Misogyny In Paradise Lost Analysis

Jonathan Whitfield’s claim is that Eve in Paradise Lost reveals an unfair look at the perspective of women in the story. Whitfield explains that Eve’s character was written by a man to play a role in a story that favors men, like Adam and God, and then she is punished for her inferiority. The misogyny in Paradise Lost is further heightened since Eve is the only primary female character in the story, highlighting the problem of her inferiority as not only a character but as an example of how culture influenced her character. Whitfield believes that Eve interprets herself and her purpose in Eden in a way that is centered “on a male-dominated ideology” (58). However, E.M.W. Tillyard asserts that Eve’s “mental levity” is stronger than

God planned for Adam to be in control of Eve, and yet Adam clearly deviates from this plan in his complete adoration of her. When Adam explains his feelings for Eve to Raphael, Raphael responds with “contracted brow,” exemplifying how Adam has accepted Eve far more eagerly and equally than God had originally intended (VIII.560). Raphael’s skepticism towards Adam’s feelings about Eve negates the view that takes God’s hierarchical positioning of Adam and Eve at face value; if Raphael, an agent of God’s will, is concerned about Adam’s choices, then clearly Adam and Eve have the faculty to make their own decisions and grow in their own ways. The couple’s emotional deviation from God’s will illuminates just how subject Adam and Eve are to desire, a human feeling that transcends God-stated reason. Furthermore, when Eve suggests that she and Adam work separately in the garden, Adam replies, “to a short absence I could yield” (IX.248). His reply that he could “yield” reverses the power dynamic between him and Eve. Initially, she is the one who “yielded with coy submission,” but now it is Adam who is yielding, subordinating himself to Eve by a volition that is tellingly and entirely his rather than God’s

Jonathan Whitfield believes that Eve’s wrongdoings are overly heightened, which therefore present her character in a “patriarchal mythological narrative that favors [Adam]” (61). It is in this line of criticism that one must reexamine Eve’s confrontation of Adam after their fall. After being chastised by God, Eve turns to Adam and proclaims, “Was I t’have never parted from thy side? / As good have grown there still a lifeless rib!” (IX.1153-54). Here, Eve acknowledges her movement away from Adam, away from her status as “she for God in him” and as inferior to Adam because she came from him (IV.299). Her use of the word “lifeless” suggests a vivification of self and body that is not necessarily physical – after all, she could walk, talk, and breathe because God made it so – but is intellectual, emotional, and psychological (IX.1153-54). Life, versus lifelessness, is more than physical animation; it is an understanding of true emotions as dictated by personal volition and a sense of self rather than by mere imitation and compliance. Moreover, by questioning her attachment to Adam, she sees the emptiness of a life based solely on another person. Here, and in her rationale to share her knowledge with Adam after eating the apple, Eve is aware of the imposed limitations of