Narcissism in John Milton’s Paradise Lost
When Eve eats the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, her decision to tell Adam of her disobedience turns on two suppositions. If her transgression is kept secret from God, Eve's augmented knowledge might increase Adam's love for her, and perhaps cause her to be more equal or even superior to Adam. Even though Eve was created comparable to Adam as his helper, she refers to Adam as her "Author and Disposer." Furthermore, she says that while God is Adam's law, Adam is her law. Apparently, Eve chafes under this arrangement, as she wraps up her evaluation of not telling Adam of her sin with, "for inferior who is free?" However, her death is assured if God has seen her wrongdoing. In this alternative, God may provide Adam with another woman, rendering Eve extinct. Eve finds unendurable the possibility that Adam will father children with a new Eve. Eve's consideration of either alternative depends on her narcissism and her need to be loved, even worshiped. Milton's Eve, like Narcissus, is infatuated with herself. Created in Adam's image, Eve draws Adam's love, his narcissism projected onto Eve. Inexperienced with women's wiles, uxorious Adam falls.
Having created Adam in his own image, the Lord God commanded Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. After the Lord God created Eve from Adam's rib, Milton's Adam warns Eve that the consequence of eating the tree's forbidden fruit will be the knowledge of death. From the Bible and Milton's text, it is apparent that Eve hears directly only from Adam about the forbidden fruit. It is significant that God sends Raphael to "converse with Adam," to warn him of the fall of Satan and his companions, and to alert Adam to the ...
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...rcissism engenders the desire to be worshipped as a Goddess. Wanting deity for both, Eve chooses to induce Adam to eat because she is resolved that Adam shall share her fate. Eve's female charms seduce Adam. He desires Eve more than he loves God, and he eats freely of the fruit. Adam and Eve's ardour, once based on mutual respect, turns to carnal lust. God's Son berates Adam for subjecting himself to Eve's will. Why did Adam obey Eve, who is in no way superior to Adam in reason and other faculties of the mind? Adam has sinned against God; Eve has sinned against God and Adam. Only when Mary of the seed of Adam and Eve conceives the Son of God does God extend his grace to mankind, permitting narcissistic Eve and uxorious Adam's progeny to enter heaven.
Works Cited and Consulted
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. Merritt Y. Hughes. New York: Odyssey Press, 1962.
During the peaceful time in the garden God gives Adam and Eve a specific rule. God allows Adam and Eve to eat off any tree except nothing from the tree of good and evil. God explains that death would be the result of eating off this tree. This part of the story relates to the heroes journey’s step of the call to adventure or the problem. Now the decision of obeying or rebelling became upon them. Eve begins to wonder around in the garden, she discovers the tree of good and evil. She notices something different, Satan, in the form of a serpent. Satan tries to entice and persuade her to eat fruit from the tree. Satan begins to ask her, ‘Has God indeed said, “You shall not eat of every tree in the garden’? (Genesis 3:1).” She feels hesitant at first, not wanting to sin against God, but Satan begins to persuade her with all the right words. Eve feels reluctant and does not know what to do. Satan encourages Eve in a negative way to disobey God. As
According to some accounts, the eugenics movement died out in the 1930s. However, the forty two percent of Native American women who were sterilized under questionable circumstances by 1982, stand as testament that eugenics was alive and kicking during the seventies (Define 1997). Sparked by concern about overpopulation in the 1960s, eugenics was legally sanctioned under the Nixon administration (Johansen 1998). This sanctioning was given life in a campaign to sterilize the impoverished. For instance, between 1969 and 1974, the budget for family planning increased from $51 million to more than $250 million (Johansen 1998). This money helped to sterilize between 192,000 and 548,000 women each year between 1970 and 1977 compared to an average of 63,000 a year between 1907 and 1964, a period that included the pinnacle of the eugenics movement (Johansen 1998).
