Throughout history, some of the most influential figures have been those who have the ability to use rhetoric devices. For example, the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who was respected and honored by millions of people throughout the world. Even today, King is a celebrated historic figure due to the fact that he has used many rhetorical devices to aid his speeches and encourage people to take a peaceful stand against the injustice of racism. In King’s case, he was truly doing a wonderful deed for humanity, and his persuasion captured the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people who were motivated to take a stand against injustice. For this reason, there is a day celebrated every year in memory of him. In Paradise Lost, Satan is …show more content…
a character who, like King, uses rhetorical devices throughout the poem to accomplish persuasion of other characters.
In the case of Satan, however, the persuasion that he uses is solely to bring evil into the world. Satan uses the rhetorical devices of ethos and logos as his primary rhetoric tools, his approach to persuasion does slightly change based on who he is trying to persuade, and he even uses rhetorical devices on himself in some parts of the story. Satan relies heavily on the rhetorical triangle to aid him in his quest to bring evil to the world in Paradise Lost, and although the triangle is made up of three different parts, the two parts that Satan uses the most are ethos and logos. In his review of Paradise Lost entitled Milton’s Satan, author John Carey points out that it is actually really unlikely that an angel would be flawed in a way that would make him sin against God. Despite this, Carey continues to say that Milton covers up this idea by declining to present any picture of the unfallen Satan to the reader. “It also lends credibility to his unlikely story, since the reader tends to assume that the fallen Satan’s indecisiveness about God’s omnipotence... also characterized the unfallen Satan, and let to his revolt” (Carey 166). Carey is completely correct about both the fact that it is unlikely that an …show more content…
angel would fall from heaven, and that Milton does a wonderful job of covering this fact up by declining to give the reader any true image of the unfallen Satan, which allows the reader to assume that Satan was never sure of God’s omnipotence. This therefore, gives a decent amount of credibility to Satan, and allows Milton to use ethos through Satan as a fallen angel; one who was made imperfect by the Father, rather than it being Satan who turned against his Father. This idea also gives Satan a justifiable want to revolt. Carey says that, “Milton’s narrative strategy conceals the logical flaw” (Carey 166) that an angel could actually feel the want to turn against God. In this way, Milton uses logos through the character of Satan in the story, because he orders things in a logical way to give the reader the perspective needed for the story to work. In Book I of Paradise Lost, Satan also uses logos when he is speaking to Beelzebub on the topic of of accepting Hell as his new place of reign. Satan says, “Hail horrors, hail / Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell / Receive thy new possessor / … / The mind in its own place, and in itself / Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n” (I. 250-255). This appeals to logos because it encourages Beelzebub to consider the fact that evil demons can reign in this new world that they have fallen to, and that they can literally make their own heaven in hell that is based all around the joys of evil. Due to Satan’s use of logos, it would only make sense that Beelzebub should be influenced by the idea of creating a new heaven in hell, and for this reason Beelzebub follows Satan’s lead in bringing evil to the world. These are three examples of Satan using ethos and logos to establish his character in Paradise Lost, and this is how Satan relies on these two devices of the rhetorical triangle more than he relies on pathos. In Paradise Lost, Satan’s approach to persuasion does slightly change based on who he is trying to persuade.
