any redeeming qualities, and to be shown completely as an unsympathetic figure. Satan’s greatest sins are pride and vanity in thinking he can overthrow God, and in the early part of the poem he is portrayed as selfish while in Heaven where all of God’s angels are loved and happy. Satan’s journey starts out as a fallen angel with great stature, has the ability to reason and argue, but by Book X the anguish and pain he goes through is more reason for him to follow an evil path instead. Even so, Milton uses literal and figurative imagery in the description of Satan’s character to manipulate the reader’s response to the possibility that Satan may actually be a heroic figure. As the plot of the story unfolds there are moments where the reader can identify with Satan’s desires and relate to his disappointments.
At the beginning of the poem, Satan is viewed as a very majestic angel of great stature and an even bigger leadership skill. He is pictured as a hero in book one solely because the poem focuses on him and because it shows his pain "Both of lost happiness and lasting pain"(1) [55] "Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes"(1) [56] "That witness'd huge affliction and dismay"(1) [57] his second transformation is where his evilness shows, Satan, after hearing about the new race and the new land, earth, travels all the way to earth in order to see it and see the new race. He tries to enter heaven, and to do so he transforms into a cherub, to deceive ...
The first thing that strikes me about this poem is the structure. The poem is very ordered written with 4 lines a stanza and a total of 6 stanza’s. This looks like a professional poem created by an adult, showing experience right away. The syllables are normally 7 per line but there are exceptions to this rule as all of stanza 5 has 8 syllables a line. The first stanza and the last stanza are nearly the same apart from the last line of each differing by a word. This poem uses many poetic devices well to create a vivid picture in the readers mind. There are rhyming couplets, alliteration, repetition, rhetorical questions as well as many biblical and egotistical references to the artist and poet himself. Now we will look at the poems meanings.
In episode IX of Paradise Lost by John Milton, Milton begins Adam and Eve’s act of disobedience towards God. The story begins with Satan’s return to the Garden of Eden the night after Raphael’s departure. Satan considers what disguise he should take on, and chooses to become a snake. Satan thinks that Earth is more beautiful than Heaven ever was, and becomes jealous of Adam and Eve. The next morning, Adam and Eve are preparing for their usual work load. Eve suggests that they work separately, Adam does not necessarily like the idea. He fears that if they are alone they can be more easily tested by Satan. Eve, however, wants to have her strength tested. Adam finally agrees. Satan, finds Eve alone and begins flattering her. Eve is amazed that
Since dawn, Satan, now in the form of a snake, has been searching for the two people that represented the future of all mankind. Satan is looking for mankind to destroy them just for revenge, to get back at God. Satan is full of envy and thirst for revenge. Obviously he would want to find the weaker person first, Eve. Satan would like to find Eve by herself, but he didn 't think it was likely. But Satan actually found Eve all by herself working. Satan in the form of a snake approached Eve and complimented her. Of course Eve was amazed and flattered. She was not amazed because of the compliments he gave her. Eve was amazed on how the snake (Satan) was talking. She thought animals couldn 't talk but Satan told her he how he was dumb as the other animals but as he ate the apple from the tree he became smarter. He was able to think high thoughts, and speak. Satan was slick and Eve was naive. When Satan was telling her about this tree she thought he was talking about a random tree, not being the tree of knowledge. Satan took her to the “tree”. Eve told him she could have saved him the trouble. She told Satan “But of this Tree we may not taste nor touch; God so commanded” (Book IX, lines 651-652). Eve tried to be smart and tell him how they couldn 't eat from the tree of knowledge because God told them not to. She knew it was trouble if she did. She had no freedom to eat from the tree nor touch
