Paradise Lost Symbolism

Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is a complex character meant to be the evil figure in the epic poem. Whenever possible Satan attempts to undermine God and the Son of God who is the true hero of the story. Throughout the story Milton tells the readers that Satan is an evil character, he is meant not to have any redeeming qualities, and to be shown completely as an unsympathetic figure. Satan’s greatest sins are pride and vanity in thinking he can overthrow God, and in the early part of the poem he is portrayed as selfish while in Heaven where all of God’s angels are loved and happy. Satan’s journey starts out as a fallen angel with great stature, has the ability to reason and argue, but by Book X the anguish and pain he goes through is

In addition, here, as throughout much the poem, Satan continues to hedge the other side of the argument, insisting that he isn't forced to do evil by opposing God, but that "to do ill our sole delight" (160). This belief that he has a choice in the matter is tied up in the misconception that he was, and continues to be, equal to God, as "reason hath equall'd" (248) them.  Quite to the contrary, Milton makes it clear that "the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs" (211-3).  And it is only Satan's perverted sense of reason that convinces him that "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n" (254-5).  He believes that his reason and contemplation will help him discover "How overcome this dire Calamity" (189), or failing that, change his will such that it fits his current circumstance.  This is the classic method of the delusional and disenfranchised, holding out hope for change, but at the same time putting forth the belief that the current situation can actually be beneficial.  The sophistry has shown through Satan's speech, as he declares that there is no way for God to beat him, in his mind, when we know he is already defeated.

However, craving independence from God ferociously backfires on Satan when he finds out that even after leaving hell, he cannot escape it, “which way [he] [flies] is Hell, [he] [himself] is Hell,” (IV, 75). Satan finds his way to revolt against and separate from God to overrule Heaven and become king, instead however, he takes on the role of the representation of all evil which is evidently seen in his interactions with Eve.

Satan was unwilling to back down, no matter how great God’s power. This mission stands out as an element of the epic hero. In almost all epics written the hero has to stifle past guarded boundaries in order to complete goals. Satan’s bravery in trying to learn answers concerning his existence in heaven and his damnation to Hell is noble. Determination to derive truth is an admirable quality. Though his bitterness creates negative characteristics, his core purpose is not entirely blasphemous. He considers all that is placed before him and says in book 1, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven” (263). He knows that Hell is a place of doom and torture, but he is committed to living there with dignity and hopes to eventually rise above the creator and gain back what he feels he is entitled to as a living being. This acceptance of his conditions and determination to overcome makes him the underdog that an audience cannot help but root for. Everyone knows what it’s like to be in dark place with no visible escape. People want to be able to relate to a character that remains hopeful. In this sense Satan seems very heroic and critics have even gone as far as interpreting God as the villain.

The beginning of book I of “Paradise Lost” starts off with the post war against God. The speaker begins with a description of Satan on his back alongside the other rebellious angels, chained on a lake of fire. The speaker then revisits the war by addressing Satan as Lucifer, the greatest angel, and going to say how Lucifer and his compatriots lost the war against God and was cast from heaven to the fires of hell. Then the story picks up with Satan and Beelzebub, Satan’s second in command, conversation about the war with God. Even though they’re being punished by God and it’s not looking too good on their behalf, they still feel courageous and alive. Beelzebub states, it’s “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” (263). Their motivation was to seek vengeance on God by turning all good things

“O Hell!” Satan’s opening exclamation of frustration immediately alerts readers to Satan’s state of mind. As Satan gazes on Adam and Eve, he is struck by their blissful state, which sends him into a spiral of confusion as he slightly reconsiders his plan to destroy them. To himself, Satan addresses the pair; he begins regretful and with pity for Adam and Eve. He later shifts in tone to vengeful, envious, and angry. Further exemplifying Satan’s contrasting attitudes, Milton uses antonymous words of emotion throughout the passage. By the end of passage, Milton solidifies Satan’s hardening of heart and ends the struggle that has been festering inside Satan since his first act of rebellion against God. Milton successfully uses both the shift in tone and the emotional diction to reveal Satan’s stormy internal conflict.

   Satan's primary operational problem in Paradise Lost is his lack of obedience. The fundamental misunderstanding which leads to Satan's disobedience is his separation of free will from God's hierarchical power. In the angel Raphael's account, Satan tells his dominions, "Orders and Degrees/Jarr not with liberty" (5.792-93). Tempting as this differentiation seems, Satan is mistaken. Free will and hierarchical power are not mutually exclusive, as Satan suggests, but overlapping concepts. Even though Satan has been created with sufficient freedom to choose to disobey, he tacitly acknowledges God's sovereignty when he exercises his choice. Satan is constrained existentially, from the outset, by

Overall I think in the poem “Paradise Lost” Satan’s character was meant to be more attractive to the readers so they would also be seduced by his ways. His character was meant to be more liked then he usually is in things such as the Bible. He was not necessarily meant to be looked at as the hero, but he was described in such a way that it tempted the readers to like him. Just like Satan lured people in and made them do the wrong things Milton lured in his readers to like Satan. He did such a great job that I felt sorry for Satan. But he also made us see everything from Satan view. Which basically