...to mankind in Paradise Lost - one of the fundamental concepts in Christianity and vital to Milton's objective to "justify the ways of God to men" (1, 26) - the gods in the Aeneid are continually reminding Aeneas that he cannot afford to be distractive by the temptresses that are women because the future of Rome lays in his hands. Milton's God, on the other hand, allows Eve to fall and her blatant transgression caused the loss of paradise and all of creation has to experience the consequences of original sin. In Paradise Lost Eve was expected to submit to her ultimate authority, Adam. Rather, it is Adam in Book IX who submits to Eve's unreasonable discourse on separation. Indeed, the implication of a man (as a superior being) succumbing to feminine wiles and passion is an intense concept which - for both Virgil and Milton - threatened the very basis of their society.
Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aim at improving the genetic quality of the human population played a significant role in the history and culture of United States prior to its involvement in World War Two. (Wiki) Gilman is the writer of late 19th and early 20th century and during this century which is known as progressive era, Eugenics was considered a method of preserving and improving the dominant groups in the population. The idea of Eugenics was brought up by Sir Francis Galton in America. They think that by the idea of eugenics there will be a development in a society. America also made American Breeder’s Association which later on founded the Eugenics Record office, and with certain mission and, in their mission statement, they wrote: Society must protect itself; as it claims the right to deprive the murder of his life so it may also annihilate the hideous serpent of hopelessly vicious protoplasm. Here is where appropriate legislation will aid in eugenics and creating a healthier, saner society in the
An example of Eve’s portrayal from the text is, “All who in vain things, Built their fond hopes of glory or lasting fame” this shows that she is vain (Paradise Lost, Book 3, lines 448-449). In the Bible it never describes her as a vain human being, she is not someone who is vain and self-centered. She is portrayed in the Bible as a spiritual being and as someone who is faithful to the Lord. Milton portrays Eve as a being that is not faithful and that is all about herself. This makes Paradise Lost a false doctrine because it portrays Adam and Eve as bad people who consequently partook of the fruit and made everyone suffer. This is not a right doctrine, it is not because she partook of the fruit, everything is part of the Lord’s
The eugenics movement started in the early 1900s and was adopted by doctors and the general public during the 1920s. The movement aimed to create a better society through the monitoring of genetic traits through selective heredity. Over time, eugenics took on two different views. Supporters of positive eugenics believed in promoting childbearing by a class who was “genetically superior.” On the contrary, proponents of negative eugenics tried to monitor society’s flaws through the sterilization of the “inferior.”
The idea of eugenics was first introduced by Sir Francis Galton, who believed that the breeding of two wealthy and successful members of society would produce a child superior to that of two members of the lower class. This assumption was based on the idea that genes for success or particular excellence were present in our DNA, which is passed from parent to child. Despite the blatant lack of research, two men, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Jon Alfred Mjoen, played to the white supremacists’ desires and claimed that white genes were inherently superior to other races, and with this base formed the first eugenics society. The American Eugenics Movement attempted to unethically obliterate the rising tide of lower classes by immorally mandating organized sterilization and race based experimentation.
In Paradise Lost, one of the differences God is aware of the betrayal his creations unlike Frankenstein. There is a point where Adam desires a companion to share the world with, thus God creates Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. He is in a predicament now, due to there are now two beings to love now, but who deserves the more affection. He “can neither love himself adequately nor love Eve as himself unless have love God adequately – and so make his love for Eve, the unity of their shared self, an expression of that higher love” (Gross 95). This scene displays one of Adam’s limitations of his free will. Thus creating her in being the submissive which eventually became her downfall, Adam’s and the rest of humanity. Eve is flawed, she has the inclination of self-love, a quality she should not be capable of possessing or acting upon. The only love that she should be expressing is her love for Adam in a way also loving God. This becomes their weakness. Satan learns about this weakness and exploits it as his advantage to enact his scheme. He influences a susceptible Eve, by coercing her into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. He claims to Eve about the fruit “By the fruit? It gives you life To knowledge by the threat’ner? Look on me, Me, who have touched and tasted; yet both live” (Book 9 l. 686-688). Satan is able to persuade them to consume the fruit that provides them
In the 1920s, a company in New York started a movement known as “The Eugenics Movement.” The idea of eugenics was eventually picked up by Germany, China, Peru, India and Bangladesh. The movement is still in effect till this day; however, it is not as prevalent as it once was.
