A clash of ideas between Adam and Eve in "Paradise Lost"

A clash of ideas between Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost

Introduction:

                Paradise Lost was written by John Milton. He was born at the sign of the Spread Eagle in Bread Street, London. He was the son of law scrivener. He was also a keen musician and composer of music. He was completed his study at home and hi was taught by Thomas Young. He was a Scottish Presbyterian. He was a scholar person. He had taken education at St. Paul’s School. He became friend with Diodati at there. Diodati was the son of a Protestant Italian doctor. He had helped him in his study of Italian language. He entered Christ College at Cambridge. He got the nick name “the lady of Christ’s at there. He appears to have been unimpressed with the educational standards of Cambridge, and argued with his first tutor, who was replaced.

                When he was in Cambridge, he wrote elegies and epigrams and Latin, and sonnets in Italian and English. In 1629, he composed Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity. It was an accomplished work which he later placed at the beginning of his Poems which were written in 1645. His lyric poem L’Allegro and The Penseroso, echo the poet Ben Jonson’s classical symmetry, clarity and urbanity, but introduces a defines, charm and delicacy in both tone and rhythm, which were clearly beyond his model. In 1642 (34) he married Mary Powell, the 17 year old daughter of a family to whom Milton’s father had lent money some years previously, and from whom Milton himself was receiving interest of £24 per annum on the loan. She stayed with him for only three weeks, however, leaving to make a visit to her parents at Forest Hill, near Oxford, and failing to return. She also failed to respond to his several letters, and, when he sent a servant to enquire after her, his servant was rudely rebuffed. It is possible that the outbreak of civil war at this time made her return more difficult, and it is certainly true that his wife’s family were staunch royalists, while Milton’s sympathies lay with the parliamentarians, for whom he became an important pamphleteer and apologist.

Paradise Lost:

                “Paradise Lost” by Milton is prefaced with an argument, or summary. These arguments were written by Milton and added because early readers had requested some sort of guide to the poem. Several of the books also begin with a prologue. The prologue to Book 1 state Milton’s purpose: to tell about the fall of man and justify God’s ways to man. Paradise Lost begin by stating that his subject will be Adam and Eve’s disobedience and fall from grace. He invokes a heavenly muse and asks for help in relating his ambitious story and God’s plan for humankind. Beezelbub suggests that they attempt to corrupt God’s beloved new creation, humankind. Satan agrees, and volunteers to go himself. As he prepares to leave Hell, he is met at the gates by his children, Sin and Death, who follow him and build a bridge between Hell and Earth.

In Heaven, God orders the angels together for a council of their own. He tells them of Satan’s intentions, and the Son volunteers himself to make the sacrifice for humankind. Meanwhile, Satan travels through Night and Chaos and finds Earth. He disguises himself as a cherub to get past the Archangel Uriel, who stands guard at the sun. He tells Uriel that he wishes to see and praise God’s glorious creation, and Uriel assents. Satan then lands on Earth and takes a moment to reflect. Seeing the splendor of Paradise brings him pain rather than pleasure. He reaffirms his decision to make evil his good, and continue to commit crimes against God. Looking down at Satan from his post, Uriel notices the volatile emotions reflected in the face of this so-called cherub and warns the other angels that an impostor is in their midst. The other angels agree to search the Garden for intruders. Meanwhile, Adam and Eve tend the Garden, carefully obeying God’s supreme order not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. After working for a whole day, they return to their bower and rest. There, Satan takes the form of a toad and whispers into Eve’s ear. Gabriel, the angel set to guard Paradise, finds Satan there and orders him to leave. Satan prepares to battle Gabriel, but God makes a sign appear in the sky—the golden scales of justice—and Satan scurries away. Eve awakes and tells Adam about a dream she had, in which an angel tempted her to eat from the forbidden tree. Worried about his creation, God sends Raphael down to Earth to teach Adam and Eve of the dangers they face with Satan.

Raphael arrives on Earth and eats a meal with Adam and Eve. Raphael relates the story of Satan’s envy over the Son’s appointment as God’s second-in-command. Satan gathered other angels together who were also angry to hear this news, and together they plotted a war against God. Abdiel decides not to join Satan’s army and returns to God. The angels then begin to fight, with Michael and Gabriel serving as co-leaders for Heaven’s army. The battle lasts two days, when God sends the Son to end the war and deliver Satan and his rebel angels to Hell. Raphael tells Adam about Satan’s evil motives to corrupt them, and warns Adam to watch out for Satan. Adam asks Raphael to tell him the story of creation. Raphael tells Adam that God sent the Son into Chaos to create the universe. He created the earth and stars and other planets. Curious, Adam asks Raphael about the movement of the stars and planets. Eve retires, allowing Raphael and Adam to speak alone. Raphael promptly warns Adam about his seemingly unquenchable search for knowledge. Raphael tells Adam that he will learn all he needs to know and that any other knowledge is not meant for humans to comprehend. Adam tells Raphael about his first memories, of waking up and wondering who he was, what he was, and where he was. Adam says that God spoke to him and told him many things, including his order not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. After the story, Adam confesses to Raphael his intense physical attraction to Eve. Raphael reminds Adam that he must love Eve more purely and spiritually. With this final bit of advice, Raphael leaves Earth and returns to Heaven.

