A Rhetorical Analysis Of John Milton's Poem 'Hell'

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Recommended: John milton a heaven of hell comprehension

Faith Harris
Krissa Kocur
Nick Stonewall
Ap English, Period 2
February 9, 2017
Rhetorical Analysis

The main argument of this poem would have to be disobedience and obedience. John Milton wants to make it clear that Heaven is the best, while Hell is the worst, the least liked, and Earth is in between both. The message is simple, if you are obedient on earth you will end up in Heaven, if you are disobedient on earth you will end up in Hell. Being that the time period that this poem was written in, the audience would be best described as those who were religiously affiliated. The poem targets several religious factors and challenges the belief of a hierarchy. The ones that would be excluded from this argument would most likely be those who did not live within the same setting and/or have any(or different) religious preferences. The argument uses several techniques in order to get the reader to understand the main idea. For example, John Milton relates religious …show more content…

He believes he was wronged by God by getting banished to Hell. The genre of the poem can be interpreted differently, since these are biblical characters and the Bible can be either seen as fiction or nonfiction based on who's reading. In the poem the Devil is creating the argument. The ethos he is attempting to create is suppose to get the reader to empathize for him and his reasonings. But the ethos he is attempting to create makes him seem even more untrustworthy because the devil has a negative connotation to the name, so it's unlikely that the reader will settle to listen to the Devil deeply.The argument presented by the Devil is reliant on his ability to get the reader to see the why he feels as if he was wronged.The author uses a lot of text based evidence such as when he says "Full counsel must mature. For peace is despaired." When he says this he is referring to the peace that was broken when he was wronged by

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