The Triumph of God
When you read Paradise Lost, it’s like reading the other side of the book of Genesis. You begin to have a new understanding of the both books. You see the relationship between God and Satan. You begin to understand Satan in a way that you never have before. You begin to see Satan as a character who has been through a lot. Then you begin to sympathize with him. After all, he did get kicked out of heaven.
The book of Paradise Lost discusses man’s first disobedience toward God, how satan played a part in it, and why it happened. Man’s disobedience happens because of Satan’s betrayal to God. This is when you see the “scary” side of God. Today, we know God as loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful and gentle. After God sent his son to earth, we saw a change in him. He went from being quick tempered and loud to being gentle and peaceful.
God gives Adam and Eve one rule and as soon as they break that rule they are banned from the garden forever. After this point you see a downward spiral of the life of man. Man’s behavior slowly declines until it is beyond appaling. Man commits thievery, adultry, murder and many more actions that disappointed God. That is the point where God starts over completely.
Before any of this happens, Satan is kicked out of heaven. Satan betrays God by raising up an army against Him and Satan is gone. This is an indication of Satan’s bad temper, jealousy, and envy. Satan had been put in charge of so much, but he was always coveting the top position. It was the position with all the power and he wanted it. The day that Satan was kicked out of heaven was the true beginning of the fall that would ruin God’s creation forever. Satan revolted from God and created his own army of ...
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...rt over. With them he destroyed and recreated the world. This is the triumph of God!
Paradise Lost is a book that can be hard to understand. It explains Genesis in a way that you may have never understood before. At the same time, knowing the story from Genesis can also enhance your understanding of Paradise Lost. These two stories were made for eachother and they work incredibly well together. They enhance eachother in so many ways.
The two books give you a very clear understanding of good and evil. When you read Genesis you understand the good in the world that is being offered by God. You also begin to see the beginning of evil, offered by satan. When you read the Paradise Lost side of the story you see the origination and the back story of where evil and sin came from. Together, these stories explain so much and work together to explain both sides of the story.
God's first instruction to a human being occurs during the initial telling of the creation story in Genesis. Adam and Eve have the mutual responsibility to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it"(1:28). However, it is really the second narrative, detailing the creation of man and woman that establishes God's structure of the world. In this structure, Eden is created for the first man, Adam, who has one basic function, to work and guard Eden (2:15), and only one prohibition, to abstain from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (2:16).
When Paradise Lost begins, the vainglorious actions of Satan have resulted in his removal from heaven and placed him on the path to exact revenge against those who have done so. Though, the reader is hardly able to experience any distaste when reading about this man who opposes the consented force of good. He is are charming, dark, fanatical and desperate in his attempts. It is from these characteristics, that the reader may be swayed into viewing him as the protagonist (or even the hero) of the tale. Even C.S. Lewis, famous for his critical detraction of Milton's Satan acknowledges how, "Milton's presentation of him (Satan) is a magnificent poetical achievement which engages the attention and excites the admirat...
In Paradise Lost, the consequences of the fall and the change in relations between man and nature can best be discussed when we look at Milton's pre-fall descriptions of Eden and its inhabitants. Believing that fallen humans could never fully understand what life was like in Eden and the relationships purely innocent beings shared, Milton begins his depiction of Paradise and Adam and Eve through the fallen eyes of Satan:
John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a great story about the creation of mankind and their ultimate downfall. It heavily depicts Satan’s fall from heaven, along with the other angels that revolted against him. Milton depicts a few phenomena that drastically changed after the fall of man. The single action of Adam and Eve eating the apple caused the what many view as the biggest swing in human history. The one thing that could be most heavily altered is the knowledge of mankind, their surroundings and what makes up the world.
In John Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost, the author establishes Satan as the most complex and thought-provoking character in the tale through his depiction of Satan’s competing desires. Throughout the first four books of Paradise Lost, Satan repeatedly reveals his yearning both for recognition from God and, simultaneously, independence from God. The paradox that prevents Satan from achieving his desires may be interpreted as a suggestion of Milton’s establishment of a sympathetic reading for this character, as he cannot truly find happiness. In actuality, the construction of Satan’s rivaling aspirations evince Satan’s repulsive depravity to Milton’s audience and encourage readers to condemn his character.
The very first words of the poem “Paradise Lost” indicate that the main theme of the poem is disobedience to God’s will. Milton begins his poem with a question directed to the reader, which serves the poet well; as it attracts the reader’s attention and makes him think about the answer to that question. When reading the beginning of the poem the reader gets the image of a commander addressing a crowd. The poet represents the hero of the poem as the devil. This gives an image of a commander of a huge army that has just lost a battle. In the first couple of lines, the devil as the hero of the poem directly addresses the audiences in the present tense, which gives the reader the feeling of the actual presence among a huge crowd of soldiers and leaders waiting for hope from their king, after the defeat in the battle. The battle in the poem is understood to be between hell and heaven, and heaven won the battle. The speaker says:
Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is a complex character meant to be the evil figure in the epic poem. Whenever possible Satan attempts to undermine God and the Son of God who is the true hero of the story. Throughout the story Milton tells the readers that Satan is an evil character, he is meant not to have any redeeming qualities, and to be shown completely as an unsympathetic figure. Satan’s greatest sins are pride and vanity in thinking he can overthrow God, and in the early part of the poem he is portrayed as selfish while in Heaven where all of God’s angels are loved and happy. Satan’s journey starts out as a fallen angel with great stature, has the ability to reason and argue, but by Book X the anguish and pain he goes through is more reason for him to follow an evil path instead. Even so, Milton uses literal and figurative imagery in the description of Satan’s character to manipulate the reader’s response to the possibility that Satan may actually be a heroic figure. As the plot of the story unfolds there are moments where the reader can identify with Satan’s desires and relate to his disappointments.
