Comparing John Milton’s Paradise Lost to Pleasantville
I don’t know if I connected the experiential dots with any dexterity regarding John Milton’s Paradise Lost until I visited Disney World recently. It wasn’t until Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, Cruella De Vil, Jafar the evil sorcerer, the Beauty, and the Beast came down Main Street, U.S.A. that I was more able to appreciate the prodigiousness of the procreative masque within Paradise Lost. Panorama grabs the viewer; and, with a mere touch of the remote control, it thrusts him/her into Eden, Main Street, or Pleasantville. Panorama doesn’t settle for facile spectatorship; it invites the viewer into the action and synchronizes the viewer’s pulse with the pulse of its [panorama’s] own creative slide show. To ignore that invite is to not only avoid the tree of knowledge, but to refuse its existence. That tree was not put in the garden to be ignored but to be avoided – a challenge of our obedience towards a sovereign, a tempter of our curiosity, a pulse quickener.
And so we sat there in the cool of the shade from our own tree, askance of Main Street but within reach of the remote. We were just far enough away to observe the parade with condescension and just close enough to feel the discomfort of the sorcerer’s leer. First the big mouse, then the princess, then Goofy, then the sorcerer, then the beast – always the beast. I watched the 5-year-old near me and wondered if he felt like Adam may have felt on that lofty mount, as Michael revealed one dramatic historical upheaval after another. I was glad that I didn’t have to worry, didn’t have to get involved. I was happy to know that this bit of fancy was but a type of reality, scripted by that master of artifice, Walt Disne...
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...ly “delivers” both of his worlds by becoming part of the panorama. He pushes the remote button and affects the circumspection of the real with the creativity of the fanciful. The real and the fanciful have an almost singular or codependent relationship with one another; neither can be ignored in attending to the health of the other. In Bud’s situation, the absenteeism of his corporeal nature is illumined by the activism of his panoramic experience. At the end of the movie “Pleasantville,” Bud is able to take a satisfying look into the television screen, the conduit for his panorama, and know that he was taken out of the shade and into the light. He risked joining the pageantry and ended up having a good day. Next time I’ll sit closer to the parade.
Work Cited
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. 1674. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1993.
“Paradise Found and Lost” from Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Discoverers, embodies Columbus’ emotions, ideas, and hopes. Boorstin, a former Librarian of Congress, leads the reader through one man’s struggles as he tries to find a Western Passage to the wealth of the East. After reading “Paradise Found and Lost,” I was enlightened about Columbus’ tenacious spirit as he repeatedly fails to find the passage to Asia. Boorstin title of this essay is quite apropos because Columbus discovers a paradise but is unable to see what is before him for his vision is too jaded by his ambition.
Paradise Lost is John Milton’s epic poem about the battle between Satan and God. The poem is quite controversial due to the fact that this was written during the time period that the Catholic Church was facing major corruption. People were already having concerns about God and what was right from the Catholic Church; because of this and many other textual reasons Paradise Lost has a very controversial relationship with Christianity.
Babb, Lawrence. The Moral Cosmos of Paradise Lost. [East Lansing]: Michigan State UP, 1970. Print.
The continual search for a perfect civilization marks the history of human progress. From Plato to Locke to Marx, man has sought to order society to provide justice for himself and his children. In this quest for paradise, myths of primitivity help describe how social institutions can direct humans away from their temptations toward higher goals. In Aeschylus' The Oresteia and John Milton's Paradise Lost, human civilization is viewed as an imperfect balance of opposites which helps combat man's tendencies toward barbarism and misogyny.
Proposal For “The Effects of the Immigration Act of 1924”: The Immigration Act of 1924 and its effect in the Rio Grande Valley in the early 1900’s by Jacob Garza
Great works of literature have been written throughout history. However, The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost have the inept ability to stir the soul and cause a person to examine and re-examine their life. The brilliant descriptions, use of imagery, metaphor and simile give a person a vivid picture of the creation of man and the possibilities for life in the hereafter. This is done, as a person is able to see, full circle, from the beginning of time to the end of time, the consequences of turning away from God. The ability to see a life full circle is apparent through the examination of both of these poems. Although written many years ago, the morals and principles that they convey ring very true for people in this century as well as times yet to come.
...t, Stephen, gen. ed. “Paradise Lost.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 2012. Print. 36-39.
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.
Throughout Paradise Lost, Milton uses various tools of the epic to convey a traditional and very popular Biblical story. He adds his own touches to make it more of an epic and to set forth new insights into God's ways and the temptations we all face. Through his uses of love, war, heroism, and allusion, Milton crafted an epic; through his references to the Bible and his selection of Christ as the hero, he set forth a beautifully religious Renaissance work. He masterfully combined these two techniques to create a beautiful story capable of withstanding the test of time and touching its readers for centuries.
Loewenstein, David A Student Guide: Milton-Paradise Lost, 2nd Edition Cambridge University Press, 1993, Second Edition 2004.
“Paradise Lost.”* The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt and M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. *(page). Print.
Paradise Lost is an epic of epic proportions! It chronologs the designs of Satan, the fall of the angels, the creation and subsequent fall of man from paradise, and finally ends with some hope for a paradise regained. At first glance it seems to be two epics rolled into one.
Milton. New York: Norton, 1957. Elledge, Scott, ed., pp. 113-117. Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources.
In the opening lines of Paradise Lost, Milton wastes no time conveying to his readers what his purpose in writing the epic is. He writes in the beginning that he intends to “assert Eternal Providence, / and justifie the wayes of God to men” (I. 25-26). What exactly does this mean though? In order to be able to clearly judge and evaluate what these lines imply, it is important that one understands what exactly Milton’s thoughts we regarding “Eternal Providence” and the “wayes of God”. Stemming from this idea, it is important to also realize how the idea of free will intertwines with the omniscience of God. For Milton, God’s omniscient did not constrain the free will of Adam and Eve. However, this idea presents the reader with a paradoxical situation that Milton as an author was fully aware of. Paradise Lost presents the reader with eternal providence and free will as being part and parcel of each other, neither constrains the other, and it is these two aspects, along with that of knowledge that lay the groundwork in understanding Paradise Lost.
Reichert, John. Milton's Wisdom: Nature and Scripture in Paradise Lost. Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press. 1992