An Analysis of the Characterization of Satan in Paradise Lost, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Literature

Download An Analysis of the Characterization of Satan in Paradise Lost and more Study Guides, Projects, Research Literature in PDF only on Docsity! Article JUROS 23 When Good, Bad, and Evil Don’t Matter: An Analysis of the Characterization of Satan in Paradise Lost Primary authors: Colin Adler (B.A. English, History) Abstract John Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost, has long been equally regarded as one of the most brilliant and most complicated works in the history of literature. While Milton himself claims to write in the poem in order to “justify the ways of God to men,” he sometimes appears to depict God in an unfavorable light while also giving Satan various qualities that can be said to make him a sympathetic or even heroic character, rather than simply portraying him as villainous and objectively evil (Black 1018). While scholars of Biblical literature tend to balk at the notion of a heroic Satan, precedents set by Grecian heroes such as Achilles and Od- ysseus in Homeric epics suggest that Lucifer would be considered worthy of emulation and praise in the ancient Hellenic hero cult. Ultimately, the characterization of Milton’s Satan as hero, villain, or something in-between depends on the cultural lens through which the poem is viewed. Article JUROS 24 Along with works such as Virgil’s Aeneid, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Dante’s In- ferno, John Milton’s Paradise Lost exists in the Pantheon of epic poetry. Milton’s work depicts in vivid detail the Biblical story of the Fall of Man and focuses much of its attention on the intentions of the fallen angel, Satan. Perhaps surprisingly, Satan—the universal symbol for evil incarnate and the embodiment of sin— has many admirable qualities about him that not only make it difficult for the reader to de- test him, but actually make him frighteningly relatable. Most of the poem is centered around the character Satan, bringing him directly into the role of the epic’s protagonist. But what has been debated since Paradise Lost was published in 1667 is Satan’s potential charac- terization as a hero. Throughout the poem, Satan shows that he possesses no shortage of attributes that are outright admirable and are shared with literary heroes across histo- ry. Milton’s Satan is charismatic, courageous, witty, convincing, a brilliant speaker, and has an indomitable will. Satan claims that God is a tyrant and that his rebellion against his creator was spurred by his unwillingness to be subju- gated, and in this sense he once again proves to be relatable or admirable to the reader. But is this enough for Satan to truly be considered a hero? Ultimately, the answer to that question will depend on the cultural lens through which Satan is viewed. Before one can attempt to categorize the character of Satan in Paradise Lost, he or she must first examine the various cultural defini- tions of what it means to be a hero. The word “hero” is often thrown around rather liber- ally in literature and has become something of a layman’s term for the “good guy” in any particular story. This definition of a hero is completely subjective and holds little weight as a literary term. Instead, the category of a “hero” is culturally variable and exists in many forms across different times and societies, often as a simple matter of perspective. For exam- ple, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus has been hailed as a hero for centuries and is honored with a federal holiday in the United States, but is seen as a ruthless conquistador and the leader of a genocide by the Native Americans who were already living on the land that he “discovered”. Likewise, the character of Satan in Paradise Lost may or may not be considered a hero depending upon the cultural lens through which he is viewed. One of the earliest and most influential definitions of a hero in all of literature was the Greek hero-cult largely defined by ancient Ho- meric literature. By far the greatest models of the hero-cult in Greek literature are Homer’s immortalized epics, The Iliad and The Od- yssey. These epic poems tell the tales of brave men who take up arms to fight for country, honor, family, glory, and plunder. But in the Greek hero-cult, the motivations of a warrior are of far less importance than his fortitude and feats of strength and courage. In The Iliad, Homer writes aristeias—dramatic scenes depicting a hero’s dominance in battle—for warriors on both sides of the