Paradise Lost Essay Questions
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Disobedience In Paradise Lost
Have you ever seen a big red button that says do not push and then pushed it? We have all been
there; it was just too tempting to not push it, right? In John Milton's Paradise Lost, mankind presses
that big red button. Through Adam and Eve's free will to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, they fall
from Paradise. It is not like God did not warn the pair; he made it abundantly clear that their one
rule was to not eat from the tree. God, being omniscient, knows that they will fall, but makes their
choice of disobedience an easy decision. Although God foresees the expulsion of Adam and Eve
from the garden, they have free will and fall on their own; however, God makes it too easy for Satan
to succeed. God lets mankind fail through their own choices. At the start of the epic, Milton asserts
that Paradise Lost will display "Man's first disobedience" (1.1). Right from the get–go, Milton
claims that the fall is mankind's fault, so we know that Man must have made their ill–fated decision
on their own free will. Jumping forward to Book Three, God discusses the future of mankind with
the Son. Being all–knowing, God can see the choice Adam and Eve will make: "Man will hearken to
[Satan's] glozing lies... [and] will fall" (3.93–95). Despite knowing what is to come for the pair, God
recognizes that mankind's fall is a result of their own choices. God could have easily intervened and
made the right choice for them, but he wants Adam and Eve to have the free will to make their own
choices. In
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Paradise Lost Critical Analysis
Milton: The Secret Feminist Throughout the poem of Paradise Lost, gender inequality is visible in
the relationship between Eve and the male characters. Upon a closer look, one can see that, in a
nuanced manner, the poem challenges much of the Eve's discrimination. Common interpretations
during the time period depicted Eve as a weak–minded, subservient, or evil woman
. Instead of
following a similar pattern, Milton goes so far as to defend Eve by forming a relatable and
persuasive Satan and describing the positives of the Fall suggesting that it was necessary. Paradise
Lost brings to light the common patriarchal ideas prevalent in the seventeenth century as well as the
Creation Story's sexist plot by developing admirable traits in the
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"...chronicle and drama before and during Milton's time regularly put Eve on Satan's side before the
temptation," (McColley 28). So it was revolutionary when Paradise Lost presented an innocent Eve.
Milton, however, was limited in his endeavors to question his contemporaries exegeses because of
the looming threat of the powerful churches at the time and his personal faith in God and the Bible.
Milton was a devout Christian for all of his life and closely followed the Creation Story. Also, to
contradict the Bible during the 1600's was a dangerous venture. Milton was already testing the limits
of the churches by formulating text for God, so to completely change the Creation Story would be
foolish and not to mention, dangerous. So, Milton cunningly reveals inequalities set forth by
tradition. In the words of Joseph Wittreich, "It is a text that deconstructs the traditions it summons,
thus revealing what issues have traditionally been concealed or forbidden or repressed," (Wittreich
43). The biblical Creation Story itself is sexist because God creates Eve using the rib of Adam
making woman eternally in debt to man because they owe their existence to Adam. Women in this
story are simply an extension of man and therefore, forever their lesser according to the Bible. In
effort to preserve biblical tradition, Milton's poem perpetuated the ancient "inferior woman" theory
by displaying Eve as the
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Paradise Lost Reflection
In Paradise Lost by John Milton, it falls into the account of the book of Genesis; he adds a lot of
detail about the beginning, the creation of man, and the beginning of Satan. Even though it is a hard
read for new readers, Milton keeps ones attention by adding specific detail of what happen during
the times of Adam and Eve
. For some of the things he said happen, doesn't go along with what is
said in the Bible. Taking ideas from the Bible and extend them into more detail, it almost made
Satan look like he was punish for no reason, almost the hero in the story, but at the same time isn't,
just another angel that has fallen over jealously. He is just a sympathetic character that knows he got
kicked out of the presence of God, and wants to destroy what he created for doing so. Without him
tricking Eve, we wouldn't be here today. For Milton, he had to create tension about what happen,
even though God already knew.
In Genesis God is wise and known as the creator and is more as the narrator of what is happening in
the Bible, than in Milton's epic. Also He is referred to as Lord God, instead of God, like Milton
refers to Him. Paradise Lost was about Adam and Eve, how they came to be created, the fall of
Satan and his journey to get back at God by corrupting Adam and Eve, in God's creation called the
Garden of Eden
. Paradise Lost is similar to the book of Genesis because its story comes from the
main pages of Genesis, chapters' one through four. But unlike the Bible, Milton gives us more detail
as to what happen and why. Genesis states only the key points for us to understand the big picture.
