John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a great story on the creation of mankind and their ultimate downfall. It heavily depicts Satan’s fall from heaven, along with the other angels that revolted with him. Milton depicts a a few phenomenons that drastically changed after the fall of man. The single action of Adam and Eve eating the apple caused the what many view as the biggest swing in human history. The one thing that could be most heavily altered is the knowledge of mankind on their surroundings and what makes up the world. When God first created man, we were given very little knowledge on how everything works, but had enough to survive. After Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they gained most of the knowledge they oh so desired, that we can still see in modern day life, but only did so with a very heavy price. Before the whole thing can be explained or
Adam and Eve started a great chain reaction of knowledge which can be seen as both good and bad. Today we see this in full effect and are able to understand the things we do because of them. Where as before they ate the apple, there was little known about anything really, compared to now we have scientific theories proving how most everything works as well as a greater knowledge of what is right and wrong. One comparison that can be made is knowledge gained as one gets older. When people are small they believe everything is good and have an innocent view on the world (like before eating of the apple), but as they get older start to see less innocence and have a greater of understand on how everything in the world works (after the eating of the apple). It’s interesting to think on how our lives would be had the two not eaten from the tree of knowledge. Would we still be desirous of knowledge or would we just walk around with our innocent minds and live peacefully in
Paradise Lost is an epic poem portraying John Milton’s theological standpoints. The theme is knowledge and the fall of man. Milton uses his poem to state some of his theological beliefs and his personal reflections. Milton wrote Paradise Lost in the 17th century but uses influence from classic poets. Milton’s epic is an extremely important piece of literature. The excerpt used in this commentary takes on the subjects of sin and the punishment with regards to the atonement from God’s point of view. Milton’s states many of his own theological opinions but wants the reader to know that God is justified in everything that he does, and also wants them to know that man has free will.
The basic Christian view of Milton's Paradise Lost is that a purely evil being, the anti-god if you will, Satan, is the cause of all of human downfall. Briefly the story goes like this, first God creates everything, but a rogue angel named Lucifer wants more out of existence so he attempt a coup d'etat of heaven. He fails, as he had no chance to begin with, as the Christian god is omnipotent. He is thrown into hell and is royally pissed off. Like a teenager with too much time, he finds a way to truly anger god by tempting and eventually corrupting God's precious, new, perfect world by introducing "sin", which is an action of some sort that angers this God. The humans are banned from perfection, grounded for the rest of eternity, and told to sit in a corner until their omnipotent God can find out some way to dispose of this "evil" being, which, thousands, if not millions, of years later, apparently still hasn't happened. The only problem with this interpretation is that it is made by humans with years upon years of religious brainwashing, and uses absolutely no logic at all. They know for a fact (blind faith) that God is good Satan is evil. But Is Satan really the most evil thing in existence? Is God perfect and loving? Was eating the apple really a bad thing?
Knowledge is the cornerstone of Paradise Lost . Adam and Eve must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan pinpoints Adam and Eve’s vulnerability in their ignorance of evil. Adam worries that he may seek knowledge that displeases God. Raphael praises Adam’s thirst for knowledge and warns him about obsessively seeking knowledge that is useless. Eve eats the fruit because she wants to know how ...
Bible’s version and Milton’s of the fall from paradise by Adam and Eve. The directions from God about the tree, who caused Eve to disobey the directions, and her giving of the fruit to Adam are similar in both works. Differences between Milton’s epic poem and the Bible are apparent as the reason Satan seeks to destroy Adam and Eve is revenge in the poem and not mentioned in the Biblical text, and there is no mention of why Adam and Eve are not together when Satan seeks to trick her. Another difference is that in Milton’s work Adam makes a conscious decision to eat the fruit of the forbidden
The world I see around me every day is one based on reason, scientific principles, tolerance, freedom, and most of all, a deep-rooted skepticism toward any form of absolute truth. When I think about Paradise Lost, I cannot help but to ponder what implications Paradise Lost has in this cold post-modern world. The world was a very different place in 1666, and not to say Milton’s ideas where meaningful to everyone in the 17th century, but for many people today Paradise Lost is, to put it rather bluntly, little more than a fairy tale. My thoughts have led me to one question; can a post-modern society such as ours learn anything from Paradise Lost that we can use to help better our world, or do our vast technological skills and post-modern philosophies provide a sufficient means for us to find joy, happiness and meaning in our lives?
All in all the actions of Eve were neither good nor evil, but instead necessary. Through her actions she brought to light the evils of the world, and as a result man is able to appreciate that which is good. Moreover one cannot blame Eve for what she did because although as we have seen God did instill upon mankind free will, he used his threats as a means of manipulating this gift. Although there were many trees in the Garden of Eden, having the tree of knowledge of good and evil forbidden created mystery for Eve, and therefore drew her to it over the tree of life. And once both Adam and Eve choose with their own free will to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil immortality is no longer an option. Now that man is knowledgeable enough to appreciate immortality, God removes it as an choice. In a way this story shows us the flaws of both man and God. Man in that he is tempted by that which is forbidden and does not always respect the orders of those in a position of authority; And God is shown to be somewhat devious and perhaps even malicious at times.
The many evils that came with the Fall still live on today, and there are explanations and examples of all the things that came along with Adam and Eve’s poor decisions. Although Adam and Eve become more like God after they ate from the apple, that is not what He intended. It causes more pain to not be innocent; to know what everyone else knows, and more. Eating from the Tree did give Adam and Eve more knowledge, but in the long run it just ended up being a failure. Their actions were sinful, and consequently gave sinful nature to every person to come after
In the Book One of the novel we find that there is an arch-angel who is displeased with the hierarchy of Heaven. He views God as a tyrant running a dictatorship. So, he makes up his mind that he is going to overthrow God. To do this, he rallies up a group of angels and a war breaks out. His plan backfires and he and his followers get banished to Pandemonium. Thus, Satan is born.