war. Hector, the Trojan’s greatest warrior, is a brilliant leader, a brave fighter, and a morally good man with a loving mother and father, a devoted wife, and an infant son. But Hector’s good morals do nothing to protect him from the rage of the famed Greek warrior Achilles, whose godlike fighting ability is unmatched by any mortal as he cuts Hector down with ease in single Article JUROS 27 sidered a Hellenic hero (Herman, 15). If Para- dise Lost were to have been published in An- cient Greece, it is safe to say that Satan would have been praised as a hero without any equal. Perhaps the best illustration of Satan’s status as a Hellenic hero is the fact that he is strikingly similar to Odysseus. Like Odysseus, Satan is a natural leader and a brilliant speaker, as he is able to convince his companions to build Pandæmonium and to continue their defiance of God with ease. If one is to consider the events that transpired before the opening of Book One of Paradise Lost, it quickly becomes apparent that the fallen angels have no reason to follow or even respect Satan. Prior to Sa- tan’s rebellion these demons were all glorious angels living in heavenly perfection with God, and it was through choosing to follow Satan that they were cast out of heaven and into a life of damnation in the first place. Because of this, it would make more sense for the fallen angels to loath Satan than to continue to be led by him. But Satan is able to use his rhetoric to enlist the continued support of the demons and to make the most out of his unfortunate situation. And, like Odysseus, Satan is also de- ceitful and cunning. After his rebellion against God, Satan knows that he will never be able to defeat his foe in battle. Therefore, he under- takes a different form of defiance against the Lord and undertakes the corruption of God’s newest creation: mankind. Satan’s craftiness is on full display in the Garden of Eden, where he casts doubt into the minds of the naïve first man and woman, Adam and Eve, before trick- ing them into the sin that would result in the Fall of Man. Thus, Satan in Paradise Lost is a perfect character for analysis in the Greek he- ro-cult, and he embodies nearly every quality that a proper Hellenic hero should. But while he may be the perfect example of a Hellenic hero, Satan is undoubtedly the abso- lute embodiment of everything that a Biblical hero is not. While William Herman claimed that Satan “is defiant rather than disobedi- ent” through the lens of a Hellenic hero, the exact opposite is true through the lens of a Biblical one. Since Biblical heroes are worth their weight in gold only to the extent to which they are obedient and subservient to the will of God, “it is obvious that within the Biblical tradition Satan can lay no claims to heroism” (Herman 15). While Biblical heroes humble themselves and worship the Lord, Satan does the exact opposite, monologuing that “lifted up so high/ [he] ‘sdained subjection, and thought one step higher/ Would set [him] highest” (Milton 1051). In other words, Satan actually strove to be greater than God himself, an act of pride and defiance that would absolutely mortify a true Biblical hero. In “Heroic Virtue and the Divine Image in Paradise Lost,” John Steadman points out the fault of Satan’s moti- vations and the fraudulent nature of his seem- ingly heroic traits: “Satan’s seemingly heroic qualities—his super- human courage, ingenuity, and strength—are all exercised in direct opposition to God… Satan’s eminence is ultimately robbed of the quality of true virtue—and ultimately true her- oism—because it is manifested in disobedience to divine will, violation of divine law, and dis- regard of the supreme good” (Steadman 94). Clearly, this is enough to completely and ut- terly disqualify Satan from consideration as a Biblical hero. In fact, it is more than enough to allow for Satan to be characterized as the Article JUROS 28 greatest antagonist in all of Biblical tradition, as he ultimately takes it upon himself to not only disobey God’s will, but to corrupt the perfection of God’s creation and cause the Fall of Man. Determining Satan’s character in light of contemporary U.S. culture is certainly much trickier and far less clear-cut than the Hellenic and Biblical lenses, but ultimately Satan’s selfish motivations and willingness to corrupt innocents in pursuit of revenge make him unfit to wear the title “hero”. While Sa- tan definitely embodies virtues that Americans would find to be admirable and even heroic in another context, such as strength, courage, leadership, intelligence, and to a certain