God And Satan In Milton's Paradise Lost

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Recommended: Critical analysis of character of Satan in paradise lost

The Bible is, undoubtedly, one of the most prominent books in literature, still holding the title of best-selling book in the world to this date. The moment a book reaches a certain level of popularity, one can expect its characters to get catapulted into the spotlight. God and Satan, the Bible’s most well known characters, became part of people’s everyday culture by personifying the good and the evil. Does Satan deserve to be classified as evil, or is he misunderstood? Although what is perceived as good and bad is subjective and ultimately up to the reader, Milton’s Paradise Lost gives readers a closer look at Satan’s trajectory with a kindhearted approach. Milton’s compassionate attitude towards Satan is first introduced to the readers …show more content…

Lewis argues “Hence all that is said about Milton’s ‘sympathy’ with Satan, his expression in Satan of his own pride, malice, folly, misery and lust, is true in a sense, but not in a sense peculiar to Milton. The Satan in Milton enables him to draw the character well just as the Satan in us enables us to receive it” The reason why Milton sympathizes with Satan is because he sees himself on him, just like the readers do. Humans sin all the time and make mistakes; Satan is the personification of that. Satan connects to the reader in such a lively manner because he is real, as in being someone that believes he must get what he deserves, by any means. Satan is determined in a way that humans are. Gross writes “It is not that I like Satan’s voice, mind, or attitude better than those of other characters in the poem, but rather that Satan, at times, seems to be the only one with a voice, mind, or attitude of his own…” Just like people are never comfortable: Money is never enough, the body is not sexy enough, etc. It is extremely hard for a human being to be completely satisfied with his or her life, just like Satan was not comfortable with his life in Heaven but is also not very happy about spending eternity in Hell. Socially, people try to deviate as much as possible from the image of Satan, but deeply they are much more alike than most would like to

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