Eve and the Apple
No one completely understands the ways of God. Many of us can come up
with our own opinions, and justify his ways in our own minds, just as Milton did
in Paradise Lost. Just as Adam and Eve, we all are gifted with free will and
the responsibility of making important decisions and choices in our life, which
will determine our future. But we may well ask ourselves today, of what use
would this free will be to us if we did not know good from evil? When Eve ate
the apple in the Garden of Eden she had two different voices telling her what to
do. God had said that Adam and Eve may eat any fruit from any of the trees in
the Garden of Eden except for the tree that contains the knowledge of good and
evil. Satan (disguised as a serpent) told Eve that she would not die from
eating that fruit, that her eyes would be opened, knowing both good and evil.
But at the time Eve made her decision, she did not have the knowledge of good
and evil. Eve did not know the serpent could be Satan incarnate, nor did she
know that her desire to become a goddess would be a sin.
The main reason Eve eats the apple is because she wants to become a
Goddess. The serpent said that he was a beast and after eating the fruit from
the tree of knowledge of good and evil he became more human like. Eve was
enticed by the words of the serpent who said that "If the fruit makes a serpent
like a man, it should make men like gods." (Line 710: "That ye should be as
Gods, since I as man, Internal Man, is but proportion meet; I, of brute, human;
ye, of human, Gods.)
Other arguments that the serpent used to manipulate Eve included; 1,)
You shall not die, look at me, I have touched and tasted and I have not died.
2,) Should man not be allowed a fruit that a beast has? 3,) How can God's
tree give knowledge out against his will, if he already knows all?
Eve also states that by God forbidding the fruit he made it more
desirable. While contemplating whether or not to eat the fruit, Eve wonders,
why the beast did not die after eating the fruit? Why should such intellectual
food be reserved for beasts? But her main reason for eating their fruit is to
acquire greater power, to become a "goddess". She tells Adam that "it was a
After his brief history, Ishmael shifts his attention to the creation. "A culture is a people enacting a story" (41), and the story of the Garden of Eden opened up new thoughts on man's transformation from dependent to independent beings. When Adam and Eve began their lives on earth, they fully depended on the gods for all their necessities. Just like all of the other animals in the garden, they followed the philosophy of "leavers" and left the question of who should live and who should die up to the gods. However, the serpent, a member of the "taker" group tempted Eve with fruit from a tree that would give them the knowledge of life and death. Eve, which means "life" (179) in turn, tempted Adam with the fruit. Although pre-warned that eating this forbidden fruit would kill man, Adam fell into temptation and his desire for life. Through this action, his eyes were partially opened to the gods' vision. However, this knowledge ultimately would lead to the fulfillment of the gods' warnings that "[the world's] doom was assured" (166). After man's realization, he placed himself in a category separate from the animals and beasts that continued to rely on the world's situation rather than themselves.
and Eve eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they are "awakened" and gain the insight
Eve does exactly what God commanded her to not do. Now that I have explained the main things a bout both stories I will continue by discussing the main themes and symbols that are existent in both stories.
In Genesis 3, the Fall of human beings is described. The serpent asked Eve if there were any trees that Adam and Eve could not eat from in the garden. Eve told the serpent that God said that they could not eat the fruit from the tree or touch the tree in the middle of the garden. The serpent told Eve that they would not die, but they would be open to the knowledge of good and evil like God. When Eve and Adam ate from the tree in the middle of the garden, they were opened to the knowledge of good and evil (The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha...
The creation story in Genesis refers to a serpent classically interpreted as an evil entity. If we consider God’s warning that eating fruit from a certain tree would result in death the same day and that the record indicates that the only two humans on the planet did not, we must reconsider the role of the serpent and reevaluate the roles of good and evil and how they apply to ...
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 ...
In Book IX of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Eve makes a very important and revealing speech to the tree of knowledge. In it, she demonstrates the effect that the forbidden fruit has had on her. Eve’s language becomes as shameful as the nakedness that Adam and Eve would later try to cover up with fig leaves. After eating the forbidden apple, Eve’s speech is riddled with blasphemy, self-exaltation, and egocentrism.
