Essay on Satan in John Milton's Paradise Lost

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

Young children and adults across the world are taught that God is a hero above the rest. He is both omnipotent and omnipresent, almost like how Santa Clause is described as to little children. God does no wrong and is incapable of committing a sin; He is a picture perfect being. Satan is God’s archenemy and polar opposite, he’s popularly known for his evil ways and the fiery inferno that he inhabits, described in the book Dante’s Inferno. Rarely do people confuse the idea that God is the hero and Satan is the evildoer that needs to be extinguished from the world. I can safely say that in terms of Christianity and its beliefs there is no mistake to who the epic hero of the bible is. In John Milton’s poem “ Paradise Lost,” the lines

In Paradis Lost, Milton wrote that Satan used to be an angel of God. The devil believed that he was equal to the Lord and he wanted to be greater than him. For this, God banished him to hell. Milton 's physical description of Satan is interesting. Since he used to be an angel, he still had wings, his eyes were blazed and he had a scaly skin. Satan was also an immense creature; the usual giant, 21 feet tall. It is noted that Satan had only one head, but Milton 's depiction of him was this basic

But if Satan does only what God wants, there is no external proof that Satan indeed had exercised his will. Satan cannot be content with mere assent that looks like blind obedience. Dissent, on the other hand, is absolute proof of Satan's individual will being realized over against God's will. Satan's intent seems to be to prove the existence of his will rather than, as God wants, to prove the independently good content of his will. By dissent, Satan shows himself to be more concerned with himself than with God, with the appearance of free will than with its real content. Here is the second major constraint under which Satan lies: as a rule, he only recognizes that part of himself which is disobedient. This constraint, unlike the one natural to Satan's will, is self-imposed.

Can Satan -- a being, so evil that even as an Ethereal being of Heaven, who was cast out of God's grace - be a hero? John Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost is very much a romanticized character within the epic poem, and there has been much debate since the poem's publishing in 1667 over Milton's sentiments and whether Satan is the protagonist or a hero. As an angel in God the Father's Heaven, Satan rose up with a group of following of one-third of all of Heaven's angels and tried to unseat Jehovah from His station as the Divine Ruler. God cast Satan and the other rebellious angels out of Heaven and eternally damned them to Hell and to morph into demonic

he is also attempting to emulate the Father" (Bryson, 97). He battles "exalted as a God, Th‘ Apostate in his sun-bright chariot sat, Idol of majesty divine" (Milton, BK VI, 99-101). Lewis also claims that Milton wrote Satan to be intentionally skimming the edge of farce as "we know from his prose works that he believed everything detestable to be, in the long run, also ridiculous" ( CS Lewis XIII 95). As Milton was a devoutly religious man, it is possible to see how Satan's attempts to overthrow God would be so offensive, they would become absurd.

Dante, describing Satan in the final canto of The Inferno, states, “If he was once as beautiful as now he is hideous, and still turned on his Maker, (35) well may he be the source of every Woe! With what a sense of awe I saw his head towering above me! for it has three faces: one was in front,

First of all, there is the fact that, because Satan is not associated to one particular element considered evil, such as darkness, death or droughts, but rather to all the evils that exist, he can change and evolve with time. Since he created indirect evil, depending on which group is being studied, such as Christians for example, there will always be another group to consider different and satanic, be it the Romans, the Muslims, the Atheists or even other Christians. No matter the time in history, there will always be a new event, a new group, or a new element to demonize. The fact that Satan is able to evolve in such a way helps him remain relevant throughout history.

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.

“Satan is a portrait of rebellion gone wrong, but not of the wrongs of rebellion” (Bryson). Cromwell later diminished, and Charles II was bestowed to King of England, while Satan is still trying to destroy all of God’s creations, and diminish their good moral, and qualities.

Before he tried to overthrow God, Satan was an angel. All angels were treated equally and loved unconditionally until, one day, Satan’s pride and greed cause him to be cast out of Heaven. “Satan; who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven” (Book 1, p. 1945). This is an example of hubris where arrogance caused Satan and his demonic minions to be kicked out of

Satan implies that he being as great as God in every way except for his power; the freedom of Hell; and that he rules his new kingdom of Hell is significantly more important than the reality that he has been banished from heaven. This information shows us that Satan is very stubborn, yet he is optimistic.

the villain of everything. But Milton has used him as a hero who was doing something in

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 made the bed of his deviant divinity through his actions, and now he is obliged to lie in it. For Milton, Satan was the archetypal tyrant. His reign in hell is the express antitype of the reign of the Son of God by merit in Heaven. It is not the courage of Satan 's revolt against God that counts; it is the ambition which betrays him into what Arnold Stein calls "the trap of leadership" (Hughes 179).