Good and evil are central themes in Paradise Lost. Classic symbols of both extremes are in the book: God and Satan, good and evil personified, respectively. In spite of the seeming dichotomy of either pure evil or total goodness, for much of Paradise Lost the distinction between good and evil is not very clear. The goodness of Man overcome by sin and the fall of God’s holy angels to hell are examples of the overlap of both good and evil within characters. This inherent potential for evil in Adam, Eve and Lucifer ****. Further, the relationship between good and evil and their relative dependence on each other is brought into question by the roles they play in Paradise Lost.
Helen Gardner addresses this notion, claiming how “Satan is, of course, a character in an epic, and he is in no sense the hero of the epic as a whole. But he is a figure of heroic magnitude and heroic energy, and he is developed by Milton with dramatic emphasis and dramatic intensity” (Baker/Helen, 208). Satan is without a doubt the antichrist, or “villain” in the biblical scriptures, however one must take into consideration his alternative and more ambiguous portrayal in Paradise Lost. In this paper, I will analyze Satan’s actions, physical portrayal and speeches in Book I of Paradise Lost, and argue that from the textual evidence, these aspects of Satan are ultimately ambivalent, thus Satan cannot be categorized as either the extreme hero or the extreme villain, but rather as a dramatic figure with both heroic and villainous characteristics. The preliminary depiction of Satan’s actions in Paradise Lost appears after Milton describes God, his kingdom of heaven, and his children Adam and Eve.... ...
Paradise Lost is John Milton’s epic poem, written during the 17th century. Originally separated into 10 books, and later into twelve books, it concerns the Biblical story of the fall of man. Milton’s intent was stated in the first book as a means to justify God’s actions to man. Through the book, the reader alternates from focusing on Satan and the others demons in Hell, God and the Son and angles in heaven, and of Adam and Eve on Earth. Satan is the first of the major characters introduced, formally called Lucifer. He is the leader of the failed rebellion against God. Satan is arrogant, proud, but incredibly charismatic as his persuasive powers are demonstrated throughout the book. He is cunning, deceptive, and compelling. Satan is the most
It is thus that Books I and II of "Paradise Lost" are so unique, as is the alternative, and less-frequently explored world of the devils, is probed in such a. fascinating manner of the story. Milton uses the story of the fallen angels to open up on numerous eras, civilisations, myths and stories, allowing him to convey his own. perception of the world's history, as the reader is guided through various. points in time to be made. Before we are introduced to the individuals, Milton. depicts an enormous army of different species, each of changeable size and.
There have been many different interpretations of John Milton's epic, Paradise Lost. Milton's purpose in writing the epic was to explain the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Although the epic is similar to the Bible story in many ways, Milton's character structure differs from that of the Bible's version. Through-out the epic Milton describes the characters in the way he believes they are. In book II of Paradise Lost, Milton portrays Satan as a rebel who exhibits certain heroic qualities, but who turns out not to be a hero.
Paradise Lost exemplifies the notion that although a character may fit the archetype of an epic hero, pernicious and selfish determination can counter these attributes. Satan is initially introduced as God 's fallen creation: “Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable, / Doing or suffering” is ultimately motivated by malice and vengeance (lines 157-158). The allure of free will is where the captivation of Satan 's character stems. Similar to that of the typical epic hero, in the midst of his defeat, Satan is awarded the power of recovery; despite this choice Satan allows his malice and pride to refrain him from doing so. His hatred and vengeance motivate Satan to dispute God 's authority. Satan, who would prove quite incompetent at single-handily battling God freely, utilizes his masterminding abilities to level the playing field. The chain of events which begin
...pportive of him, later reveal his truly destructive character, resulting in the reader disliking Satan. Accordingly, when the character of Satan is followed throughout Paradise Lost, Milton`s reason behind the order of development can be realized. Milton’s desire to create a strong hatred of Satan is achieved best by emphasizing Satan’s good points first. Then, when Satan’s real character begins to surface, the reader is shocked by the actions of their ‘hero’, causing them to dislike him more than if he had always been a bad character. The reader’s dislike of Satan is strengthened by Satan’s shift in motives. The rebellion against God, which he originally describes it as an act of freedom, later comes to be about pure corruption and hate. It’s therefore apparent that if Satan had never given up on his original motives, he could have been the hero of Paradise Lost.
In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Heaven and Hell, both Judeo-Christian beliefs, are portrayed as themes of good and evil. Eden, Hell and Heaven are locations based around the introduction of sinfulness inflicted upon Adam and Eve by the lyrical, archetypal Satan. Both Adam and Eve are tricked and condemned after eating from the Tree of Life, revealing the notion of acts of sinfulness apparent within the text. The idea of Hell reveals the characteristics accentuating the grandeur of the ‘fallen angel’, the Promethean hero – a concept taken from Greek mythology – which encompasses human characteristics foreshadowed by the idea of Hell. These romanticized, humanistic qualities that conform to the character of Satan include the Judeo-Christian image of the fallen angel as being manipulated and structured by sinfulness – also, this is portrayed in Paradise Regained, published in 1671....