How Is Feminism And Eve In Paradise Lost

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The “Two Great Sexes:” Feminism and Eve in Paradise Lost Most versions of Eve’s experiences in Eden before the fall are never truly explored, instead adhering strictly to the biblical text and focusing on her role in the fall. Milton, however, offers a radically different depiction of Eve. Her active involvement is not constrained only to her deception and fall. Milton goes beyond her portrayal in the Bible, depicting her prelapsarian role in Eden. While the hierarchical order of all creatures, including men and women, remains intact, Milton portrays an Eve who works directly alongside Adam. She is able to think and act for herself and exhibits her independence throughout the story. Milton’s Eve in Paradise Lost, then, is a feminist, rejecting …show more content…

He whispers in her ear, causing her to dream of eating the forbidden fruit. Bell argues, “the rehearsal of the temptation presented in Eve’s dream already moves her across the border this side of innocence” (867). Eve’s reaction to the dream, however, proves her prelapsarian innocence. When she wakes, she is disturbed by her dream, telling Adam that she dreamed of “offense and trouble” (5.34). After relating her dream to Adam, she exclaims, “how glad I wak’d / To find this but a dream!” (5.92-93). Her reaction to Satan’s temptation is not one of a flawed and weak female tempted to sin. Rather, she is so upset by simply dreaming about what it would be like to eat from the Tree of Knowledge that Adam must comfort …show more content…

Eve rejected the very idea of sin from the beginning. She could not fall because of her base desire for sin or her weakness in her resolve to obey God’s commandment; the only possible way she could fall was if she were deceived into believing she was making the right choice. Beguiled by Satan’s attempts to convince her to eat the apple, his words appeared, “impregn’d / With Reason, to her seeming, and with Truth” (9.737-738). Capitalizing reason here makes it synonymous with Adam’s own reason. The reason that convinces Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge must have seemed, to her, like Adam’s own reason, making it appear to be like something Adam himself would

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