As Book VIII of John Milton’s Paradise Lost begins, the “new-waked” human Adam ponders the nature of the universe and the motion of the stars (ll. 4-38). When Adam has finished his speech, Milton takes the opportunity to describe Eve, who is listening nearby. We find Eve reclining in the Garden, but with grace, not laziness: “she sat retired in sight,/With lowliness majestic from her seat” (41-42). This “lowliness majestic” is the central phrase to understanding Eve’s character—she is both humble and glorious. Everything that beholds her is captivated by her “grace that won who saw to wish her stay” (43). Even in this paradise, every other beautiful creation is drawn to Eve. She walks among the “fruits and flow’rs,” and they all light up in her presence (44-47). In line 44, Milton replaces “the” with “her” to describe these fruits and flowers, indicating that they belong to her--she is like a mother to all things that “bud and bloom” (45). He even uses the term “her nursery” to describe Eve’s relationship with the Garden, signifying that Eve nurses the growing things like she would her children (46). As their mother arrives, the plants all perk up: “they at her coming sprung/And touched by her fair tendance gladlier grew” (46-47). Eve is beyond beautiful—not only does all creation adore and marvel at her, in her presence, each created thing is renewed. Her glory is found in her outward appearance and her ability to bring things to life, while her humility is in her character. Contrast Eve to the witch-queen Jadis in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. Both are exceptionally beautiful and possess a sort of magic—Eve to bring things to life and Jadis to destroy them. However,...
To begin, the poem, “Eve’s Apology,” uses many different poetic devices such as alliteration, assonance, rhyme scheme, and simile. The author uses a great number of alliteration, which is the repetition of constant sounds generally at the beginnings of words. Alliteration can be seen in the words “what” and “weakness” in line 3. Some more examples of alliteration throughout the poem are “subtle serpent’s” (23), “he had him” (24), and “with words which” (30). Assonance, the repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds, is another poetic device that the author uses greatly. Some examples of assonance are found in lines 10 “ The ‘p...
...nces for straying from God and it is because of this that his mind further and further spirals downward. On the other hand, Adam and Eve manage to realize the scope of God’s power and thus rewarded by God’s grace.
Adam and Eve are the parents of all. They started off perfect, but that all changed with the single bite of a forbidden fruit. That one bite changed the world forever. In Milton’s “Paradise Lost” he fills in the literary and theological gaps of Genesis chapter three. Milton’s job in Book IV is to separate Adam and Eve whenever Eve gets tempted. He does so by making them have a debate about splitting up to tend to the garden. Eve argues that she will be okay while Adam argues that she should stay with him so he can protect her.
In Milton's Paradise Lost, he writes the story of the fall of Satan, his followers, and mankind. Many critics often view Satan as the unlikely or tragic hero of the epic poem. Satan is, obviously, the main character throughout most of the poem, but not necessarily the hero. Satan's main purpose is to fight G-d, and try to be on the same level as Him. The important thing is to realize that Satan is sin, and being humans, who are all born into sin, we can easily relate to a sinful character. G-d is holy and perfect. This is something which we, being fallible humans, cannot begin to comprehend. Satan does, at the beginning, follow many of the attributes which coincide with Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero; however, after the first few Books, Satan looses his status as a tragic hero rather rapidly. Along with this, Satan's thoughts parallel the idea of "Evil, be thou my good," (p76, line 110) which is the opposite of what G-d intends.
In Book IV, Eve recalls awakening to consciousness but she is uncertain of her identity and of her place in the Garden of Eden. Eve's first thoughts are of “where and what [she] was, whence thither brought, and how” (Paradise Lost, IV.451-52), and it is this curiosity about her identity that leads Eve to disobey God eventually. From the moment of her conception, Eve is already distant from God because she awakens in the shade and not in God’s light. Throughout Paradise Lost, Eve is identified with reflections, shadows, and dreams. Representing the “otherness” of Eden, Eve is an outcast and she seeks to find meaning in her life. At the moment of her awakening, Eve is engrossed by her reflection in the water, which she thinks is another being. This watery, wavering image of Eve extends throughout Milton’s poem, and this further puts Eve in a weak position, for Eve is merely a ref...