MILTON’S PORTRAYAL OF
SATAN
IN PARADISE LOST
by Liz Rowlands
Since there can be no simple nor definitive interpretation of so complex a character as Milton’s Satan, the following is intended only as a possible insight into Milton’s portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost. Critical opinions vary vastly and A J A Waldock in his essay ‘Satan and the technique of degradation’ even contends that there is more than one Satan, that the Satan who has reached God’s newly-created world in Book IV is a different Satan from the Satan who mustered his dejected forces in Books I and II after having been cast out of heaven. This, however, is not a line I wish to pursue here.
Some controversy exists as to who is the hero of Paradise Lost: Satan, Adam or Christ, the Son? Since Milton’s overall theme stated in the opening lines of Book I is firstly to relate ‘Man’s first disobedience’ and secondly - or perhaps jointly - to ‘justify the ways of God to men’, I think Adam must be regarded as the principal hero. John M Steadman supports this view in an essay on Paradise Lost. It is Adam’s action which constitutes the nominal argument of the epic. Steadman continues that the Son and Satan embody heroic archetypes and that, through the interplay of the infernal and celestial strategies, Milton represents Satan’s plot against man and Christ’s resolution to save him as heroic enterprises. Christ and Satan are therefore epic machines.
Although Satan may be an epic machine, I wish to portray him as the tragic anti-hero of Paradise Lost or, at the very least, a principal character who possesses the stature and attributes which enable him to achieve tragic status. In the Greek tradition, the essential components of tragedy are admiration, fear and pity for the ‘hero’, who has to display a tragic weakness/flaw in his character, which will lead to his downfall. It might be argued that the flaws in Satan’s character as such that we should feel no admiration, fear or pity for him, yet I hope to show that he can be seen to inspire these emotions. Satan’s tragic flaws: envy, pride, ambition towards self-glorification are immediately stated by Milton in his first incantation to the Muse in Book I (34-44):
The infernal Serpent; he
it was whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from heav’n, with all his host
Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equaled the Most High,
If he opposed; and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God
Raised impious war in heav’n and battle proud
With vain attempt.
Satan’s pride, in particular, is stressed throughout Paradise Lost. In accordance with epic convention, Satan is frequently qualified by Milton’s use of the epithet ‘proud’. Virgil employed the same device in his epic the Aeneid, in which the name of Aeneas rarely appears without being preceded by ‘pius’. The most striking visual example of Satan’s main weaknesses appears in Book IV (89-90) during Raphael’s narrative to Adam regarding the battles in Heaven, where Milton makes maximum use of enjambement: Raphael refers to Satan as ‘the proud/Aspirer’. ‘Proud’ at the end of one line and ‘Aspirer’ at the beginning of the next gives equal emphasis and impact to Satan’s pride and ambition and it is implied that, in Satan, the two propensities are inseparable and of equal magnitude. Milton, in fact, defended his use of blank verse as a suitable vehicle for epic poetry, as opposed to the frequently-favoured heroic couplet.
It is important to note that Satan is fully aware of the weaknesses in his character. Milton attributes three soliloquies to Satan in Book IV, when the Arch Fiend is exploring Paradise, having completed his journey to Earth from Hell. Through penetrating the transparency of Satan’s self-deception in these speeches, we can gain insight into his emotions and motives. During the first of the Book IV soliloquies, Satan openly confesses his flaws: ‘pride and worse ambition threw me down’ (IV.40). The position of the word ‘worse’ leads to duality of meaning. By ‘worse ambition’ Satan could equally mean ambition involving evil or that he regards his ambition as a more corrupt trait than his pride, or even a combination of the two. Nonetheless, the weaknesses in character which lead inevitably to Satan’s fall are inter-related. In Heaven, Satan’s pride convinces him that he is equal to God and thus sparks his ambition, whilst envy at God’s appointment of his Son as Messiah and the belief that he has, in consequence, been slighted, give him the final excuse to challenge God’s omnipotence (V.775-7):
Another now hath to
himself engrossed
All power, and us eclipsed under the name
Of King anointed.
In Hell, he proclaims to his followers that God was responsible for provoking him into initiating the battle in Heaven by not revealing the extent of his strength (I.637-42):
But he who reigns
Monarch in heav’n, till then as one secure
Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,
Consent or custom, and his regal state
Put forth at full, but still his strength concealed,
Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.
