This is my final essay for my H201 English class. It's on Paradise Lost and it's kinda long, about 6 pages (very small type, so maybe more like 8 in LJ). It's not nearly as polished as it should be, because as usual I waited till the last minute, and perhaps it's not as concise or well-phrased as I want it to be... But it's done.
Just so you know what i've been obsessed with lately.
Kathryn White
Prof. K. Peterson
English H201
Winter Final Essay
Milton’s Satan: Tragic Hero in Disguise
Milton’s epic drama Paradise Lost has long been held as one of the great works of English literature, not least because of its portrayals of Adam, Eve, and Satan. The fallen angel is far and away the most interesting character in the entire work, easily surpassing both Adam and the somewhat more intriguing Eve in his brilliant rhetoric and impassioned performance in the face of hopeless doom. He most closely resembles the tragic heroes of Homeric and Aristotelian dramas, and is also comparable to several of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, such as Macbeth, though it is questionable whether Milton drew on the Bard as an influence. While Milton does not intend to make Satan the hero, as he attempts to make clear from the very first stanza of his mind-bogglingly grandiose epic, the “son of the morning” is portrayed as having a multitude of characteristics we normally associate with the protagonist of a story, including charisma, brilliance, beauty, fortitude, courage, and leadership, to say the least. He presents eloquent, moving arguments for his case, arguments that the reader must sometimes really struggle to remember are illogical and therefore false. But it is during Satan’s moments of self-recognition (the key moment in any epic tragedy, such as when Oedipus recognizes that he killed his own father and married his mother), when he curses himself and his own prideful ambition and laments the fall from an Eternal Love that he sorely misses, that he reaches out to us most, for in these moments Satan seems almost heart-breakingly human. Intelligent enough to recognize his own folly, and compassionate enough to experience anguish over the wrongness of his choices, but too proud and vain to take the steps necessary to correct his mistakes, Satan appears as a (very human) scorned lover, taking out his grieved pain on the hapless new recipients of God’s love---the love that he himself has lost, through no fault of Adam and Eve’s. In short, through his portrayal of Satan as the most sympathetic, complex character in the entire work, surpassing Adam and Eve, the Son of God, and even God himself in the fascination he presents for the reader, Milton makes it a very difficult proposition indeed to classify Satan as anything but a tragic hero. For the defining characteristic of a tragic hero is that despite all the wonderful qualities they possess, they do something very, very wrong, and in this, Satan excels.
From the moment Satan comes hurtling into our field of view, he‘s a bundle of paradoxes. Milton makes it quite clear (temporarily) that Satan is the villian: “ (he) Against the throne and monarchy of God/ Raised impious war in Heav’n and battle proud/ With vain attempt” (Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th Ed, pg 1819). But no one is going to argue with Milton that rising up against the Lord was wrong, not unless they’re willing to argue with the whole of the Old and New Testament. Pride has always been identified as the flaw that caused Satan’s (or Lucifer, or Lucifiel, or Samael, or any number of other names the fallen angel had before the fall, according to various translated texts) downfall, a very common tragic flaw for heroes to possess that causes their meteoric fall from grace. Then the Arch-Fiend opens his mouth, and out comes beautiful, moving rhetoric. From his very first speech to his fallen compatriot Beelzebub, Satan’s arguments are compelling, as he declares his (supposed and/or fleeting) lack of regret for the actions that brought them to Hell, and first shows his indomitable will and courage, two characteristics we associate with “the good guys”:
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else to not be overcome? (105-109, pg 1820)
And despite his words, meant to give heart to the other fallen angel, Satan is doing what any good leader should do and hiding his own anguish for the sake of his follower’s morale: “So spake th’apostate angel, though in pain/ Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair” (125-26, pg 1821). And while he’s not exactly pleased with their new home (to make a vast understatement), Satan decides that since Life has handed him a huge lemon, he’s going to make lemonade, and declares with the most-quoted line from PL that it is “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav’n” (263, pg 1824). But again, despite his courageous speeches and outward semblance of disregard for the awful situation he and his angels now find themselves in, Satan reveals himself as other than the hard-hearted fiend it would be so to label as evil. Upon looking over the ruined glory of his comrades-in-arms, and knowing that they are fallen and cast out from grace for him and him alone, Satan tries three times to speak to the assembled angels, and each time is overcome with tears of grief and remorse for the pain he has caused his followers. One supposes that Milton does such a good job of portraying Satan as noble, compassionate, and brilliant, among other things, for the sake of showing what happens when such glory falls victim to its own prey. But he does almost too good a job---it’s hard to hate a character who weeps for the pain he causes others and is described as still being beautiful beyond belief.