Oedipus does not simply kill himself to rid Thebes of his curse, he tortures himself and asks to be exiled in punishment for the sins he committed with his own mother. Oedipus, as most readers agree, did not have to suffer such a cruel fate, however, as an Aristotelian tragic hero Oedipus was required to become a martyr, and a martyr he became. In the final pages of Oedipus, the most suffering is highlighted by the line: “Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him… count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last” (Sophocles, 1682-1685) as read by the chorus at the end of the play. Oedipus lives for the rest of his days miserable and in pain. Oedipus is a true martyr and it is with his suffering that we see what the perfect example of a tragic character
The serpent even states to Eve that “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (NIV, Gen 3:5). The next few lines are completely different from what is shown by Milton. It says that when Eve saw that the fruit was good and she began to desire wisdom she took some and ate it. Then she game some to Adam who was with her. This is a very large contrast from Milton’s work because this shows that Adam was present the whole time of the serpent and Eve’s discussion. In the poem “Verses for Madonna of humility with the temptation of Eve” Lynn Powell takes a very graphic and almost nostalgic look at the story of Adam and Eve. Her poem states “Eve 's lying at eye level, propped up on an elbow./And never has abyss been so good to pink,/ the void a perfect foil for her foreground flesh./She fits into the black like a woman/ ready to be skewered in a vaudeville act./ You can tell the painter loves her, the way/ You can tell the painter loves her/ he 's touched her every place he can with paint./ And he 's noticed what she 's thinking:/ holding the pear, as Hamlet did the skull,/ while gazing up at someone who 's got everything to lose./ Eve 's about to make the choice Mary has to live with./
God knew that since both Adam and Eve had now gained knowledge of both good and evil they would soon learn to really appreciate life and all it has to offer. And for this reason the couple was expelled from paradise. Had Eve ignored the serpent and refused to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil perhaps civilization would still exist as nirvana. However happiness and in effect perfection is relative. A beautiful spring day is only as beautiful as the worst s...
When wisdom is mixed with disobedience it opens the door for evil to abound. Although Eve was the first to take of the fruit and Adam the second, both shared responsibility in the transgression as Arnold describes it. (62;67,
According to Genesis the first man and woman or Adam and Eve are created by God. Living in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve was forbidden by God to eat fruit from the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. According to the scripture, Eve has eaten the fruit, and she has tempted by by serpent, but she has shared the fruit with Adam.
Oedipus Rex, or Oedipus the King is Sophocles’s first play of “The Theban Cycle.” It tells the story of a king that tries to escape his fate, but by doing so he only brings about his downfall. Oedipus is a classic example of the Aristotelian definition of a tragic hero. Aristotle defines a tragic hero as a basically good and noble person who causes his own downfall due to a flaw in his character.
“Dream not of other worlds,” the angel Raphael warns Adam in Miltons’s Paradise Lost (VIII.175). Eve, however, dreams of another world in which she will gain knowledge and power, a wish that is superficially fulfilled when she succumbs to Satan’s temptation and eats from the Tree of Knowledge. Awakening in the Garden of Eden as though from a dream, Eve searches for her identity and her place in Paradise. Satan provides Eve with a chance to gain knowledge and to become god-like. As Eve is not an equal companion for Adam, she seeks independence from her husband. Shifting her loyalty away from God and Adam and towards Satan and the Tree of Knowledge, Eve strives to find her identity in the Garden of Eden, gain knowledge and godliness, and obtain independence from her unequal partnership with Adam.
In Christian theology, Eve was tricked by a serpent of evil (Satan) into eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In this myth, Adam and Eve are created in the image of evil, inbred with sin, and given knowledge and life by the Light. Another interesting point is that this myth does not give any innocence to Eve. Eve seduces Adam with her evil nature but Adam, made of the same material, gets pitied because he was unable to resist her temptation. This myth takes a patriarchal standpoint on the creation of mankind and blames women for all the evils of the world thereby affirming that nothing good can come from the role of women. Not to mention that all other characters in the myth are male with the exception of the Mother of life. Mankind was mixed with good and evil but Eve was created for the soul reason of being subject to demons. The old belief that women are inherently evil, even more so than men, stems from the very speech given by Darkness when describing Eve and her seduction of Adam. By this logic, Eve is a true daughter of Darkness, mother of mankind, that contrasts with Mother of Life that gave rise to Primal Man. Through this lineage, mankind gets more and more inhuman and demonic with each generation because they are getting farther and farther away