Role Of Creation In Paradise Lost

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Creation as an Art Form in Paradise Lost
In Book IX of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, Satan invades Eden and turns into a snake in order to convince Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Eve eats of the forbidden tree and then Adam eats of the tree, they bring a form of death to mankind. By the end of the book, the reader feels the weightiness of Adam and Eve’s disobedience through the negative images of shame and guilt that emerge. When scholars analyze Paradise Lost and Box IX in the epic poem, most critics believe that disobedience and pride were two of the main causes of the fall. However, there is another way to interpret the fall of not only Adam and Eve but Satan as well. If one views creation as an …show more content…

Certain characters belonged to certain places after the fall, however characters were able to traverse across spheres. For example, God and Jesus are related to Heaven, Satan and the other fallen Angels belong to Hell, and Adam and Eve belong to Eden. Place becomes important because after Satan’s fall; there is a whole another place for Angels to traverse to. God’s Angels and Satan are both able to come to earth; God’s angels to monitor and are “subjected” to monitoring human life and Satan to destroy God’s creation. God’s angels have permission while Satan does not have permission and Satan has to break through the gates. The issue that emerges is that Satan is not satisfied with being confined to Heaven. He cannot find a place in heaven, earth, or hell that is comfortable for him as suggested in text when he says, “If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange/Of Hill and Valley, Rivers, Woods, and Plains,/” Satan suggests that he finds no place where he is (Milton 9.115-117). As he continues his speech, he says, “Now Land, now Sea and Shores with Forest crowned,/ Rocks, Dens, or Caves; but I in none of these/ Find place or refuge…” which implies that he specifically cannot find a space for himself with the current conditions of Earth (Milton 9.117-119). “…the more [he] see(s)/ Pleasures about [him] so much more [he] feel(s)/ Torment within (him), which tells us that Satan is trying …show more content…

Even though God commands Adam and Eve to reproduce, God wants them to reproduce by his means, do not challenge his hierarchy and where he’s placed his creatures on the landscape. However, this is difficult for creatures who have the capacity to “[grow], sense, and reason” (Milton 9.113). Free will, a characteristic of God, is perverted by Satan. Since Satan is the first to corrupt God’s gift or curse of free will, he becomes an artistic model to follow. The same fall, just with varying variables, happens to Adam and Eve. Through Satan’s tremendous fall, Satan understands the logic of God’s creation. Satan manipulates these elements to not only get Adam and Eve to follow his model and get into the cycle of reproducing Sin and Death constantly until Jesus intervenes but he also replicates himself in God’s artwork, manipulating it and perverting it off of the principles that God has enforced as characteristics of his

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