Likewise, in Book IV, he justifies making Adam and Eve the instrument of his revenge by declaring that God created them merely to spite him and to increase his vexation (IX.171-7), although he has in the same speech intimated that God had long planned his creation of the new world.
Satan’s endeavours to establish God as a scapegoat for his deeds are also apparent in his second soliloquy in Book IV addressed to Adam and Eve, when he tries to blame God for his seduction of man and is almost apologetic that he has to involve Adam and Eve in his evil designs (IV.386-7):
Thank him who puts me
loth to this revenge
On you who wrong me not, for him who wronged.
Yet, in his third soliloquy, Satan’s envy turns on Adam and Eve, too, in a paroxysm of hate, since he cannot bear to witness their happiness in the light of his own irredeemable despair (IV.502-535):
Aside the Devil turned
For envy, yet with jealous leer malign
Eyed them askance, and to himself thus plained:
"Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two
Imparadised in one another’s arms,
The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill
Of bliss on bliss, while I to hell am thrust,
Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,
Among our other torments not the least,
Still unfulfilled with pain of longing pines;
Yet let me not forget what I have gained
From their own mouths. All is not theirs, it seems;
One fatal tree there stands of Knowledge called,
Forbidden them to taste. Knowledge forbidden?
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
Envy them that? Can it be sin to know,
Can it be death? And do they only stand
By ignorance, is that their happy state,
The proof of their obedience and their faith?
O fair foundation laid whereon to build
Their ruin! Hence I will excite their minds
With more desire to know, and to reject
Envious commands, invented with design
To keep them low whom knowledge might exalt
Equal with gods. Aspiring to be such,
They taste and die; what likelier can ensue?
But first with narrow search I must walk round
This garden, and no corner leave unspied;
A chance but chance may lead where I may meet
Some wand’ring Spirit of heav’n, by fountain side,
Or in thick shade retired, from him to draw
What further would be learnt. Live while ye may,
Yet happy pair; enjoy, till I return,
Short pleasures, for long woes are to succeed.
In one of his Lectures, Coleridge referred to Satan’s pride as ‘the alcohol of egotism’. The phrase is particularly apt since Satan is completely immersed in his own importance and is driven continuously by his own obsession or, perhaps more accurately, self-obsession, which rules him like an addiction. In his first soliloquy in Book IV, Satan momentarily bewails that he was not ascribed a lower station in heaven, but immediately acknowledges that he would readily have supported any other challenger of God’s supreme authority. He cannot repudiate what he is; he is a personification of the Hell from which he can never escape, just as he can never escape from himself. ‘Myself am hell’, he declares as he resigns himself to his fate and, once again, it is his fear of scorn, his ‘dread of shame/Among the Spirits beneath’ which compels him not to yield, but to renew his resolve to progress with his undertaking (IV.58-92):
O had his powerful
destiny ordained
Me some inferior angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbouned hope had raised
Ambition. Yet why not? Some other Power
As great might have aspired, and me though mean
Drawn to his part; but other Powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations armed.
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst. Whom hast thou then or what to accuse,
But Heav’n’s free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accurst, since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe.
Nay cursed be thou, since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat’ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heav’n.
O then at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
Th’Omnipotent. Ay me, they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan;
While they adore me on the throne of hell,
With diadem and scepter high advanced,
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery; such joy ambition finds.
As with all strong passions, Satan’s flaws of character pervert his perception and judgement so that, as he surveys his dismal surroundings in Book I, he is able to validate his battle against God as the means by which he has secured his own realm where he can reign unrivalled, with the implication that he believes he has improved his circumstances (I.258-63):
Here at least
We shall be free; th’Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n.
Similarly, as he prepares for his seduction of Eve in Book IX, he apostrophises the Earth as being more wonderful and more worthy of conquest than Heaven itself (IX.99-102). This soliloquy contrasts with Satan’s expressed hatred of the sun in Book IV. B Rajan in his essay, ‘The problem of Satan’, states ‘just as the sun once reminded him of the glory he had lost, the earth now suggests to him the glory he is to recover’. This cannot but evoke the New Testament proclamation: ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’, which immediately casts a shadow of irony over Satan’s proud boasts as he anticipates effecting the destruction of God’s creation and his expectation of exaltation from his peers in hell (IX.135-9):
To me shall be the glory
sole among
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
Continued making, and who knows how long
Before had been contriving?