John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, has been the subject of criticism and interpretation through many years; these interpretations concur in that Adam and Eve are the sufferers of the poem, and it is their blight to lose Paradise because of their disobedience; however, their exile is merely a plight brought by Satan, and it is he who suffers exile before any others. Satan changes from Book I of the poem to Book XII; his introduction is heroic and grand, appearing as a hero rebelling against an unjust God. But by the finalization of Milton’s poem, Satan is a burnt shell of himself and, though ruler of Pandemonium, he sits in a throne in the lowest pit from God’s light. Satan’s exile brings forth the salvation of mankind and his own regressive transformation; tying in with the theme of disobedience, Satan’s exile gives

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, surely we have come to ponder upon the makeup of Satan’s attractable character—his rebellious, seductive, almost “bad-ass” attitude—a case of admirable evil. But let us not forget his ambition, his strive to weld the image of God. We have seen many moments throughout where we get Satan’s ground for imitating the image of God: “…In imitation of that Mount whereon / Messiah was declar’d…” (V 764-65). But why does Satan do this? What is it in Satan that causes him to “look up” to God? Is God a tyrant yet a role model to Satan? I propose that Satan’s drive is something more than just an act of pretending; maybe, it is rather a means of trying to grasp what he has been taken away from him. Or, we can say that Satan was more. Perhaps he came to existence not in the mold of angel, but as a divine tool. There must be a reason as to: why Satan was considered God’s “first and favorite angel”? This seems to suggest that Satan is, originally, at some level of divinity; an experiment of God’s that was put to the test (or is a test)—a divine prototype.

When a person hears Satan, a streak of fear, and the thought of evil arises. People fear Satan, and think of him as evil, but in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, he displays a thought of the Father being the evil being, and Satan a tragic hero. In Paradise Lost, Book 1 and 2, the minor areas where God is shown, He is displayed as hypocritical. He contradicts himself by creating the humans to be of free will, but when Satan displays free will, he is shunned. Satan could be described in many terms, and by many people, but all can be disputed. According to my sources, Satan is displayed as the hero, while God is the evil deity, and Milton was wrong for writing Him as so. In this essay, I will show my thoughts on the subject of Satan as an evil

<br>There are other speeches of war in the epic that arouse the reader. One of the most significant is after Satan has made a meeting in the new Capitol of Hell, Pandemonium. "To have built Heaven high towers; Nor did he scape \ By all his engines but was headlong sent \ With industrious crew to build in Hell" (Milton 55). Following the rapid building, all the fallen angels gather for their meeting asking shall it be war or peace. "Their rising all at one was as the sound \ Of thunder heard remote. Towards him they bend \ With awful reverence prone, and as a god" (Milton 79). When his followers cheer Satan on, the reader notices how much he likes the attention. This is another sign of how Milton shows the significant role that Satan's pride plays in his decisions. In many different encounters Satan lets his pride interfere with his actions. In doing this, Satan begins to worry only about himself and the opinions his followers hold of him. Satan continues with the speech saying, "Should we again provoke \ Our Stronger, some worse way his wrath may find

Milton, through Satan's soliloquies in Book 4, shows that Satan's idea of free will is a facade, and God carefully manipulates him to fulfill his plan of Adam and Eve's fall. While speaking, Satan inadvertently places doubts in the reader's mind that his will is free. Satan proves through his actions that God created him to act in a very narrow range, even though he himself does not realize this. The combination of pride, ambition, abhorrence of subordination, and ignorance of his own state as a puppet lead to perpetually diminishing stature and divinity.

Satan is indeed “Hurled headlong flaming from th’ethereal sky” (Book I, line 45) and into Hell where he will live in fire. But as a leader, and a true protagonist, Satan chooses to accept his situation and rise as a hero for the pack of fallen angels he has led from Heaven. Even if God is his enemy, at least he is not serving anyone. He possesses his own heaven now, though not joyful and happy as the heaven he was just expelled from, “Farewell happy fields/Where joy for ever dwells: hail horrors, hail/Infernal world, …/ Receive thy new possessor” (Book I, lines 249-253). Satan makes Hell his Heaven with his mind, as he says, “The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n” (Book I, lines 254-255). Satan acknowledges that he has made a Hell of his previous Heaven, but he also uses that reasoning to make Hell into his own Heaven. His anti-heroic qualities are apparent, though, when he tells his followers in Book I, “To do aught good never will be our task/ But ever to do ill our soul delight” (lines 159-160). It cannot be forgotten that Satan is evil by his creation and through his free will. God created Satan with all of his imperfections but makes it clear that he had a choice by

Satan has a relationship with his “evil” followers much like a king to his noble subjects (or God to his followers). This is especially evident in lines 436-459, when Satan appears like a commoner until he ascends his throne and is suddenly clad in glory. The hundreds of thousands of demons are all condensed around the capital of Hell, waiting with bated breath for “their great adventurer from the search / of foreign worlds,” “whom they wished beheld, /