Milton’s Epic Disagreement
...liefs, or any moral belief at that. It is even debatable who the protagonist is. If it is not Satan, who is it? Satan does come off as a bad being. He does not lie to Adam or Eve when he persuades them to eat the fruit. He merely tells them what will happen if they eat it, but fails to mention that God will punish them for eating the fruit. Satan says they will become, “opened and cleared, and ye shall be as Gods,/ Knowing both good and evil, as they know” (Book 9 708-709). This is true because once they eat the fruit they begin to wear clothes, hide when they have sex, and know that the punishments that God bestows on them are not rewards for there actions. Satan is either the protagonist or the epic hero and either way, Milton either goes against his beliefs or fails to create an epic. A common counterargument is that work and belief are separate from one another. This is true but in writing this piece, Milton is attempting to accomplish great feats in both his work and his personal beliefs. Therefore the two have to agree with one another to succeed. He is also contradicting his beliefs without making an epic. He says things that if they were as they should be it would not affect the epic status of the poem but seriously contradict his own person beliefs. Eve says, “let us divide our labors, thou where choice/ leads thee, or where most needs” (Book 9 214-215). This is before God punishes the two for eating from the tree of knowledge and in the Bible, there is on work in the paradise of Eden. However, the two are working and gathering food. If the paradise was like the true one written in the Bible, the two would not have to work at all. In addition to this, Satan fools God and his soldiers on many accounts. He sneaks by the Archangel Gabriel to enter God’s own creation, Earth. In Book 4, Uriel warns Gabriel of the fiend that is roaming around looking for an entrance to Earth, which is what Gabriel guards. After being warned Gabriel talks to Satan and says, “Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the Fiend. / Satan, I know thy strength, and thou knowest mine;/ Neither our own, but given: What folly then/To boast what arms can do” (Book 4 1002-1006)? Not only does one of God’s own supreme angels know about the powerful Satan and apparently Satan’s strengths and weaknesses, but also Gabriel, the guardian to the gates to earth, knows Satan is coming and has time to prepare for Satan’s attempt to enter Earth. Nonetheless, Satan gets in and is able to corrupt man. If God is the almighty and his angels are nothing but the most pure and best defenders of good, how can the king of evil and emperor of Hell get into the newly created Garden of Eden to ruin one of Gods own creations. Furthermore, some of his newly created realms just do not make sense. Satan encounters a dark abyss that encompasses everything that has no order. It should have a large vast nothing, a concept humans cannot understand. However, Satan gets there and runs into the leader, Chaos. The narrator describes: Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread/ Wide on the wasteful Deep! With him enthroned/ Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,/ The consort of his reign; and by them stood/Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name/ Of Demogorgon; Rumour next, and Chance,/ And Tumult, and Confusion, all embroiled (Book 2 959-967) This describes the order to this abyss that is supposed to be absolute chaos. Chaos not only governs it but also has cohorts to help run a realm without order. Furthermore, Satan is able to persuade them to show him the right direction toward Earth by exposing their common devotion to evil. This shows that not only does this place have a governmental structure but it has a belief that causes them to make compromises. In Epics, the hero normally falls by the close of the poem. In the “Odyssey” it is a product of the Hero’s pride and belief in his own ability to do things he cannot do. In Milton’s “epic” Satan doesn’t even get punished by corrupting God’s most precious creation. In the Bible, God punishes the serpent not Satan. One might suggest Satan was already punished by being cast out of Heaven but god does not make his situation any worse than it is although the fallen angles believe it is as ba...