How then, does Satan inspire the feelings of admiration, fear and pity necessary to a tragic figure? Milton was, undoubtedly, conscious that he was in danger of portraying Satan as too much of an heroic figure and made strenuous efforts to belittle him through the use of unflattering imagery and bathos, and by highlighting his less complimentary characteristics. Nonetheless, our emotions are still fired.
Our first encounter with Satan and his rebel hosts occurs in Book I when they are recovering from the shock of having been expelled from heaven by the Son after three days of fighting the angels of God. Despite the defeat he has suffered, Satan gains our admiration by displaying resilience in quickly coming to terms with the change in his circumstances, in remustering his forces and organising the building of his palace, Pandemonium. He simultaneously demonstrates his determination not to be defeated and true qualities of leadership, persuasively arguing that there is still scope for battle and victory. Satan’s eloquence is convincing in his first speech to Beelzebub, his chief partner in crime, as he declares (I.105-111):
What though the field be
lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me.
The language here is particularly powerful and the lines are extremely weighted, underlining Satan’s resolution. He similarly instils renewed resolve in his followers to challenge God and hope of regaining their former state, claiming that they are now better placed to contend because there is not fear of division in their own ranks (II.11-42). He then gives his supporters the opportunity to speak their minds as to whether to engage in open warfare or in guile to achieve their end, although ultimately they agree the course of action he has pre-planned - that is, to introduce evil on Earth.
In Satan’s speech at the beginning of Book I, Milton emphasises Satan’s self-glorification. Satan has no dread of being challenged in hell because he sees himself in the most dangerous position and the one to be most severely reprimanded by God. This is probably what Coleridge meant when he referred to Satan’s ‘grandeur of sufferance’; this concept will be clarified later.
Coleridge also referred to Satan’s ‘singularity of daring’, which is best demonstrated when the resolve to send someone to investigate Earth has been taken and Satan offers to undertake the task. Milton diminishes Satan’s courage by intimating that Satan stands forward with bravado and purely to gain personal glory for any success he might win. Yet, Satan does not volunteer immediately but is only undertaking what his followers are afraid to attempt (II.420-9):
all sat mute,
Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each
In other’s count’nance read his own dismay
Astonished. None among the choice and prime
Of those heav’n-warring champions could be found
So hardy as to proffer or accept
Alone the dreadful voyage; till at last
Satan, whom now transcendent glory raised
Above his fellows, with monarchal pride
Conscious of highest worth, unmoved thus spake...
Milton’s intimation is, however, supported by Satan’s speech itself, in which he ostentatiously states that he will go to Earth alone and defies any of his followers to accompany him in case they detract any of the hoped-for acclaim from him.
Satan’s courage and daring is restored during Milton’s description of Satan’s journey through Chaos to Earth - in fact, the poet dedicates over 400 lines to it (II.629-1055) - and Satan’s exaggerated vaunts to his peers of the danger and difficulty of his enterprise when he returns to Hell in Book X after the seduction of Adam and Eve are not without some justification (X.460-80):
Thrones, Dominations,
Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,
For in possession such, not only of right,
I call ye and declare ye now, returned
Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth
Triumphant out of this infernal pit
Abominable, accurst, the house of woe,
And dungeon of our tyrant. Now possess,
As lords, a spacious world, to our native heaven
Little inferior, by my adventure hard
With peril great achieved. Long were to tell
What I have done, what suffered, with what pain
Voyaged th’unreal, vast, unbounded deep
Of horrible confusion, over which
By Sin and Death a broad way now is paved
To expedite your glorious march; but I
Toiled out my uncouth passage, forced to ride
Th’untractable abyss, plunged in the womb
Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild,
That jealous of their secrets fiercely opposed
My journey strange, with clamorous uproar
Protesting fate supreme...
