Paradise Lost Hero

Every story should have a hero. From Gilgamesh defeating monsters to Thor saving Asgard, almost every story has a hero. It is a vital part to the construction and execution of the story. Paradise Lost, written by Milton, is an example of a story with no hero. The epic was written to be a Christian epic mirroring the ones of Ancient Rome and Greece. But because of the constraints of rewriting a story that already exists for people to reference and compare he was not fully able to mirror all of the elements found in the ancient and classical epics one of which being a hero. Therefore, Paradise Lost has no hero in the conventional meaning of “Hero” created by traditional epics such as The Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Beowulf, and Dante because Paradise

She also stands as a possible candidate for the hero of the story. She has agency as seen in the scene of the fall when, “she plucked, she ate” (9.781). . She also has many interaction with numerous characters throughout the epic. She has some family friendly interaction with Satan in book 9, “So spake the enemy of mankind…towards Eve” (9.494-495). Her main character interaction though is with her husband, Adam, as they are married and the only two conscious creatures with residency on earth. Her and Adam have some not-so-family-friendly interaction throughout the book as well. Lastly a good portion of the story is focused on Eve, specifically the scenes of her discovering herself and of her temptation. The problem with Eve is that she, too, falls in the story, “she plucked, she ate” (9.781). This is the disqualifying factor for Eve being declared the hero. She does however admit to her transgression much sooner than Adam. But since the epic is about man’s disobedience the fact that she did disobey is what stops her from being the

The only heroic characteristic that God shows is morality. Even this is a bit questionable depending on personal beliefs but for the purposes of the analysis it is given that all of God’s actions in the epic are perfectly good not malignant. Throughout the epic God has very little character interaction with characters outsde of heaven, very little meaning almost none. He never once directly interacts with Adam or Eve, he only delegates his messages to others such as angels or the Son. In book V Eve has dream about being tempted to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of personally warning them “Heaven’s King...called//Raphael,” to warn Adam and Eve about the danger of satan tempting them (5.220-221). Next, every action that he has in the epic is a direct reaction to another character's action. Another detail that contributes to God’s lacking agency is the split of the trinity into three persons. Now the trinity is three distinct persons all in one God but Milton’s portrayal of the trinity does not show the oneness of God. He split God into the three different person with very little oneness between them. Multiple times in the epic God is talking to the Son and talking to him as though he was a separate entity. By splitting up God into three people he stretches out any agency or proactiveness that might’ve been found in . Lastly, He is not very present in the story. He