In 1667, John Milton wrote an epic poem titled Paradise Lost. The poem is laid out over ten books with the plot of Adam and Eve’s disobedience of God and the Fall. Book 9 Satan returns to try and deceive immortal Adam and Eve. Adam disobeys God’s plan allowing Eve to be encountered by Satan deep in the garden. Satan successful in deceiving Eve runs away after she eats the forbidden fruit. Returning to Adam, Eve seduces him into committing a sin thus results in the Fall of grace. However, Adam not deceived by Satan; but he’s swayed by Eve’s feminine charm. Furthermore, he knew the consequences that God would give if his disobeyed. In addition, Adam was forewarned in Book 8 of the impending danger from Satan, that he should repel temptation and his passion for Eve to do the right thing. To summarise, Adam represents the one who is responsible for the Fall in Milton’s poem Paradise Lost.
Paradise Lost depicts the story of the Fall of Man, because with the temptation from Satan Adam and Eve commit the first sin of mankind by disobeying God’s command. The Fall “refers to the first human transgression of the divine command” (Danielson 147). God knows everything and he knows that the Fall will happen and that’s when his plan for mankind starts, because then he will send Jesus Christ his Son to die on the cross to save all of mankind. Throughout the story, Satan is talked about significantly more than God is. Sometimes Satan is portrayed in a sense that makes the reader feel bad for him. Milton tries to express that Satan is a liar not that he is more powerful than God, but actually that he is weaker than God. On the other hand, although God is not talked about to the extent of Satan, He is always talked about in a way that shows His goodness towards His creation. Whether Milton supports God’s side or Satan’s, is an example of just one of the many debates associated with Paradise Lost. While writing the story, “Milton exemplifies two crucial tenets of Christian-Particularly Protestant-theology: man’s free will and Go’s grace and divine justice” (Bloom 14). Milton never tries to make the reader believe more in Satan or God, but he tries to paint the picture of what they look like in his own mind and then the reader can imagine what they look like for themselves in their own interpretation. Milton makes it clear that God ultimately wins because he is more powerful than Satan and always will be. Countless critics try to bash Milton’s God by establishing a reasoning that Milton is not supportive of God and portrays Satan in a better light. In Paradise Lost, Satan says “He deserved no such return From me, whom He created...
By analyzing John Milton's Paradise Lost, it is plain to see it is a fine example of epic poetry. For the most part, John Milton follows the three main guidelines that construct
Satan actions are the reason why Adam lost his freedom and free will . Milton had supported that Satan is easy to console with and that he is much more like us than God. Satan perceived as a rebellious angel who rises up and defies God’s morals .God purposely let Satan escape hell and flea to Eden , in which had caused the first disobedient act. “ Man’s first disobedience , and the fruit of the forbidden tree , whose mortal taste brought death into the world, and all of our woe ,with loss of Eden, till one greater man restore us, and regain the blissful seat,sing Heav’nly Muse.. what in me is dark illumine , what is low raise and support “, ( page 3 , Paradise lost). Milton describe Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit had brought the loss of immortality. The loss of immortality gave us the loss of making decision on are own. We are dependent on God. Being dependent on him does not give us the sense of free will. The first disobedience act Satan was the starter of all man disobedience , he was the one to perceived Eve on giving her an idea to eat the forbidden fruit. God gave Satan the power through force and discourse which led Satan to be the ruler over the falling angels. Hell is feared. God knows every move that Satan is going to make ,
Milton describes the relationship between Satan and God and Satan’s pride got in the way therefore casting Satan out of his original home. In Paradise Lost Satan we see how Milton will describe Satan as the relatable under dog in the poem and the democracy he creates will set up the possibilities of how the demons would come up to plan the fall of man to displace Adam and Eve from there home.
Milton uses this deceptive notion of the truth in Paradise Lost in order to construct a theory of morality that is based upon the individual doing the action rather than the action itself. With the character of Satan, Milton offers many instances of deception, only one of which is the temptation of Eve by Satan. Many of the events in the poem to show how easily we are deceived. Eve's temptation of Adam is only one example. Her ulterior motive of having Adam eat the fruit, and thus die, so that he would never be with another woman, is questionable at best. Yet her attempt at deception fails, since Adam takes the apple for different reasons. This example suggests that deception, no matter to what end, is immoral. The many examples of Satan's deception not working adds to this idea. Like Dr. Evans says, Satan turns into a serpent for the sole purpose of it being discreet. Yet the fact that he turns into a talking serpent is precisely the thing that grabs Eve's attention and would have foiled Satan's plans if it were not for what Dr. Evans called Satan's improvisational work. Throughout the book, Satan's "infernal logic," as we call it in section, appears in his speeches. Two examples are, "The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven" (Milton 240) and, "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" (Milton 240). As Dr. Evans said, Milton is taking the position of a moral extremist. He is saying that evil beings can only do evil things; conversely, good people can only do good things. Morality, then, is shaped by the individuals doing the action rather than a coherent philosophical ideology.
Paradise Lost as Heroic Poem. There is an attempt to characterize Paradise Lost as a heroic poem. The rules of heroic poetry, as set down by Pre Ren Le Bossu, state that an epic poem should have but one action, action meaning the plot, motivations and general motion of the poem. The action should be an entire action, with a beginning, middle and end; and it should be a great action, in that it should be of great significance. Paradise Lost may be compared with Iliad and Aenidboth widely accepted as the two great heroic epic poems.