Eight days after his banishment, Satan returns to Paradise. After closely studying the animals of Paradise, he chooses to take the form of the serpent. Meanwhile, Eve suggests to Adam that they work separately for awhile, so they can get more work done. Adam is hesitant but then assents. Satan searches for Eve and is delighted to find her alone. In the form of a serpent, he talks to Eve and compliments her on her beauty and godliness. She is amazed to find an animal that can speak. She asks how he learned to speak, and he tells her that it was by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. He tells Eve that God actually wants her and Adam to eat from the tree, and that his order is merely a test of their courage. She is hesitant at first but then reaches for a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and eats. She becomes distraught and searches for Adam. Adam has been busy making a wreath of flowers for Eve. When Eve finds Adam, he drops the wreath and is horrified to find that Eve has eaten from the forbidden tree. Knowing that she has fallen, he decides that he would rather be fallen with her than remain pure and lose her. So he eats from the fruit as well. Adam looks at Eve in a new way, and together they turn to lust.

God immediately knows of their disobedience. He tells the angels in Heaven that Adam and Eve must be punished, but with a display of both justice and mercy. He sends the Son to give out the punishments. The Son first punishes the serpent whose body Satan took, and condemns it never to walk upright again. Then the Son tells Adam and Eve that they must now suffer pain and death. Eve and all women must suffer the pain of childbirth and must submit to their husbands, and Adam and all men must hunt and grow their own food on a depleted Earth. Meanwhile, Satan returns to Hell where he is greeted with cheers. He speaks to the devils in Pandemonium, and everyone believes that he has beaten God. Sin and Death travel the bridge they built on their way to Earth. Shortly thereafter, the devils unwillingly transform into snakes and try to reach fruit from imaginary trees that shrivel and turn to dust as they reach them. God tells the angels to transform the Earth. After the fall, humankind must suffer hot and cold seasons instead of the consistent temperatures before the fall. On Earth, Adam and Eve fear their approaching doom. They blame each other for their disobedience and become increasingly angry at one another. In a fit of rage, Adam wonders why God ever created Eve. Eve begs Adam not to abandon her. She tells him that they can survive by loving each other. She accepts the blame because she has disobeyed both God and Adam. She ponders suicide. Adam, moved by her speech, forbids her from taking her own life. He remembers their punishment and believes that they can enact revenge on Satan by remaining obedient to God. Together they pray to God and repent.

God hears their prayers, and sends Michael down to Earth. Michael arrives on Earth, and tells them that they must leave Paradise. But before they leave, Michael puts Eve to sleep and takes Adam up onto the highest hill, where he shows him a vision of humankind’s future. Horrified, he asks Michael if there is any alternative to death. Generations to follow continue to sin by lust, greed, envy, and pride. They kill each other selfishly and live only for pleasure. Then Michael shows him the vision of Enoch, who is saved by God as his warring peers attempt to kill him. Adam also sees the story of Noah and his family, whose virtue allows them to be chosen to survive the flood that kills all other humans,. Adam feels remorse for death and happiness for humankind’s redemption. Next is the vision of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel. This story explains the perversion of pure language into the many languages that are spoken on Earth today. Adam sees the triumph of Moses and the Israelites, and then glimpses the Son’s sacrifice to save humankind. After this vision, it is time for Adam and Eve to leave Paradise. Eve awakes and tells Adam that she had a very interesting and educating dream. Led by Michael, Adam and Eve slowly and woefully leave Paradise hand in hand into a new world.

Adam’s character in Paradise Lost:

                Adam is an incredibly important man, but not for what he actually does in the poem. He's important because of what he's destined to do. You see, he's God's first-born human – the "First man, of men innumerable ordained" (8.297) – and so he's the root from which a magnificent family tree (if we do say so ourselves) known as the human race will develop. In Milton's words: "Out of one man a race/ Of men innumerable" 
                Now we know Adam isn't the most exciting character. He's kind of dull and he puts too much stock in Eve's beauty. Yeah, she's really, really, REALLY beautiful and hot, but his love for her is partly the cause of his ruin. Near the end of Book 8, he and Raphael are discussing this very issue, and Adam says all kinds of stuff about how astonishingly gorgeous Eve is. Adam gets so carried away that Raphael tells him to chill out and not let her beauty cause him to make bad decisions. It's almost like Raphael has to tell him not to think with his you-know-what. Now, this becomes really important later because Adam ends up doing what his wife encourages him to do (dividing their labor; eating the Forbidden fruit) because he can't refuse her beauty.

The fact of the matter is, we all see aspects of ourselves in Adam. You know how hard it can be to resist the pleadings of your super-hot boyfriend/girlfriend? Surely we can be just a little sympathetic. And Milton is somewhat unclear as well; after the fall, he says that Adam was not "deceived," but rather "fondly overcome with female charm". Is Milton saying that Adam wasn't tricked because he's too smart for that? Or is he saying that Adam is so weak that he fell prey to his wife's "charm.