In the debate titled Of the Equal or Unequal Sin of Adam and Eve, two authors; Isotta Nogarola and Ludovico Foscarini, argue about the original sin committed by Adam and Eve. Nogarola first states that Eve lacked a sense and constancy and that she therefore sinned less than Adam did. In her case the serpent thought of Adam as invulnerable due to his constancy. God created Adam to have unchanged opinions and state of mind, in order to avoid falling into the serpent’s persuasion, however Eve’s vulnerability led her to a severe sin. God found Adam guilty for the sin because he esteemed man more highly than woman and led his command towards Adam to not eat the fruit from the tree. Weak and inclined to indulge on the fruit, Nogarola claims, Eve
The serpent even states to Eve that “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (NIV, Gen 3:5). The next few lines are completely different from what is shown by Milton. It says that when Eve saw that the fruit was good and she began to desire wisdom she took some and ate it. Then she game some to Adam who was with her. This is a very large contrast from Milton’s work because this shows that Adam was present the whole time of the serpent and Eve’s discussion. In the poem “Verses for Madonna of humility with the temptation of Eve” Lynn Powell takes a very graphic and almost nostalgic look at the story of Adam and Eve. Her poem states “Eve 's lying at eye level, propped up on an elbow./And never has abyss been so good to pink,/ the void a perfect foil for her foreground flesh./She fits into the black like a woman/ ready to be skewered in a vaudeville act./ You can tell the painter loves her, the way/ You can tell the painter loves her/ he 's touched her every place he can with paint./ And he 's noticed what she 's thinking:/ holding the pear, as Hamlet did the skull,/ while gazing up at someone who 's got everything to lose./ Eve 's about to make the choice Mary has to live with./
...e in the relationship. Certainly Adam could speak wisdom to the animals in the Garden, but he speaks to Eve because she is his equal. She is the one to whom Adam prefers to relate his thoughts, simply because he is enchanted by her. In a sense, she is his “only listener”—the only listener for him. Eve has the choice of how she will receive wisdom, but “Her husband the relater she preferred/Before the angel, and of him to ask/Chose rather” (52-54). Not only does Adam choose Eve to relate his thoughts to, but she chooses him to relate wisdom to her. Though there are only two humans in Paradise, Milton presents the relationship of Adam and Eve as one of choice. Both partners could get what they need from other sources, but they choose to receive wisdom and respect from one another instead. The fulfillment of their needs is more enjoyable in the context of love.
The creation story takes a place in a very beautiful garden that was called later “Eden.” In the beginning of the story, Adam begins his life alone with the other animals. By the time God creates him a helper and unfortunately, she is a woman. Adam have no clue in how to treat this woman, he never experienced living with a human. While Adam was struggling and trying to figure out how to live with this woman and how to treat her, Eve had a plenty of time to understand this life and the purpose of living. Adam plays the conservative role as Twain presented him, which always gave the chance to Eve to have her way in the first step of an act. The entertaining fact about their relationship, is that Adam and Eve have no idea about who the other one
Eve considers the tree a great gift. However, because of the influence of the serpent, she does not consider it a gift from God. The serpent has caused her to believe that God did not give the tree to Adam and Eve because it was not his to give. Therefore, Eve supposes that God must “envy what [he] cannot give: / For had the gift been [his], it had not here / Thus grown” (ln 805-7). In other words, she argues that if God had had possession of this tree, he would not have left it where it is. Therefore, according to Eve’s manipulated reasoning, God must not have the knowledge that the tree bestow...
“With more desire to know, and to reject envious commands.” (Book 4, line 522-523) Milton claims eve, and therefore all women have some sort of desire to learn but in their own ways sometimes. He argues that some women won’t follow “commands” even if they are only suggestions. Like in book 9 of paradise lost. Adam wants the two to stay together, but Eve rejects this saying that they have too much work to be done and must separate and divide the labor. (Book 9, Page 2096) This scene shows Eves pride. She wants to prove that she can handle herself and work as hard as Adam does on her own. While Milton above said that women should take some responsibility for their actions and abilities, he also tells us that being too proud can be a problem. Women, like eve need to learn when to accept help, and when to be independent. If Eve had accepted Adam’s help and advice to stay together she might not have been to blame for the fall of