More handpicked essays just for you.
Role of Satan in paradise lost
Satan as a tragic hero in the paradise lost by Milton
Satan as a tragic hero in the paradise lost by Milton
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Role of Satan in paradise lost
In Paradise Lost Satan Ends up telling us how much he hates God and tells us this,"To do aught good never will be our task,/But ever to do ill our sole delight,/As being the contrary to his high will/Whom we resist. If then his providence /Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,/Our labor must be to pervert that end,/And out of good still to find means of evil" (Milton 745). Satan in this quote basically says that he will will stop at nothing until he gets his revenge against God. This corresponded to the monster quite well. The monster also made this same pact with himself that he would get back at his creator no matter what. He shows this is full effect when after Victor kills his "Eve" the monster goes and proceeds to kill victors wife.
The theme of give your soul to the devil is very old. Most of the time someone would do this to get something very valuable to them. But a lot of the time it ends with someone losing all they have or losing someone they love. The characters in “The Devil and Tom Walker” and “Snow White and the Huntsman,” Were convinced to make a deal with “The Devil.”
His determination is shown by the quote ‘He circled, four times crossed the car of night’. This makes it obvious to the reader that Satan’s desire for revenge is much more than a simple whim it is lust. In Book 2 of Paradise Lost, Satan’s determination is introduced as he leaves the other fallen angels in Pandemonium to wreak havoc on Earth and orchestrate their revenge. It is now, in book 9, that his efforts come to fruition, as Eve eats from the Tree of Knowledge and convinces Adam to do the same, consequently, man falls. Despite this, Satan does not receive his full punishment until Book 10
This demonstrates the creatures moral ambiguity because he first saves an innocent girls life, but then he kills an innocent boy just for vengeance. In addition, he threatens to kill Elizabeth if Victor doesn't create female monster for him. This event also shows the creatures moral ambiguity because he wants to a female companion as hideous as he is, so that he won't feel alone if the world but Victor did not create the female companion he became enraged and killed Elizabeth whom was going to be Victors
To begin, the monster longed for human connection so badly, he even begged Victor to create his wife: “You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as my right which you must not refuse to concede,” (174). In this quote, the monster asks Victor to make him a companion, which Victor blatantly denies. This eventually leads to
With nobody to reason with, Victor makes senseless decisions while he is alone. Victor begins this with his process of creating the monster. Nobody in the right mind would ever dig up graves, but that is just what victor goes and does. Once this creation is finally given life, which Victor has spent two years striving for, Victor foolishly abandons it. Victor comes to his senses to some degree after he brings life to the monster as he states, “‘now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 43). Had there been companions around Victor during this creation time, perhaps someone would have been able to guide Victor away from creating the “wretch” (Shelley 43) he so hopelessly conceived. As for the monster, he makes fairly good decisions even without guidance from anyone, including Victor, his creator. The monster has the desire to learn and gain knowledge as a genuine individual. As the monster is continuously rejected and shunned by mankind, his natural benevolence turns to malevolence. In his loneliness, the monster wrongly decides to declare “‘everlasting war against the species, and more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery’” (Shelley 126). Say the monster was able to have comrades of some kind around him, he would not have turned to this
Victor’s lack of compassion and sympathy towards the monster causes him to become angry instead of guilty. His cruelness to his creation made the monster kill and hurt the people he did but “when [he] reflected on [the monster’s] crimes and malice, [Victor’s] hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation,”(Shelley 325). Without compassion Victor thinks that the only way to stop the monster is to get revenge on him, instead of just giving him the empathy and kindness that monster craved. Victor realizes that "if he were vanquished, [he] should be a free man...balanced by those horrors of remorse and guilt which would pursue [him] until death. ”(Shelley 731).
Although he agreed to fulfill the task of creating a female partner for his monster, Victor
“.he declares 'everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me, and sent me forth to this insupportable misery” (Bond). The monster is angry with Victor. He wants Victor to build him a companion, or he will kill everyone that Victor loves. After Victor rejects the idea, the monster wants Victor to feel the loneliness and isolation that the monster has felt all his life. “.if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards you, my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred” (Shelley, 204).
