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How Does Milton Use Disobedience In Paradise Lost

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Throughout John Milton’s convoluted novel Paradise Lost, obedience and disobedience remain key elements. It remains well known how Adam and Eve fell from grace due to their neglect of God’s one rule: do not eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. Many have wondered how such an elementary guideline could ignored so effortlessly, especially since it stood as the sole rule for mankind. Satan acts as yet another example of disobedience, despite living in the most comfortable circumstances. Milton’s constant reiteration of the theme of obedience to God being a central element to life on Earth, as well as Heaven, shows how he prioritizes it in his faith. Milton shines light upon the origin of disobedience, as well as its grave consequences, through …show more content…

God declaring Him and Jesus as “united as one individual soul” (Book V, line 610) pleased many in Heaven, yet with Satan it contaminated his mind with jealousy. With Satan being “the first archangel, great in power/In favor and pre-eminence” (Book V, lines 661-662), he felt insecure in his position under Jesus. This jealousy and insecurity poisoned his goodness, and, fueled by desire (much like Eve), caused him to go against his Maker. Not only does Satan overshadow his goodness with his own selfish desires, “with lies/Drew after him the third part of heaven’s host” (Book V, lines 709-710). Appealing to their same fears of “new laws from him who reigns, new minds may raise/In [them] who serve, new counsels” (Book V, lines 680-681), and with “counterfeited truth” (Book V, line 771) of possible danger of the Son. Though Jesus’s sole goal is happiness and love for all his people, Satan’s power hungry mind warped this truth with dread of being eclipsed by yet another God. Thus, Satan’s blasphemous argument, turned “the golden sceptre” of God into “an iron rod to bruise and break [his] disobedience” (Book V, lines 886-888). Satan once again goes against God, even after being expelled from Heaven, when he tempts Adam and Eve to fall from their perfect state. However, this time his guilty conscious torments him so much that “only in …show more content…

Adam and Eve repeat his fall with an irreversible sin of their own: the eating of the forbidden fruit. Leading up to her sin, Eve shows traits very similar to those of Satan. Eve seems to be created with a congenital vanity, seeing as when she first wakes up is fawn over her own reflection, “pin’d with vain desire” (Book IV, line 466); Eve seemed much like Narcissus in this moment, and would have met a similar fate had the voice of God not warned her against her vanity. Therefore, Eve’s disobedience began when she was first created, and has always been within her. The dream given to her by Satan not only reawoke her selfish feelings, but were “blown up with high conceits” and “engend’ring pride”(Book IV, line 809) by him as well. This dream left Eve asking why she was placed below Gods, instead of beside them; would God really “incense his ire/For such a petty trespass” rather than praise her “dauntless virtue” (Book IX, lines 692-694). Her desire to break her mold and wish for something more than Paradise leads her to seek independence from even her unsuspecting spouse, Adam. Adam faithfully points out that God made them for each other. This causes Eve to question if their “love/Can by his fraud be shaken or seduc’d” (Book IX, lines 286-287), saying that they cannot “suspect [their] happy state/Left so imperfect by the Maker wise/As not secure to single or combined” (Book IX, lines 337-339). Adam relents,

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