Paradise Lost Analysis

Anthropology is the study of humans in the past and present. Four subfields encompass anthropology; Archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, and physical anthropology. Archaeology is the study of human cultures in the past through material remains. These material remains include artifacts as well as architecture. Archaeologist can focus in prehistoric, historic, or classical archaeology. Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, is an example of archaeology in film. It is not the best example since Dr. Jones does not carry the correct equipment with him in the field (notebooks, trowel, shovel) nor does he take any notes when removing an artifact from a site. However, the film does portray how an archaeologist would dig in order to recover artifacts, like when Indy and the team find the

“...in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie,...” (Titus 1:2). The Bible gives the exact account of the history of the world.  John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a play off of the account given in The Bible of the war in Heaven, the creation of the world, and the fall of mankind.  He used the Bible as his inspiration and altered the events told in Genesis.  Though The Bible and Paradise Lost tell different accounts of the same story, they have many things in common, such as: Satan’s fall from Heaven, Adam and Eve’s fall from Paradise, and Adam and Eve’s dismissal from the garden.

It is hard to challenge what is seemingly normalized in society. Especially when looking into the realm of gender and sexuality, the male and female gender accompanied by heterosexuality is often just accepted and deemed as a social norm. Social institutions such as marriage, health-care laws, and the economic system benefit those who act within the heteronormative behaviors and appropriate gender expression. The gender binary, though, is far from accurate when assuming personal identity. If someone follows the social script of the femininity, he or she is expected to be female and possess female anatomy. The same goes for men: if he or she expresses masculinity he or she is expected to be male with male anatomy. Anything outside of this expectation is deemed socially unacceptable and subject to backlash. With the strong ties Western society has to the gender binary and appropriate gender roles, it is impossible to picture anything else. The Fa’fafine in Samoa, however, present a great challenge to the norms instilled in society.

With this settled upon as the relationship between good and evil, God proceeded to create man with a will primed towards obedience. He “supplied [man] with an abundance of all things…and had not burdened him with a large number of oppressive and difficult precepts, but…had given him one very brief and easy commandment to keep him in wholesome obedience” (XIV, 15). Man is from the beginning not created to seek knowledge through reason, as philosophy is a “burden” to him in Paradise. Augustine does not take the modern view that the fall was caused by the fatal flaw of curiosity in man, but rather, it is through a the irrational passion of pride like the pride of Satan—“with an ambition like that of a tyrant, he wished rather to gloat over subjects than be a subject himself”—that Adam and Eve are compelled to eat the forbidden fruit (XIV, 11). Reason is thus given no role in the story of Eden—it is a battle between self-will and God’s will, with self-will aligning with vice as its cause in man, and God’s will on the side of nature as its cause.

The Other Side of Paradise explores topics society refuses to speak about today. The author Staceyann Chin grows up as an outcast in Jamaica. The memoir begins with Chin at a very young age, her and her brother Delano both live with their grandma. Chin was left alone after being born by her mother and her father refuses to claim Chin as his own child. Throughout the memoir, Chin experiences sexism, classism, racism and strict religious standards. Furthermore, The Other side of Paradise, along with bell hook’s article, provides insight towards the roles of race and class, as we see in the memoirs characters, Staceyann and Delano.

In his book Member of the Club, Lawrence Otis Graham details the struggles of living as a black student at Princeton University. The chapter “The Underside of Paradise” opens up with a quote by Paul Robeson that compared living in Princeton to living in a southern plantation. Despite Graham attending Princeton three decades later, he found the quote to be accurate in describing his own student experience at the esteemed college where subtle but real racial segregation divided the campus. Through an analysis with the functionalist perspective, the tension and division between the white and black students can be understood as a result of organic solidarity. Ultimately, the two groups of people are part of an interconnected society. However, they are separated by issues of civil rights. Black students are able to relate to the injustices that take place in the world. However, white students are often unable to do so and remain indifferent and separated from the issues. An example can be seen when Graham participated in the antiapartheid movement and his roommate Steve confronted Graham and asked, “Please don’t get offended by this, but do blacks really think Americans are so terrible, and that things are so racist and unfair in the United States?” (Graham, 1995, p. 204). In a sense, the racial segregation could also be seen as a mechanism to prevent conflict between the two groups. As Emile Durkheim (1972) states, “The closer functions approach one-another, however, the more

Paradise Lost, Milton’s epic poem narrating “things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme” builds on the subject matter of the Biblical story of the Genesis and sings of Satan’s temptation of “man” and his consequent fall. Having invested the first three books in revealing the rebellion in heaven and fall of Lucifer, and the divine plans concerning the fate of human kind, it is in the fourth book that Milton first takes the reader to the hallowed setting of the best part of the action, the Garden of Eden, and introduces two of his arguable protagonists, Adam and Eve, the general parents of mankind.

Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot. (2010 AP Literature and Composition)

The portrayal of women in Milton’s Paradise Lost is very different from the other works. While women are often seen as being deceitful, devious, and smart, the depiction of Eve is different as she is seen as being dumber and more inferior to Adam in all areas besides beauty. This portrayal of Eve assisted in the progression of Paradise Lost as Eve ate the forbidden apple after being persuaded by Satan to eat the apple. While the incident caused Adam to also disobey God, it created a bond between Adam and Eve that was greater than before the incident when they were considered pure. The bond between Adam and Eve that is improved through the learning of new emotions, trying new things, and the

Milton's purpose in Paradise Lost is nothing less than to assert eternal providence and justify the ways of God to men - a most daunting task.  For Milton to succeed in his endeavour, he has to unravel a number of theologiccal thorns that have troubled christian philosophers for centuries.  Since his epic poem is, essentially, a twelve book argument building to a logical conclusion - the 'justification of the ways of God to men' - he will necessarily have to deal with these dogmatic problems, and, in doing so, reveal his own take on the Christian theology.

In addition to this, Milton attempts to demonstrate Eve as being one "inferior, in the mind / And inward faculties" compared to Adam (8.541-2). Milton claims that Eve abandons the conversation between Adam and Raphael because she cannot comprehend what he and Adam are discussing. She rather would have Adam explain it to her later as she cannot understand their "thoughts abstruse" unless they are "intermixed with grateful digressions" and "conjugal caresses" of Adam (8.39-57). This idea, present in both works, removes woman from the same hierarchical plane of spirituality with man. This states that she must look to him for an understanding of God. Milton's implication of Eve's spiritual inferiority is recognized here as Eve does not hear directly from the angel Raphael, but learns of the "forbidden" from her husband. This demonstrates the authors adherence to biblical text as he supports the idea that Adam is

Now I will talk about how milton portrayed eve in his writing. Milton sees Eve as Narcissus. For many hundreds of years, the female has been seen as the weaker sex the gentle sex, the docile sex, even the less intelligent sex. And this is because, for many hundreds of years, the societies that humanity lived in were based mainly on survival. Necessity of women remained in the home in order to further the mere survival of the species, while men were in charge of providing for this family unit. Through this situation, men developed an egocentric view of life, seeing themselves as the centers of their own microcosms. Humans always look for someone else on whom to place the blame any man would be pleased if he were able to place all of the evil of humanity on to a poor decision made by a woman. This view of Eve makes her a flat and undeveloped character. She is vain, falls in love with herself at first sight in the glimmering pool, and can barely stand to tear herself away from the water to be with Adam. As usual, this episode of her self-absorbed conceit only contributes to the already growing compassion for Adam,

First, Eve was able to convince Adam to eat the fruit from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. Although Adam was cold and bitter that Eve disobeyed God’s orders, he said that “We [Adam and Eve] are one, One flesh: to lose thee were to lose myself” (Milton 223). Eve agrees Adam by saying, “One heart, one soul in both whereof good proof This day affords, declaring thee resolved Rather than death or aught than death more dread Shall separate us, linked in love so dear” (223). Their companionship is so strong that they find it unbearable to lose the other. Their human nature has drawn them together as one in their companionship. It is evident through these lines in the poem that their companionship was completely equal and

     In Paradise Lost, the consequences of the fall and the change in relations between man and nature can best be discussed when we look at Milton's pre-fall descriptions of Eden and its inhabitants. Believing that fallen humans could never fully understand what life was like in Eden and the relationships purely innocent beings shared, Milton begins his depiction of Paradise and Adam and Eve through the fallen eyes of Satan:

In his epic poem titled Paradise Lost, John Milton describes his work as a process to justify “the ways of God to men”. In terms of the personal and individual, Milton’s main concern was between a man’s relationship and God. With this, comes the very idea of free will itself. One can define free will as the ability and freedom to choose between different possible courses of action. Not only is free will portrayed in Adam and Eve, but is also associated with God, Christ, Satan and the fallen angels. Milton enables these characters to make their own choices and have their own consequences based on their own decisions and free will. Throughout the poem, John Milton supports this concept of acting freely under God, he shows the reader that choosing ones own actions freely and independently is way more substantial and becomes more meaningful to ones self. Each characters free will in this poem helps explain why having this freedom of choice is so important and crucial in expressing and becoming ones self.