In Book IV (917-23) when the angels guarding Paradise confront Satan, Gabriel also belittles Satan by accusing him of being less valiant than his peers and less able to endure the pain of hell. There appears to be some inconsistency during this confrontation between Satan and the angels towards the end of Book IV. Having become even more steadfast in his determination to seduce Adam and Eve against God’s will and now directing his hatred against man also as a result of his envy of their happy state (extract IV.502-35 already quoted), it seems incongruous that the next time he speaks, he is so sensitive to the taunts uttered by Zephon, Ithuriel and Gabriel. Although Satan’s scorn for the angels is still apparent, he stands ‘abashed’ and himself provides Gabriel with the means by which to insult him (IV.888-90):
Lives there who loves
his pain?
Who would not, finding way, break loose from hell,
Though thither doomed?
It is imperative that we believe, at least in part, in the Satan as portrayed in Books I and II: Milton’s argument depends upon that belief. Satan must be seen as being of sufficient stature to attempt God’s overthrow. If Satan is considered too weak or ineffectual, he can pose no threat to God, nor, consequentially, to Man and there would be no reason for Milton to ‘justify the ways of God to men’. Therefore, whilst making allowances for Satan’s arrogance in the opening Books of Paradise Lost, he does give the impression that he is ruling hell and it is not expedient to deliberate to what extent it is possible for Satan to succeed in his quest to corrupt God’s good works with evil.
The very structure of Paradise Lost assists in creating the illusion of Satan’s power, since we first learn of the expulsion of Satan and his followers through the rebels themselves and it is not until much later when Raphael tells Adam of the wars in heaven in Books V and VI that we hear the ‘official’ version in which Satan emerges in a less favourable light.
Stanley Fish in his essay ‘The harassed reader in Paradise Lost’ states that Satan possesses a form of heroism which is easy to admire because it is visible and flamboyant and that, on that basis, Satan’s attractiveness is only initial. B Rajan, on the other hand, writes: ‘the heroic qualities which Satan brings to his mission, the fortitude, the steadfast hate, the implacable resolution which is founded on despair are qualities not to be imitated or admired. They are defiled by the evil to which they are consecrated’. Nonetheless, it is often Satan’s despair which comes through more potently than his evil intentions.
Satan’s bravado is most clearly evident in Books I and II when he is able to vaunt before his followers; by Book IV, his veneer of confidence and resolution shows signs of cracking, with his soliloquies revealing much about his inner torment and self-doubts. As his steadfastness wavers, some of his initial charisma also diminishes, as we become more aware of his fallibility.
This argument is reinforced by Milton’s physical description of Satan. In Books I and II, on superficial reading, Satan appears an impressive figure, ‘in bulk as huge/As whom the fables name of monstrous size’ (I.196-7), conspicuous amongst his followers because of his size and his lustre which, although faded, outshines that of his peers (I.589-604):
He above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent
Stood like a tow’r; his form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than Archangel ruined, and th’excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun new ris’n
Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon
In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shone
Above then all th’Archangel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows
Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride
Waiting revenge.
On closer examination, however, it emerges that, even in Book I, Milton has been careful to downgrade Satan. In the extract just quoted, Milton states that Satan ‘stood like a tow’r’ and that his lustre was like the sun’s through mist. The first simile is bare and unqualified and, in essence, tells us nothing about Satan’s dimensions nor his stance: a tower may be any size and of too wide a variety of constructions for the simile to be of any significance. The reference to Satan’s reduced brightness is a symbol of his fall from glory and failing strength and is mentioned by Ithuriel and Zephon in Book IV when they jeeringly suggest to Satan that his lack of lustre has made him almost unrecognisable.
Our fear and pity for Satan can be considered together since they stem from the same cause. On one level, Satan can be regarded as pitiful as much as pitiable. Although it is undoubtedly not Milton’s intention, it is almost possible to view Satan throughout in the light of pathos, especially if we accept that Satan cannot be other than he is however much he wrestles with himself, and is therefore a victim of himself (IV.18ff, IX.473ff).
