Eve and the Apple
No one completely understands the ways of God. Many of us can come up
with our own opinions, and justify his ways in our own minds, just as Milton did
in Paradise Lost. Just as Adam and Eve, we all are gifted with free will and
the responsibility of making important decisions and choices in our life, which
will determine our future. But we may well ask ourselves today, of what use
would this free will be to us if we did not know good from evil? When Eve ate
the apple in the Garden of Eden she had two different voices telling her what to
do. God had said that Adam and Eve may eat any fruit from any of the trees in
the Garden of Eden except for the tree that contains the knowledge of good and
evil. Satan (disguised as a serpent) told Eve that she would not die from
eating that fruit, that her eyes would be opened, knowing both good and evil.
But at the time Eve made her decision, she did not have the knowledge of good
and evil. Eve did not know the serpent could be Satan incarnate, nor did she
know that her desire to become a goddess would be a sin.
The main reason Eve eats the apple is because she wants to become a
Goddess. The serpent said that he was a beast and after eating the fruit from
the tree of knowledge of good and evil he became more human like. Eve was
enticed by the words of the serpent who said that "If the fruit makes a serpent
like a man, it should make men like gods." (Line 710: "That ye should be as
Gods, since I as man, Internal Man, is but proportion meet; I, of brute, human;
ye, of human, Gods.)
Other arguments that the serpent used to manipulate Eve included; 1,)
You shall not die, look at me, I have touched and tasted and I have not died.
2,) Should man not be allowed a fruit that a beast has? 3,) How can God's
tree give knowledge out against his will, if he already knows all?
Eve also states that by God forbidding the fruit he made it more
desirable. While contemplating whether or not to eat the fruit, Eve wonders,
why the beast did not die after eating the fruit? Why should such intellectual
food be reserved for beasts? But her main reason for eating their fruit is to
acquire greater power, to become a "goddess". She tells Adam that "it was a
Oedipus does not simply kill himself to rid Thebes of his curse, he tortures himself and asks to be exiled in punishment for the sins he committed with his own mother. Oedipus, as most readers agree, did not have to suffer such a cruel fate, however, as an Aristotelian tragic hero Oedipus was required to become a martyr, and a martyr he became. In the final pages of Oedipus, the most suffering is highlighted by the line: “Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him… count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last” (Sophocles, 1682-1685) as read by the chorus at the end of the play. Oedipus lives for the rest of his days miserable and in pain. Oedipus is a true martyr and it is with his suffering that we see what the perfect example of a tragic character
The creation story in Genesis refers to a serpent classically interpreted as an evil entity. If we consider God’s warning that eating fruit from a certain tree would result in death the same day and that the record indicates that the only two humans on the planet did not, we must reconsider the role of the serpent and reevaluate the roles of good and evil and how they apply to ...
Now, to the untrained eye, it may be possible to interpret the aforementioned text as having certain "scheisty" tendencies coming from both the serpent and, believe it or not, God himself. As possible as it may seem, the main theme of the passages of Genesis are not trying to show God as being greedy with the knowledge of good and evil. It isn't like God was worried that Adam and Eve would gain knowledge that would empower them and make them as gods. That is almost preposterous to think that God, the almighty creator of heaven and earth, would be worried about two mortals obtaining a little bit of information. In all actuality, that idea is incredibly far from the truth. God gave Adam and Eve the world, literally. This perfect world, a "heaven on earth", was just given to them out of the goodness of his heart. All they had to do was look over God's creations and enjoy true eternal bliss. As a matter of fact, the only rule that God gave to Adam and Eve was to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All they had to do to live in the eternal paradise, with all the cookies and milk they could stomach, was to follow that one freakin' rule. Acknowledging the fact that the serpent (a.k.a. Satan Incarnate) did do its part in persuading Eve to eat the fruit and to give the fruit to her husband. Even still, Eve should have realized that she was risking eternal happiness for the words of a snake.
In the bible, Adam and Eve are seen as more equal beings, though Eve is tempted, she is not necessarily seen as any worse than Adam, and Adam seems to have no real recognition that what Eve is doing is wrong. In Paradise Lost Eve is the gullible, rash, and selfish one, whereas Adam is intelligent, discerning, and selfless. Eve can almost be fully faulted as the culprit in this endeavor, and Adam is just along for the ride due to his undying love for her. The serpent recognizes Eve as the weak one by saying “behold alone/ The woman, opportune to all attempts” (Milton, 480-481). Furthermore, it is Adam who recognizes the depravity and depths of what Eve has done and he recognizes it immediately “soon as he heard/ The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed, / Astonied stood and blank, while horror chill/ Ran through his veins” (Milton, 889-891). He chooses to eat the fruit due to his love for her and his inability to fathom being apart from her, not because of ignorance. The result of them eating the fruit does not immediately open their eyes to the knowledge of good and evil, instead they have sex and revel in their actions. It is not until later on that they are hit with what has really been done and the implications it will have for them. The conversation held between Adam and Eve ends on a sour note for Eve as Adam says “Him who to worth in women
Free will is an inherited ability everyone obtains from birth. This ability allows humans or any living being the freedom to act on their own behalf without being influenced or forced by an external medium. However, this fragile, yet powerful capability is susceptible of being misused that may result in unsavory consequences to the one at fault. In Paradise Lost and Frankenstein, both texts feature powerful figures who bequeathed the characters in focus, the freedom to do whatever they desire in their lives. Satan and Adam and Eve from Paradise Lost, and the monster from Frankenstein are given their free will from their creators, all encounter unique scenarios and obstacles in their respective texts however, have distinctions in how they handle
Eve does exactly what God commanded her to not do. Now that I have explained the main things a bout both stories I will continue by discussing the main themes and symbols that are existent in both stories.