For example in Book I, Satan attempts to persuade his fellow fallen angels by exclaiming that, “Our better part remains / To work close in design, by fraud or guile / What force effected not: that he no less / At length from us may find, who overcomes / By force, hath overcome but half his foe” (I. 645-649). In this passage, Satan uses logos to encourage his peers to work for him and the forces of evil. He gives the other devils the argument that being more powerful in force is only half the battle, and that they have the mental capacity to use wit and guile to bring evil upon the world and fight back against the Father. Satan directly tells his followers what he plans on doing, and uses arguments to make them join him; it is also important that Satan does not have to hide or disguise himself to tempt these other devils. Satan also uses pathos in this passage by referring to the Father as his foe, because it makes the other devils feel passionate about the fact that it is the Father who is the true enemy. When Satan is trying to tempt Eve in the garden, he takes the form of a serpent. This is an example of ethos because it allows the fiend to disguise his appearance, which makes his approach more believable. Satan tells Eve that he knows of a tree with some delicious smelling fruit, and Satan says that by eating the fruit, “I turned my thoughts, and with capacious
mind / Considered all things visible in heav’n, / Or earth. or middle, all things fair and good” (IX. 603-605). This is an example of logos, because it helps to convince Eve that eating this fruit is actually a good thing and, according to Satan, it does have the power to open the mind up to heaven which must be the truth, since the one who has tried it must surely know. Eve figures that if one of the creations that her Father made advises her to do something, it must be a good thing, and she therefore believes Satan and is tempted into causing the fall of mankind. Satan continues to tempt Eve by once again attesting to the fruit of the tree, saying; “It gives you life / To knowledge. By the Threat’ner? Look on me, / Me who have touched and tasted, yet both live, / … / To happier life, knowledge of good and evil” (IX. 686-697). This passage gives Satan ethos, because it leads Eve to believe that if this serpent has eaten from the fruit and it truly gave him knowledge, he must know what he is talking about, and therefore, she believes Satan’s words. These passages show that Satan’s approach does slightly change based on who he is trying to persuade, because not only does he change his appearance, but he also adds another rhetorical device to his repertoire when he goes to convince Eve to eat the forbidden fruit because he knows it will take more to convince this earthly creature than it did to convince the fallen angels. This is why Satan alters his approach to persuading the beautiful Eve by using not only ethos and logos, but pathos as well. In addition to the fallen angels and Eve, the only other character that Satan persuades in Paradise Lost is himself. Towards the beginning of the story, Satan is attempting to convince himself that he is ready to take on the mission of exploring Earth. To do this, Satan says that there is not a, “Difficulty or danger (that) could deter / Me from attempting. Wherefore do I assume / These royalties, and not refuse to reign, / Refusing to accept as great a share / Of hazard as of honor, due alike / To him who reigns” (II. 449-454). In this passage, Satan uses pathos on himself by saying that nothing could prevent him from attempting to gain all the glory that comes along with taking on such a dangerous mission, should he succeed. By using words like “royalties” and “honor,” Satan gains motivation just in hearing his own voice speak of the rewards like these two ideas that come with this mission. This causes Satan to feel a strong desire to want to undertake the challenge, and that is what he does. Even before Satan uses pathos to convince himself to go to Earth to tempt the Father’s new creation, he uses pathos to convince himself that his sole purpose in the world is to bring about evil. Satan says; “We now return / To claim our just inheritance of old, / Surer to prosper than prosperity / Could have assured us; and by what best way, / Whether of open war or covert guile, / We now debate” (II. 37-42). By saying this, Satan motivates himself to try to gain what he believes to be his, and becomes passionate about his cause because of the speech he gives. These strong emotions make it so that Satan reverts to his solution to more evil to solve the problem that he has created with the Father, because he believes this to be the easy way out. This is how Satan uses his own words to inspire his emotions, which in turn lead him to make choices due to his own use of pathos. The fact that Satan uses pathos to make the two biggest decisions that he makes in the entire story shows that when he is trying to persuade himself, pathos is the most effective tool, which of course differs from when Satan is attempting to persuade both the fallen angels and Eve. The ability to persuade someone is one of the most powerful tools in the world, as shown by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his lifetime and Satan in Paradise Lost. Although King uses his persuasive techniques for tremendous amounts of good, the infamous Satan contrastly uses his persuasive techniques for nothing but evil. In the poem, Satan uses ethos and logos as his primary rhetoric techniques for persuading other characters in the story. When Satan goes to persuade the fallen angels, he relies only on his two most primary rhetoric techniques: ethos and logos. When Satan tempts Eve he must use pathos in addition to ethos and logos to tempt her, and when he is trying to persuade himself, he actually switches his primary technique to pathos. The fact that Satan uses a different combination of rhetorical devices for each of the different characters that he persuades shows that he does change his approach to persuasion based on who is is trying to influence. Overall, Satan uses the entire rhetorical triangle somewhere in the story Paradise Lost, and each time that he uses the rhetorical triangle, he is successful in his attempt to persuade. This proves that when it comes to persuading someone, the bad guys are even better than the good, and that Satan’s rhetoric in Paradise Lost is undoubtedly his most effective tool.
On August 28th, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C, Martin Luther King Jr., spoke to roughly twenty-five thousands people attending the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. In Dr. King’s speech, “I Had a Dream”, he uses rhetorical devices to convey that all people are created equal and to educate the importance of the Civil Rights Movement.