The temporary illusion in the opening Books that Satan’s revolt may not be entirely vain is soon dispelled when we encounter God in Book III and hear Raphael’s narrative to Adam in Books V and VI. It is important to remember that although Satan seems the active antagonist and believes that he is acting on his own authority, he is only able to do what God permits him to do. His battle is therefore doomed to failure before it begins and his attempts cannot but inspire fear that he will again be subjected to the wrath of God: ‘Of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue’ (IV.26), and pity for his circumstances. In the context of God’s omnipotence, Satan is dwarfed and his exploits futile, but his nature, ‘his grandeur of sufferance’ as Coleridge terms it, will not let him relent, even when he acknowledges that God is ‘matchless’.
Due to the structure of Paradise Lost and the fact that Satan is responsible for luring man into disobedience, we find ourselves following Satan’s movements. Our fear for him is pronounced as we accompany him on his lengthy voyage through Chaos and, whilst we share the torment of his soliloquies on Earth, we have the foreknowledge that he will persevere with his purpose because God has foretold the fall of Adam and Eve in Book III and has already decreed that man may be redeemed by his Son, but that the fallen angels are irretrievable (III.129-32).
There is another strand to Satan’s forecast doom, which does not become apparent until Book IV, when Abdiel informs Satan that it was the Son who created the angels (V.809-43. Satan is thus battling to change something which is immutable: he cannot be equal to his creator. This latest development casts irony over Satan’s original motivation. Satan’s initial challenge in Heaven was prompted by his feelings of impairment at God anointing his Son, since he believed himself to have been overlooked. Abdiel’s revelation exposes Satan as inferior to the Son and renders the Devil’s situation even more pitiful. Connected with this is the underlying conflict of freedom and subservience throughout Paradise Lost, which contributes greatly to the irony in which Satan is portrayed. Satan’s principal cause for revolt is his hatred of subservience to God and the Son and his desire to reign. As has already been seen, God’s omnipotence extends even to hell where even Satan’s enthronement is subject to God’s permission. True freedom, as Satan is informed by the angels, lies in service to God. Satan is unable to divorce ‘service’ from ‘servility’ and his momentary realisation of the differentiation in Book IV, ‘that a grateful mind/By owing owes not’ (55-56) is unconvincing. On a different level, Satan is denied true liberty by being enslaved by his own pride and passion.
In Some Graver Subject, J B Broadbent mentions the paradox of Satan’s character: ‘Satan is an angel in Hell and as such an exaggerated version of fallen man’; some of our feelings for Satan must arise as a result of the parallel between Satan and ourselves. He is easy to identify with and thus sympathise with because the weaknesses he exhibits - although on a much grander scale - are predominantly human. Envy, pride, selfishness, ambition are present in us all to a greater or lesser extent. Also, it is too convenient to claim that Satan’s hatred is all-consuming, for he shows himself capable of finer feelings such as his compassion at the sight of his dejected followers in Book I and his stunned appreciation at the beauty of Earth, of Adam and, especially, of Eve, who almost sways him from his purpose as he waits to seduce her in Book IX (455-72):
Such pleasure took the
Serpent to behold
This flow’ry plat, the sweet recess of Eve
Thus early, thus alone; her heav’nly form
Angelic, but more soft and feminine,
Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture or least action overawed
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought.
That space the Evil One
abstracted stood
From his own evil, and for the time remained
Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed,
Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge;
But the hot hell that always in him burns,
Though in mid-heav’n, soon ended his delight,
And tortures him now more, the more he sees
Of pleasure not for him ordained; then soon
Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts
Of mischief.
In the extract just quoted, Milton is at pains to show that any positive feeling Satan experiences is short-lived and degenerates into self-pity, serving only to strengthen his malice. As with Satan’s confrontation with Gabriel in Book IV, Satan’s reaction on first seeing Adam and Eve in Book IV and his adoration of Eve in Book IX shows some inconsistency of character, since we would expect Satan to transmit his anger and hatred onto Adam and Eve immediately, merely because they are products of God’s creation. Instead, we find him staggered, self-questioning and almost apologetic about having to use them to achieve his end. On the other hand, perhaps Milton is endeavouring to convey through Satan’s reaction to Adam and Eve that the Devil is still, to some extent, in awe of his Maker, and that his surprise at finding them in God’s image brings this awe to the surface. His envy that he can never gain pleasure from God’s newly-created world or its inhabitants increases his awareness of his own sorry state and endless doom. As he enters the serpent to prepare for his corruption of man, we cannot evade the pathos of his humiliation at having sunk so low (IX.163ff).