Genesis starts out saying "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth... And God said,
Let there be light and there was light and God separated the light from the dark..." (Genesis 1: 1–4).
Milton describes God as a being who you can have a normal conversation with, as if He was an
angel, with no high authority. Not even Satan. Before the fall, Satan was formerly known as Lucifer,
known to be Gods favorite angels. He was even leader of the worship. "You were the model of
perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God: every
precious stone adorned you ... you were the holy mount of
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Paradise Lost Essay
Paradise Lost
The poem is divided up into 12 books. The verse is English heroic without rhyme, as that of Homer
in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin. (Knopf, 1996) "This neglect then of rhyme so little is to be taken for
a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example
set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and
modern bondage of writing." (Knopf, 1996)
Book One proposes the whole subject of the poem of mans disobedience and the loss of the Paradise
where God had placed him. The serpent or Satan is talked about whom is the prime cause of mans
fall. Satan who was once at Gods side had revolted and was driven out of
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He needs to pass through the gates of hell. They are guarded and shut. He states the purpose of his
journey to explore, and after some difficulty he is allowed to pass through with the help of Chaos
who is the power of that place. He is then on his way to the new world that he is seeking.
Book Three is then a prediction of the fall of man. God is sitting on his throne with His Son at His
side; they see Satan on his way to the newly created world. God foretells His Son of how Satan is
able to trick man, as man is free to make his own choices. Because of the choices that man makes,
he must die unless someone can be found who will answer to the sins of man, and will then take on
the punishment for these sins. The Son of God then freely offers Himself as the ransom for mankind,
and the Father accepts. There is then much celebration in heaven as they now have a plan to save
mankind. Satan arrives: "thence comes to the gate of heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the
water above the firmament that flow about it; his passage thence to the orb of the sun: he finds there
Uriel, the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner angel, and
pretending a zealous desire to behold the new creation, and man whom God had placed here,
inquires him the place of his habitation, and is directed: alights first on Mount Niphates."(Simmons,
1996)
In Book Four Satan is now in the Garden of Eden
, where he at
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Paradise Lost Reflection
The Bible gives us the first love poem in creation in Adam's response when he first sees Eve. In
Genesis 2:23, Adam says, "This is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh: she shall be called
Woman, because she was taken out of Man (KJV)." Milton in Paradise Lost goes into a deeper
description of Adam's first glimpse of Eve, saying that he saw her creation in a dream while he was
asleep, then woke, and was "left [...] dark," and he thought he would "find her, or forever [...]
deplore / Her loss (VIII.478–479)." Once he sees her, and she is brought to him, Milton expands
further on the Biblical account. Eve, however, has a different version of their first meeting.
According to Milton in Book IV, when Eve is first given sentience, she wanders a bit and finds a
pond that shows her reflection. She is rapt by her own beauty, and seems that she could easily slip
into a Narcissus–type episode, if left to stare. But, God tells her it is her reflection, that it is not
permanent, but that there is someone corporeal waiting for her. She follows the voice and sees
Adam, whom she finds "fair indeed and tall, / [...] yet methought less fair, / Less winning soft, less
amiably mild, / Than that smooth watery image (477–480)." She then turns away from him. Milton
gives his readers two obviously different characters, the question becomes whether these two proto–
married people even seem to love each other, and why Biblical submission is established as it is in
Genesis and Milton.
It is
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Paradise Lost Allusions
Paradise Lost is an expanded story based on the first page of Genesis in the Bible. Milton explains
how Adam and Eve are created and how they lose their place in the Garden of Eden, also known as
paradise. Milton's version is a narrative poem written in great detail using Biblical references,
mythological references and literary references, often known as allusions.
Milton uses many biblical references throughout the poem because everyone is familiar with the
bible. The narrator states, "Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose
mortal taste Brought death into the world" (Milton 1). He is briefly stating how Adam and Eve
disobeys god, and how their fall from grace starts with a fruit. This is a direct reference from the
Bible stating "And the LORD god said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good
and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live
forever" (Genesis 3:22). The
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God is almighty and Satan or Lucifer is the antagonist which are the two main characters in each
poem. The three headed breast also known as satan also rules the underworld. The narrator states
"whom the Arch–Enemy, And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words Breaking the horrid
silence, thus began" (Milton 3) labeling satan gods arch enemy and letting the reader know that
satan is despised. The narrator also states "he whom mutual league, United thoughts and counsels,
equal hope And hazard in the glorious enterprise, Joined with me once, now misery hath joined In
equal ruin! Into what pit thou seest,"(Milton 4) he is calling hell the horrible place in which you
would hate to go just as it is called in Dante's
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