Comparing Paradise Lost And Eve's Apology In Defense Of Women

The lines 809 – 840 of Amelia Lanyer’s poem “Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum” is an argument for why women should have an equal place in society to men’s. The poem is actually a piece of proto-feminist writing using religious examples as a way of getting across the message of equality between the sexes. Lanyer uses examples from the Bible to explain how Eve is not at fault for women having a lesser place in society and why males should have a religious motivation for women being equal with men.

Eve’s hunger to become independent from Adam and all she is commanded to do is similar to Satan’s situation in that their yearn for power and singular identity lead them to revolt against their creator. Her desire to separate from Adam is first seen when she is introduced to the audience in her state of narcissism. She sees a reflection of herself in a pond and is in awe of her beauty “of sympathy and love,” (IV, 465) which shows the parallelism to Satan’s own arrogant vanity. He catches on to this similarity they share and decides she will be an easy target of persuasion. He quickly takes charge and plans how he will lead her to eat the apple from the “Tree of Knowledge,” which is the only tree that God prohibited to pick fruit from. Satan first catches her attention by being a serpent who speaks; something she had never encountered before. He smooth talks her into really listening to him by focusing his words around her and how much better life could be if she just took a bite

Milton’s Paradise Lost has been praised as being the greatest English epic of all time, most stunningly in its author's depiction of the parents of humanity, Adam and Eve. How Milton chose to portray the original mother and father has been a focus of much criticism with contemporary readers. One of the main subjects of these comments is in reference to Eve, who, according to many, is a trivial character that is most definitely inferior to her mate. Nonetheless, many do not recognize that, after the fateful Fall, she becomes a much more evolved character. When Eve is introduced to the storyline of the epic, her character is shallow and extremely undeveloped, meant simply for display. She is quite firmly set as being inferior to her mate

    The seventeenth century poet, John Milton, takes the attitude common to the time period while portraying Eve in Paradise Lost.  This epic, telling of Adam and Eve's fall from Paradise and the story of creation, constantly describes Eve as a weak individual, while Adam is often compared with God.  The idea of women's inferiority has been fixed through time, making Milton's characterization of Eve not surprising, but rather expected and accepted.  However, Milton shows a suggestion of women's inner strength while describing the control Eve has over Adam.  Nevertheless, except for this instance, Eve is depicted as subordinate to Adam.  This is evident through Adam and Raphael's treatment

Adam and Eve were blessed by God; they lived in a sin free garden with no sickness or pain. Satan is called a deceiver. He is the Evil One who deceived Eve. He

It is interesting to note that Adam and Eve are mentioned in all the Judaeo religions including Islam. In the Qur’an Adam is regarded as a prophet (a person spoken to by God). Eve is mentioned ad Hawwa, his wife. In this version when Adam came to life, God sent a number of angels to fetch clay from the earth to form him and they took the clay from a variety of sources to signify the variety in human beings. Their version of Satan is Iblis who refuses to bow down to Adam when God orders the angels to do so and is banished from heaven

by eating the fruit even though he didn't want to. Eve was brainwashed by the serpent because she was mentally weak. Adam and Eve later go on to get married and have two kids named Cain and Abel. Cain ends up killing his brother Abel because Abel’s heart was faithful and was devoted to God and his commitment was trustworthy in God’s eyes. When Cain realized that God was not pleased with his sacrifice but accepted Abel’s, he became extremely jealous and felt a strong hatred in his heart and jealous of his brother and killed him out of envy. One thing that I noticed when it came to gender roles was that the serpent understood who to manipulate. God directly talked to Adam then next in line was Eve. The serpent understood that Adam was more than

Eve has been a powerful female figure throughout history and provoked so many female authors because she is depicted as the first woman, made from the rib of the first man, Adam. Since Eve was the first, and mother to all women, she was preserved to have passed on an evil nature to all women after tasting the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge and asking Adam to as well. Women have invested their time in Eve’s defense by arguing that it was not the fault of Eve alone, and that if Adam was supposed the be a symbol of strength, and wisdom, then he should been able to see through Eve’s fruit and the trickery of the serpent. The story bible has been used as a symbol of oppression for women by the word of God being law in the Christian

Eve was so fond of Adam; her attachment to Adam blinded her from subservience. Adam knew he was in charge, and he liked that Eve was his companion. This provided him

By this passage Paul makes it clear that because Eve was the one that fell to Satan 's temptation, she could not be trusted to make the important decisions regarding

Obviously primary to the narrative of, Paradise Lost, as may be said, borrowing again from Shannon Miller, the Genesis accounts of Adam and Eve’s creation establishes that clear gender roles were a result of the Fall: husbands shall rule over their wives while men

Man above woman, or woman above man? For the entirety of human civilization, this question of gender hierarchy has been divisive issue. Regardless, Milton does not hesitate to join the heat of the battle, and project his thoughts to the world. Since the publication of Paradise Lost, many of Milton’s readers have detected in his illustration of the prelapsarian couple, particularly of Adam, a powerful patriarchal sentiment: “he for God only, and she for God in him” (Milton, IV.299). In essence, this idea declares that Adam and Eve possess unequal roles – Adam is better than Eve, as men are better than women, in accordance to the deeply conventional reading of the relations between the sexes. Eve’s purpose for Adam makes her less

Eve's speech affects Adam. He becomes calm, consoling her and sharing responsibility for their fall. They must stop blaming each other, he says. They must live with their mistakes and make the most out of their fallen state.

This notion has created controversy over gender equality. God commands Adam not to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but Eve persuades him to and the act of disobeying God is the original sin.

Eve’s “lowliness majestic” is perhaps what enchants Adam the most. He is captivated and totally mystified by Eve’s very nature. Adam seems to understand the nature of humanity based on the qualities that he sees in himself, which at first seems safe, as he is the first man. However, he is perplexed by Eve’s completeness—perhaps because the qualities that Eve lacks are the ones that Adam values most in himself! Beholding his wife, he remarks that by design and intention she is his “inferior” (541): her “inward faculties” (542) are not as useful as his own, and she does not as closely resemble the Maker as he does (543-44). She is not designed, as Adam is, with the desire or capacity to rule over the other creatures (544-46). These things are not true of Eve, so Adam finds it difficult to understand why she seems “in herself complete” (548). He marvels that even as she lacks the qualities that resemble the Maker, she seems “so absolute,” not lacking anything (547). Eve is complete, she is a “guard angelic placed” to Adam—one sent as a helper and a protector (559). He is captivated by how “what she wills to do or say,/Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,” even though the man was intended to be the wisdom-giver (549-550). Adam’s attitude can be