➥John Milton – “Paradise Lost” Book IX
About the Author:
John Milton was born on December 9 in London, England to a middle-class family. Milton’s father was banished from his home by his father for reading protestant books in a very Roman Catholic home. Milton too was very religious growing up, inspired to become a priest. He attended Christ’s School in Cambridge. His time spent in school was not pleasant. Being made fun of and called names was a common occurrence for his different skin complexion and odd manners he developed from his home growing up. Originally he planned to become a priest but instead, after school he went home for 6 years where he began to look into different languages and styles of writing. Also during his time at home he wrote a few of his well-known works such as “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” and “On Shakespeare”. May of 1638 Milton began a 13 month journey to France and Italy. He eventually returned with his wife, Mary Powell, who bore him three daughters. During the civil war, Milton supported Oliver Cromwell in the cause of Puritans. During this he wrote pamphlets about radical politics. After the restoration of Charles II in 1660, Milton was arrested as a defender of the Commonwealth. When he was released he decided to live in seclusion which is where he wrote his most famous work, the epic poem “Paradise Lost” in 1667. Milton started to have more health issues as time went on and eventually passed away on November 8, 1674.
Summary of the Text:
The fall of man, which happens in Book 9, is the best part of Adam and Eve’s story. The story starts with Satan, who has been hiding since the Garden of Eden tells him to leave. In the form of a mist, Satan sneaks back into the Garden. He changes into a snake once he gets into the Garden. He has one last moment of doubt about what he’s about to do to Adam and Eve, but his anger at them pushes him to go ahead.
Adam and Eve fight in the morning over whether they should work in the Garden together or separately. When Eve suggests that they work alone, Adam feels apprehensive because he thinks that they are more likely to give in to temptation when they aren’t with each other. However, Eve says there is a lot of work that needs to be done and that she can’t really be called good if she is always safe and her goodness is never put to the test. So they go their different ways, not knowing that this is the last time they will be able to be innocent together in the Garden.
When Satan finds Eve by herself, he talks to her as a snake. His answer to Eve’s question about how he learned to talk is that eating fruit made him able to talk and understand everything. She says she will show her where the food is, so he takes her to the Tree of Knowledge. Eve knows it’s the tree that God told her and Adam they couldn’t eat from. Satan tries to convince her that when he ate the fruit, it told him that Eve should disobey God to show Him that she can think for herself. He says that he ate from the tree and is still living. Assuring Eve, he says that God will never punish her for something as small as eating fruit. Satan also tells Eve that if she eats the fruit, she will probably learn everything she needs to know to become a goddess.
Satan makes a case, and Eve thinks about the fact that the snake ate it and didn’t die. The fruit looks and tastes good, and she finally gives in and takes a bite because she wants to learn more and be smarter. Even though Satan has gone into the bush, Eve is still eating the fruit. Eve thinks about giving Adam some of the fruit because she thinks that eating it has made her equal to him and she loves the idea of being on the same level as him. She finally chooses to share the fruit because she wants Adam to die with her if she has to die for disobeying God. When she finds Adam, she tells him what happened and how she got to eat the fruit. Adam is shocked and angry, but he decides to eat the fruit too because he doesn’t want to be without Eve. He eats the fruit, and he and Eve have sex because they are physically interested in each other, not because they love each other. Once they wake up, all they can do is feel bad about what they did. They start to fight and blame each other for what happened.
Critical Analysis :
Milton calls what’s happening in Book 9 a tragedy. By this, he doesn’t just mean what happens to Adam and Eve is tragic; he also means that Paradise Lost itself is a tragedy in the same way that the epic dramas that came before it were. As Milton saw it, Paradise Lost was the greatest tragedy of all time because it was about how people lost their way. From a classical point of view, a tragedy has a main figure with a tragic flaw who is important in society. This flaw is what brings the character or characters down. In a tragedy, the punishment for the fall must be worse than the crime, making the viewers feel sorry for what happened. The sad thing about Paradise Lost is that both Adam and Eve have terrible flaws that cause them to fail and everyone else to fail too.
The way Satan thinks about God has gotten worse since the beginning of Paradise Lost. He doesn’t believe that God made angels and thinks that God made people to get back at him of his sins. Satan seems to believe his own story of what happened, but he doesn’t seem to have any good reasoning of his own. He just seems crazy. In this poem, Milton shows how the free will that God gave people can be a double-edged sword that makes them their own worst enemies.
Satan’s temptation of Eve feeds her narcissism, which is why she looked at her image when she was made. His way of getting her attention is by telling her how beautiful she is and how much he loves her. Eve’s desire to keep the fruit for herself instead of giving it to Adam shows how her thought is changing. She is losing her innocence and keeping secrets, and she might even be trying to get Adam to love her more by tricking him. The only reason she shares the food with Adam is because she doesn’t want Adam to be with another woman after she dies. Adam has a different reason for choosing to eat the fruit than Eve did. He wants to stay with Eve no matter what. If he puts Eve above God in this way, he is disobeying God and putting Eve above God, as Raphael told him.
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