Like a child longs for a mother’s love, the monster longs for the love of his creator. When the monster was first created, Victor says that the monster looked at him “while a grin wrinkled his cheeks.” The monster looks at Victor with love and instead of receiving love in return, he receives complete rejection. The monster cannot understand why his own creator does not love him like God loved Adam. The monster believes he should be like Adam but is “rather the fallen angel.” God made man in his own image and loved Adam even with his flaws. Yet, victor made “a monster so hideous that [Victor] turned from [his creation] in disgust.” This rejection from Victor makes the monster angry and
Satan frequently characterizes “the tyranny of heaven” and employs negative diction in his depictions of both heaven and God (I.124). His negative portrayals of God and his kingdom highlight his utter dissatisfaction with being subservient to God and, from that, his desire for autonomy. In the exposition of the text, Satan’s emotions toward God make themselves apparent when Satan “throws his baleful eyes / That witnessed huge affliction and dismay / Mixed with obdúrate pride and steadfast hate” (I.56-58). Satan reveals himself to be furious with his continued subjugation to God as well as his inability to truly revenge himself against his subsequent punishment. According to Satan, God’s dissimulation of his power tempted Satan and others to rise
The monster wanted revenge only to satisfy his needs and to get even with his creator Victor. The only way the two would avoid any other conflicts that would have come their direction would be to eliminate and face the reality of their own catastrophe. Victor wanted to kill the monster because he killed and destroyed many things that he loved; however, the monster was the image of his own guilt and mind. The monster wanted closure and wanted to know why he was brought to the world only to be abandoned, lonely, and
He had asked Victor to create him another monster as a companion and if he doesn’t keep his promise, then he will be miserable. When Victor goes to England with the intention of creating this promised monster, his friend Henry follows him. After several months, Victor destroys the half created creature and this upsets the monster very much so because he wants this companion. When he kills Henry, the monster distinctly planned it so that Victor would be blamed for the murder. Through all this confusion on who killed Henry, Victor knew all along that the monster did it. At this point, Victor knew that he must return to Geneva to protect his family whom he loved very much (Shelley 181). Since this monster killed Henry, Victor knew that his family was now is in danger. The monster is very happy that Victor is having to suffer because, Victor is now feeling the loneliness that he feels all the time. Though the monster’s character is not evil, the pain he feels is what he wants his creator to feel. His revenge only increases throughout the book because he is only longing for a fellow companion that Victor can only give him, but yet he is choosing not to create it. The anger that is within the monster is only growing and this is increasing the possibilities of him hurting more
Milton's introduction of Satan shows the reader how significant Satan is to Paradise Lost. He uses Satan's heroic qualities to his followers, and his ability to corrupt to show the thin line between good and evil. Satan was one of the highest angels in Heaven and was know as Lucifer, meaning, light bearer. This shows he was once a good angel. Milton makes the reader see him as a leader and a strong influence to all in his presence. He best describes Satan's ways when stating, "His pride/ had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host. / Of rebel angels, by whose aspiring/ To set himself in glory above his peers" (Milton Book I). Satan's pride was the main reason that God banned him from heaven. Satan always tried to be number one and a leader, instead of following in God's shadow. He would of lived a life in Paradise forever, but he had to follow his feelings as he states, "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" (Milton 31). This shows how strongly he felt about not being above everybody else.
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?
In Milton's Paradise Lost, he writes the story of the fall of Satan, his followers, and mankind. Many critics often view Satan as the unlikely or tragic hero of the epic poem. Satan is, obviously, the main character throughout most of the poem, but not necessarily the hero. Satan's main purpose is to fight G-d, and try to be on the same level as Him. The important thing is to realize that Satan is sin, and being humans, who are all born into sin, we can easily relate to a sinful character. G-d is holy and perfect. This is something which we, being fallible humans, cannot begin to comprehend. Satan does, at the beginning, follow many of the attributes which coincide with Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero; however, after the first few Books, Satan looses his status as a tragic hero rather rapidly. Along with this, Satan's thoughts parallel the idea of "Evil, be thou my good," (p76, line 110) which is the opposite of what G-d intends.