In everyday life, we apply rhetorical devices for many situations. We apply them most when trying to persuade others, such as advertisements on television. Rhetorical devices have been used for a really long time. Rhetorical devices go as far back as the Great Awakening. Unconverted men were persuaded through rhetorical devices. Unconverted men are people who have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. In 1741, the unconverted were persuaded to accept God and to live a holy life. They were always told about the effects of sinning and were told what would happen after their life ended. Around that time, a pastor—Jonathan Edwards—gave a sermon about what would happen if they did not convert into a child of God. In “Sinners in the Hands
In John Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost, the author establishes Satan as the most complex and thought-provoking character in the tale through his depiction of Satan’s competing desires. Throughout the first four books of Paradise Lost, Satan repeatedly reveals his yearning both for recognition from God and, simultaneously, independence from God. The paradox that prevents Satan from achieving his desires may be interpreted as a suggestion of Milton’s establishment of a sympathetic reading for this character, as he cannot truly find happiness. In actuality, the construction of Satan’s rivaling aspirations evince Satan’s repulsive depravity to Milton’s audience and encourage readers to condemn his character.
Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is a complex character meant to be the evil figure in the epic poem. Whenever possible Satan attempts to undermine God and the Son of God who is the true hero of the story. Throughout the story Milton tells the readers that Satan is an evil character, he is meant not to have any redeeming qualities, and to be shown completely as an unsympathetic figure. Satan’s greatest sins are pride and vanity in thinking he can overthrow God, and in the early part of the poem he is portrayed as selfish while in Heaven where all of God’s angels are loved and happy. Satan’s journey starts out as a fallen angel with great stature, has the ability to reason and argue, but by Book X the anguish and pain he goes through is more reason for him to follow an evil path instead. Even so, Milton uses literal and figurative imagery in the description of Satan’s character to manipulate the reader’s response to the possibility that Satan may actually be a heroic figure. As the plot of the story unfolds there are moments where the reader can identify with Satan’s desires and relate to his disappointments.
There have been many different interpretations of John Milton's epic, Paradise Lost. Milton's purpose in writing the epic was to explain the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Although the epic is similar to the Bible story in many ways, Milton's character structure differs from that of the Bible's version. Through-out the epic Milton describes the characters in the way he believes they are. In book II of Paradise Lost, Milton portrays Satan as a rebel who exhibits certain heroic qualities, but who turns out not to be a hero.
Ask anyone to draw Satan and you 'll get a red snake-like figure with horns and a pitchfork. Satan, as introduced in the Hebrew bible is an unworthy adversary of God. His longing to be like God is quickly recognized and dealt with. God banishes him from Heaven and sends him to Hell. That 's the last we see of him until he talks with God about his faithful servant Job. In each interaction we see Satan in, we get only a glimpse of who he really is. Satan 's motive is not developed and we assume he does evil simply because he is evil
The intent behind making Satan the protagonist of Paradise Lost could have very well been Milton wanted people to sympathize with Satan. People are all flawed in some way or another. This text is Milton 's explanation of why people aren 't and can 't be perfect. Adam and Eve yielded to the temptation of Satan so now we all have a little of the devil inside of us. Because of the evil inside of us all we are able to relate to Satan more than God. Satan in
The identity of the true protagonist in Paradise Lost is a mystery. One would gather that Milton, a Puritan, would have no problem casting God as the hero, and Satan as the antagonist. However, looking back in history, Milton saw that most epic heroes had conflicts that prevented them from accomplishing their goals. God and his Son have no conflict, and Adam’s story does not really begin until the Fall of Man. Therefore, Milton was forced to select Satan as the hero of Paradise Lost because he adheres to the guidelines of epic poetry set by Homer, Virgil and others. There are many examples of how Milton uses and edits the tradition of these previous epics in the formation of the Devil as a hero. One of the most basic examples of heroism in epic poetry is the exhortation of the leader to his followers. In The Odyssey, Homer lets Odysseus give a speech that would convince anyone they could survive the journey to the Strait of Messina, "Then we die with our eyes open, if we are going to die, or know what death we baffle if we can. (Ln.1243-1245)" After passing the Sirens, the ship approaches the Strait, and the crew sees the twin terrors of Scylla and Charybdis, they are mortified. Odysseus again lifts their spirits with this speech, "Friends, have we ever been in danger before this? More fearsome, is it now, than when the Cyclops penned us in his cave? What power he had! Did I not keep my nerve, and use my wits to find a way out for us?
