Satan: What Lies Among Humans

Satan: What Lies Among Humans

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the readers are presented the perspective side of Satan to the biblical story, Adam and Eve. Over the past centuries, there have been numerous stories about Adam and Eve, but there was never a view from the devil himself, Satan. Satan started as a confused and angry person in the beginning. As the story progressed, Satan’s character became stronger and powerful. Toward the middle of the story, Satan acted almost as a political figure; he knew when and what to say to persuade other angels to follow him. Some reader suggests that Satan is the protagonist of the story because he struggled to combat his mistrusts and weaknesses. Nonetheless this goal was evil and Adam and Eve turned out to be the pure heroes at the end of the story while they help begin to fix humankind’s evil fate. There are several reasons why Milton focused so much Satan and gave him all the good lines.

It is important to know the changes Satan progressed throughout the story. In the beginning of the story, Satan’s speeches were mostly self glorification. Satan saw himself as the most dangerous position and severely reprimanded by God. Satan saw himself as daring and smart, which was demonstrated in Book three when he fooled Uriel while disguised as a lower ranking angel. His speeches were mostly self glorification, but as the story progressed Satan’s characterization changed. He had all the emotions of a human; he had fear, anger, sadness and resentment. Satan also had the charismatic charm of a politician. For example, in book two Satan emphasized the power all the angels are capable of and how God is the enemy. As he spoke, one can see that Satan was very persuasive and knew how to obta...

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..., Adam and Eve. There are several reasons why Milton focused so much Satan and gave him all the good lines. First, Milton portrayed Satan to be a leader with confident because he is the king of hell. By portraying Satan as a leader, readers can see he was noble to his allies and thus offering to risk himself to achieve his goal. Second, the moral aspect of this characterization is that anyone can become Satan, and evil is something everyone can slip into, which was why Milton portrayed Satan to be human like. Lastly, Milton showed the subject of redemption to human kind and how hard it is for people to own up for their mistakes. Since Satan was characterized with human like qualities, he did believe in redemption, but instead of redeeming himself to God he went the other direction by doing evil acts. All in all, there is a little Satan in every human.