extent pride, John Shawcross makes a brilliant point in With Mortal Voice when he asserts that “Satan is hero only if one believes that God has been and is wrong in his treatment of the angels and particularly Satan, and perhaps in His ways toward man” (Shawcross, 33). Be- cause of the focus on doing the right thing for the right reasons, Satan must be justified, not only in his rebellion against God, but also his role in bringing about the Fall of Man. At first, it seems as this is the case, as Satan depicts his struggle with his Creator as a fight for freedom rather than a power-grab. In his speeches to the other fallen angels in hell, Satan character- izes God as a powerful tyrant, proclaiming that “glory never shall His wrath or might/ Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace/ With sup- plicant knee, and deify His power/ Who, from the terror of this arm, so late/ Doubted His empire” (Milton, 1019). Thus, in this excerpt, God is depicted as a vicious tyrant king who struck down Satan and the rebelling angels out of fear that his empire and reign were in jeopardy. If this is truly the reason why Satan made his daring rebellion against God, then it is safe to say that he would be seen as a hero by the American people who by the virtue of the creation of their own nation do glorify efforts to overthrow the rule of tyrannical monarchi- cal figures. However, upon arriving in Eden to undertake the corruption of mankind Sa- tan admits that “Pride and worse Ambition threw me down” and that “lifted up so high/ I ‘sdained subjection, and thought one step higher/ Would set me highest” (Milton, 1051). Thus, whether or not God was justified in his treatment of Satan and the other angels, Satan has made his rebellion for the wrong reasons. And even if God has been wrong in his treat- ment of Satan and the other angels, how is one to justify Satan’s role in the Fall of Man? Adam and Eve have no role in the conflict that took place before Book One of Paradise Lost and are living a peaceful—albeit occasionally boring and mundane—existence in the Gar- den of Eden, when Satan appears to tempt them to sin. Regardless of whether or not God is good or just in the epic, this is where Satan crosses the line according to the contempo- rary American definition of a hero. Whatever is happening between God and Satan should remain between God and Satan, as when Satan enters Eden and causes the Fall of Man, he causes great harm to what are essentially innocent and otherwise uninvolved individuals. If Adam and Eve were to become disillusioned with Eden and resentful of God as Satan was, it should have been by their own accord. But Satan essentially makes this decision for them in his pursuit of revenge against his Creator, and by introducing death and sin to humanity Satan has committed a morally reprehensible Article JUROS 29 act against a third party to his war against God. This willingness to harm innocents— along with the fact that Satan is truly rebelling against God in an effort to seize more power for himself—is enough to disqualify Satan from consideration as a hero in contemporary American culture. So how should Satan be defined as a character in Paradise Lost? Well, the definition or liter- ary archetypal role played by the Lord of Hell largely depends on the cultural lens through which he is viewed, but in any case his com- plexity as a character is undeniable. Works Cited 1. Nikolovska, Vanessa. “The Natures of Mon- sters and Heroes.” The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research 16 (2015): 26-35. Web. 9 Dec. 2019. http://fisherpub. sjfc.edu/ur/vol16/iss1/7. 2. Goethals, George R., and Scott T. Allison. “Making Heroes: The Construction of Courage, Competence, and Virtue.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Academ- ic Press, 13 June 2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2019. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti- cle/pii/B9780123942814000040. 3. Herman, William R. “Heroism and Par- adise Lost.” College English, vol. 21, no. 1, 1959, pp. 13–17. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/sta- ble/372433. 3. Black, Joseph. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview, 2018. Print. 4. Shawcross, John T. With Mortal Voice: The Creation of Paradise Lost. The University Press of Kentucky, 2015. pp. 44-52. Proj- ect MUSE. https://muse.jhu.edu/chap- ter/1530472/pdf. 5. Steadman, John M. “Heroic Virtue and the Divine Image in Paradise Lost.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 22, no. 1/2, 1959, pp. 88–105. JSTOR, www.jstor. org/stable/750561.