The question of whether Satan is the hero or the villain of John Milton’s Paradise Lost has been largely debated by scholars over the centuries. The ones who believe Satan is the villain of the epic, more commonly known as the Anti-Satanists, tend to argue that Satan is too foolish to be considered a hero, as his “hostility to Almighty power” is ultimately a futile endeavour (as God’s power is omnipotent) (Carey, 135). C.W. Lewis, also an anti-Satanist, goes as far as to claim that to “admire Satan, then, is to give one’s vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking” (Lewis, 203). The ones who claim Satan is the hero of the epic, the Satanists, perceive him as the rebellious angel who rises up and defies God’s monarchy and “the tyranny of Heav’n” (174).They choose to focus on Satan’s “nobler qualities, his loyalty in leadership, fortitude in adversity, unflinching courage and splendid recklessness” (Satan/Promo, 3). While these two positions are both valid, this paper will be focusing on a third position; the individuals who believe that Satan is neither the hero nor the villain of the epic. Helen Gardner addresses this notion, claiming how “Satan is, of course, a character in an epic, and he is no sense the hero of the epic as a whole. But he is a figure of heroic magnitude and heroic energy, and he is developed by Milton with dramatic emphasis and dramatic intensity” (Baker/Helen, 208). Satan is without a doubt the antichrist, or “villain” in the biblical scriptures, however one must take into consideration his alternative and more ambiguous portrayal in Paradise Lost. In this paper, I will analyze Satan’s actions, physical portrayal and speeches in Book I of Paradise Los...
John Milton's Paradise Lost is a work of enduring charm and value because of its theological conceptions, its beautiful language, and its "updating" of the epic to the modern world's values. Book II of this epic poem opens with Satan's speech to his minions in hell, proposing war on Heaven itself. In these first 44 lines, Satan is clearly established as epic hero, but at the same time is theologically/morally denounced by the speaker.
The Fallen Angels in Paradise Lost The fallen angels are Satan's minions and the voices by which Milton may express a variety of opinions and views, showing the diversity. and the intricacies of Hell, and the immorality of their actions and proposals. Whilst we are often impressed by the skill with which the individual leaders perform their tasks and speeches, we are never left in any doubt as to the truth of G-d, and the futility of their debates. By examining the angels as a group, Milton is able to leave the infernal dungeon, to take a flight throughout history, giving his own point of view.
John Milton’s Paradise Lost is an epic poem that describes the fall of Satan and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Satan is the protagonist of Paradise Lost and has several characteristics in which readers may identify with him. Throughout the poem, Satan is not only a tragic hero but also the key character that drives the plot and portrays many flawed human qualities. As an angel fallen from the high esteem of God and a possessor of hubris that leads to his downfall, he represents a tragic hero but also a character in which readers may identify with. Following the standards of classic tragic heroes, Satan is a determined leader with an extreme amount of hubris.
In his epic poem Paradise Lost, John Milton presents Satan as a complex and multifaceted figure. As Jeffrey Burton Russell describes in The Prince of Darkness, Milton’s goal in writing this epic poem was to “justify the ways of God to men” (Russell, chap.12, p.15). With this in mind, it is easy to interpret the character of Satan as a mere foe, the evil at the opposite of God’s goodness, and to see God as the obvious protagonist of the poem. Things in Milton, however, are not quite as black and white, and while the justification of God’s actions is at the centre here, it is the character of Satan who drives the poem forward, as a protagonist should.
John Milton’s Paradise Lost continues the epic tradition developed by the ancient Greek and Roman poets. Composed in exact imitation of its predecessors, the work depicts all characteristics of a traditional epic poem—including the epic hero, a powerful embodiment of societal values. Milton presents his hero in a most unpredictable form: Satan. Despite the unorthodox oddity, the former archangel exhibits the conventions of an epic hero. Milton’s forced perception of Satan as the hero of the poem reflects his stated purpose for writing the piece. By placing Satan in a traditional heroic role, Milton illustrates his manipulative and cunning nature, which anyone can easily fall prey to, and resultingly fashions Satan into an antihero.
Paradise Lost is one of the finest examples of the epic tradition in all of literature. In composing this extraordinary work, John Milton was, for the most part, following in the manner of epic poets of past centuries: Barbara Lewalski notes that Paradise Lost is an "epic whose closest structural affinities are to Virgil's Aeneid . . . "; she continues, however, to state that we now recognize as well the influence of epic traditions and the presence of epic features other than Virgilian. Among the poem's Homeric elements are its Iliadic subject, the death and woe resulting from an act of disobedience; the portrayal of Satan as an Archillean hero motivated by a sense of injured merit and also as an Odyssean hero of wiles and craft; the description of Satan's perilous Odyssey to find a new homeland; and the battle scenes in heaven. . . . The poem also incorporates a Hesiodic gigantomachy; numerous Ovidian metamorphoses; an Ariostan Paradise of Fools; [and] Spenserian allegorical figures (Sin and Death) . . . . (3)