Eve and Satan both tempt their victims using the same arguments. Once Satan finally corners Eve, and after all of his flattery, he suggests that she eat the fruit of the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge, saying,
woman, and man. The serpent’s punishment was that it had to slither the rest of its life and that serpent would be inferior to mankind. The woman’s punishment entailed becoming the
In the scripture “Genesis” of The Hebrew Bible, a young lady by the name of Eve was created by God. Joined by the almighty power of God, Adam, and God’s first creation of man; together with Eve were united in Holy Matrimony by Heavenly Father. As time progressed, Eve stumbled upon a serpent with a vile
In Beowulf the concept that good and evil are constantly contending is one of the most central themes to the epic. The poet makes it expressly evident that good and evil cannot exist without the other, for there would be no way of determining which was which. The religious undertone in Beowulf that God is intervening on the side of good is apparent in many of the battles fought, allowing Beowulf to prevail where someone evil could not have. Literature has questioned, for centuries, why God would have created a creature such as Satan to cause and teach evil, and what purpose He had for human life. Beowulf stretches itself to answer this question by showing that good cannot be known without a present evil.
Adam was the keeper of the Garden of Eden. He tended to the garden and was given instructions by God that all the trees were good for food except the two that were in the center of the garden. Those two trees were the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life (The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, 2003). While in the Garden of Eden, Adam was tending to the garden and a serpent (Devil) came to tempt Adam and Eve. Remember, Satan has been thrown from Heaven and now he is in the Garden of Eden trying to separate Adam and Eve from God. Satan decided to tempt Adam through Eve and told her if she did eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil she would not surely die. He told her she would be like God and it is not wrong to be like God. It should be everyone’s goal to be holy like God (Life Application Notes and Bible Help, 1996). For one to be like God, he must desire to be holy. No one can be like God; however, one can desire to be holy like Jesus. Satan took God’s word and twisted it by telling Eve to go against God’s will. Because Eve was misled, her goal became corrupted and led to sin. Everyone should have noble goals and aspire to become holy. However, when she ate the fruit from this forbidden tree nothing happened until Adam ate of the fruit. When Adam broke the law of God, sin entered the world. Instantly, sin separates people from God. God was looking for Adam and
In fact, Oedipus is doomed to kill his father, marry his mother and finally to be blind. It was his destiny or fate; he has nothing to do with this end or to prevent it. It was his fate which was manipulating him; drive him from Cornith to kill his father and then to Thebes to marry his mother. His destiny made him "his wife's son, his mother husband." By the hands of fate, he turned to be the most hated man in Thebes and "the man whose life is hell for others and for himself."
According to Genesis the first man and woman or Adam and Eve are created by God. Living in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve was forbidden by God to eat fruit from the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. According to the scripture, Eve has eaten the fruit, and she has tempted by by serpent, but she has shared the fruit with Adam.
In the Bible the very first book, Genesis, talks of Eve in the Garden of Gethsemane. It tells us how Eve was the first woman on Earth. Adam was created first by God from the dust of the ground and then he created Eve from one of Adam’s Ribs. During this time in the Garden there was no suffering, no death, and no evil in the world for it had not been introduced to it. Eventually Eve is deceived by the serpent and the forbidden fruit of the garden became most delightful and pleasant to the eyes. Eve took of the forbidden fruit and Adam followed after her. As a result of disobeying God, they were kicked out of the garden and the Earth could know sin, pain, death, and
In Christian theology, Eve was tricked by a serpent of evil (Satan) into eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In this myth, Adam and Eve are created in the image of evil, inbred with sin, and given knowledge and life by the Light. Another interesting point is that this myth does not give any innocence to Eve. Eve seduces Adam with her evil nature but Adam, made of the same material, gets pitied because he was unable to resist her temptation. This myth takes a patriarchal standpoint on the creation of mankind and blames women for all the evils of the world thereby affirming that nothing good can come from the role of women. Not to mention that all other characters in the myth are male with the exception of the Mother of life. Mankind was mixed with good and evil but Eve was created for the soul reason of being subject to demons. The old belief that women are inherently evil, even more so than men, stems from the very speech given by Darkness when describing Eve and her seduction of Adam. By this logic, Eve is a true daughter of Darkness, mother of mankind, that contrasts with Mother of Life that gave rise to Primal Man. Through this lineage, mankind gets more and more inhuman and demonic with each generation because they are getting farther and farther away