                Adam and Eve pays the price; he has to leave Paradise, and on top of that he has to learn about the horrible events that will happen as a result of his and Eve's behaviour. In some respects, then, he resembles other literary characters entrusted with the burden of painful knowledge. Notice how Adam doesn't tell Eve about all this stuff; we don't know if he ever does. In some respects he's like a parent or older brother that knows lots and lots of bad things that he doesn't necessarily want to share with his younger, more innocent siblings. Just think of him as someone who has to watch horrible war footage that the public isn't allowed to see. Would you want him to tell you about it But not all knowledge in this poem is bad, however, and Adam is also the figure through whom Milton reveals his own theories about what God was really up to with that whole Tree of Knowledge business. People have often complained that, because the tree was forbidden, knowledge was forbidden. The Bible doesn't really say anything about this, so Milton fills in the blanks with his own theory. In Paradise Lost he argues that Adam and Eve will eventually acquire the knowledge they don't yet possess. This is the whole point of Raphael and Adam's conversation in Books 5-8. In Book 5 Raphael tells him flat out that eventually, he will know everything he wants to know and then some. The real sin that Adam ends up committing, then, is not the knowledge he gains, but rather the prolepsis (i.e., before the proper time) knowledge that he gains. In other words, he tries to walk before he's learned to crawl. Or, better, he takes his daddy's truck out before he's even gotten his learner's permit. Why do you think Adam's premature education is such a bad thing? What role does time play here?

Eve’s Character in Paradise Lost:

                Along with Satan, Eve is the most important character in Paradise Lost; it is her idea to separate from Adam and she is the one who first eats the Forbidden Fruit and then convinces Adam to eat it. In many respects, then, Eve's not likeable from the get-go. And in other respects, she's totally likeable for her sense of independence and curiosity. After the Fall, Adam and Eve engage in a petty blame game, where it becomes clear that, yes, Eve ate first, but Adam also ate the fruit, for his own reasons.

                Eve seems to be a bit of a rebel. Granted, the first thing she does upon coming to life is stare at herself in a lake like Narcissus – a mythological figure who fell in love with his own reflection and died as a result – until God leads her away. She is called "our credulous mother" an ominous name because we learn that Satan's words "too easy entrance found" their way into her heart. Then there's all the stuff about how Adam is somehow more perfect because he was created first (Eve was made out of his rib) and resembles God more than she does.  And of course, who can forget our very first encounter with Eve in Book 4, where Milton writes that "both/ Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed" But wait, the word "seemed" suggests that this is someone's point of view rather than cold hard fact. In this case that observer is…Satan! Yes that's right; our first glimpse of the primal couple is through Satan's eyes. In that sense, the passages surrounding line 295 in Book 4 make it seem as though only Satan, or someone like him, would think that men and women aren't equals.

Now, we don't mean to suggest that Milton is some kind of early feminist (he definitely is not that). We only mean that Eve is a tougher nut to crack. So, for example, the narcissism scene is, in reality, pretty innocent. Imagine if you didn't exist and then all of a sudden you did. What would you think of your own face? Or imagine if you grew up without any means of looking at yourself or seeing your reflection, and then, one day, you found a mirror. You would be fascinated because you wouldn't recognize it as your own face! You've never even seen it! Ditto Book 9; it's hard to blame Eve and act as if Adam wouldn't have done the same thing if he were in the same situation. We're not sure if Adam would have been able to resist Satan – he can't even resist his wife, let alone the most rhetorically gifted speaker in English literature.

The thing to keep in mind then is that Eve isn't always as bad or stupid as she seems or as she is portrayed. Sometimes people like to complain that Eve is left out or excluded from the boys' club; for example, when Michael comes down to give Adam his little history lesson in Books 11 and 12, Eve is put to sleep. When Raphael and Adam have their little conversation, Eve doesn't really participate; eventually she gets up and leaves. But the reason she gets up and leaves (at the beginning of Book 8) is not because she can't handle the dense, theoretical conversation about the origin and structure of the universe (something that is too obscure or highfalutin for most contemporary readers). She gets up because she would rather hear her sweetie narrate it. Eve is just as capable as Adam of having serious, scientific conversations; she just wants her husband to interpose little kisses and caresses while they talk. Wouldn't you? It's a kind of touching scene.

The fact of the matter is that Eve is innocent and well-meaning, except for that little slip up with the fruit. We probably aren't supposed to read the narcissism scene, or the evil dream that Satan whispers in her ear (recounted near the beginning of Book 5), or even her suggestion that she and Adam divide their labor so they can actually be productive (beginning of Book 9), as somehow foreshadowing the huge mistake she eventually makes. Milton very much wants to create the impression that the Fall hasn't happened yet and that things might go the other way. God says on numerous occasions that Adam and Eve weren't fated to do anything, and that he gave them free will. So, just because Eve's hair is described as "wanton" (4.306), for example, a word with more negative connotations than positive ones, doesn't mean she is somehow "bad" from the get-go. We always have to remember that we are seeing Eve through someone else's eyes.