Milton employs a variety of animal images throughout Paradise Lost to depict facets of Satan’s character: most obviously, the serpent is a symbol of his guile; as a predator, he is compared to a wolf or vulture; he is a ‘proud steed’; and an ironic symbol of death as he alights ‘like a cormorant’ on the Tree of Life in Paradise, and the image of him sitting ‘squat like a toad’ by the sleeping Eve, instilling corrupt thoughts into her dreams reveals the ugliness of his evil designs. Parallels with the insect world are used to describe Satan’s followers: as agents of destruction, they are likened to ‘a pitchy cloud/Of locusts’ as they amass at Satan’s command in Book I and, as Satan embarks on his journey to Earth, they are ironically compared with bees variously occupying themselves until their leader’s return.
Despite the enormity of his flaws of character and Milton’s attempts to belittle him, I would contend that our admiration for Satan’s strength of resolve and powers of leadership, our fear for his inevitable fate, and our pity for his torment and the very nature of his circumstances are sufficient to render him deserving of tragic status. The fact that critics have often compared him with great tragic figures such as Prometheus, Faustus, Macbeth and Tamburlaine would seem to lend weight to this contention.
It might be argued that if Satan is the tragic anti-hero of Paradise Lost, that Adam is the real tragic hero and a parallel may be drawn between the two characters: both suffer a fall from grace as a result of free will. We feel admiration for Adam before his fall, but our admiration is, however, remote since Adam and Eve are distanced from us by their perfection and goodness, and the elevated language Milton attributes to them contributes to this impression. Our fear is aroused through our foreknowledge of their downfall, of which we have been aware since the opening line of the poem, and through the approach of Satan. The timely warnings to Adam by Raphael in Books V and VI increase the aura of man’s impending doom. It is significant, though, that Adam and Eve have to sin before we are able to identify with them and feel compassion.
Nevertheless, since we know that man will finally be redeemed by the Son of God (Book III), I would suggest that our fear for Adam is not as great as our fear for Satan. Satan’s doom is eternal and the more he perseveres with his plan of corruption, the more we worry about the nature of the retribution which will befall him. Another reason why Adam is not so convincing a tragic figure is Milton’s portrayal of the flaw in his character which leads to his fall, that is, that he ultimately places human love above his obedience to God. He takes the apple Eve proffers him because, irrespective of God’s command, he cannot bear to lose her. Whilst Adam expressed concern about his over-riding love for Eve to Raphael, Milton does not give Adam’s flaw sufficient emphasis for it to attain tragic importance and it pales into insignificance against the pride and passion of Satan.
Milton makes full use of parallels and contrasts between his characters. The contrast between Satan and the Son, for example, does not stop at Satan being the means of man’s downfall and Christ the means by which man can obtain redemption, the whole concept of good versus evil comes into play. Satan is brought low through his ambition to exalt himself above his peers, whereas the Son achieves exaltation through his humiliation. Satan’s triumph on returning to Hell is resonant with boasts of his own achievement but he is denied the applause of his followers by God transforming them into snakes (X.460ff), whereas the Son’s return to his Father after expelling Satan from Heaven is met with ovation and is described in ceremonious, stately terms by Raphael (VI.880ff). Satan stands forward with pride and arrogance as he volunteers in the presence of his legions to undertake the exploration of Earth, whereas the Son stands forward with humility in God’s presence alone to sacrifice himself for man’s salvation (III.227ff).
There is a problem, however, with Milton’s portrayal of God and the Son, which is mainly one of language. Is the Son really standing forward as Man’s redeemer in total humility, or are there undertones of smugness and, in addition, is it not easier for the Son to volunteer for something which is guaranteed success, as opposed to the unknown quantity of Satan’s enterprise? Regarding Milton’s language, some critics claim that God’s utterance is reverently plain but formal and, as such, it is not inappropriate to Milton’s theme (eg Steadman); others find Milton’s God harsh and threatening and the language attributed to him curt and dictatorial (eg Waldock, Rajan). William Blake goes so far as to suggest that Milton’s style reveals his underlying allegiance with Satan, stating: ‘The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil’s party without knowing it’.
Copyright © 1988 Liz Rowlands