For Milton does describe Satan as beautiful. Ruined, yes, divested of his former blessed light, but Satan was an Archangel in Heaven, perhaps even the first and highest (as some sections of PL hint at) and such glory cannot be so completely wiped away:
His form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than Archangel ruined, and th’excess
Of glory obscured […] (591-94, pg 1831)
Admittedly beauty does not inherently qualify one as being either good or evil, and in fact is often the indicator of such evil in countless stories, but it would certainly help if Milton didn’t also persist in describing Satan with “brows of dauntless courage” or having eyes that “cast signs of remorse and passion” (602-605, 1831).
The scene that follows shortly after this---the Stygian council---is a murky proposition as well. As usual, Satan’s rhetoric is astounding, but it is during this scene that Milton makes it quite clear that the fallen angel is misguided. Satan presents a false dilemma, one of the classic logical fallacies, such that it appears to the angels that they have only two choices, open war or covert war, which is really no choice at all. He also obscenely parodies the Son of God volunteering to take on the price of man’s sin in order to allow men to obtain grace, by volunteering to go alone to Earth on a mission of revenge. At this moment, Satan appears both courageous and self-serving, displaying both leadership qualities and duplicitousness. But at the same time, this is a prime example of Satan’s tragic flaw as a tragic hero: his obdurate pride prevents him from seeing the illogic of his own arguments and ideas, however brilliantly put together those arguments may be, and drives him further down the road he has carved out for himself. The core of his false reasoning always comes back to the fact that Satan, save during his apparent moments when he comes out of self-denial, falsely believes that God has fore-ordained everything that happened, and that God chose for him to fall from grace, and that he has no choice in any matter. At least, this is what Milton tries to portray. But Satan does have moments where it seems he realizes that everything that has come to pass is his own fault, the fault of his vainglorious pride and stubbornness (both all-too-human characteristics).
We jump ahead to book 5 to see Satan at his rhetorical, charismatic finest, when he gives a speech to the assembled angels before the fall. He makes an argument of equality and freedom from tyranny, beautifully paraphrasing republican theory against earthly monarchy that Milton himself agreed with, an argument against monarchial rule:
Who can in reason then or right assume
Monarchy over such as live by right
His equals, if in such power and splendor less,
In freedom equal? (794-97, pg 1912)
This argument speaks especially to modern readers, who are well-accustomed to debates about freedom and justice and liberty. Again, Milton shows that Satan’s arguments are fallacious by introducing a foil to the Archangel, the Spirit Abdiel, who denounces the other’s arguments as not applicable to the current situation: there is no way the angels can be equal to the almighty being who created them. Satan counters with what is clearly fallacious reasoning, claiming that since the angels don’t remember being created, they must have created themselves. This is Satan’s most blatant act of logical fallacy, and by necessity his most key one. And even in his moment of monstrous error, his prideful ignorance of the true nature of things, his charisma and charm persuades a third part of the Host of Heaven that he is correct, all of whom follow him down to doom.
So clearly Satan has a tragic flaw, his overwhelming pride, and obviously it causes his meteoric fall from grace and glory. The other remaining prerequisite for classification of a tragic hero is the moment of recognition, or else the fall has no significance and nothing is learned, no pain is felt. We’ve already established that Satan feels remorse and pain, at the very least for his followers. But it’s in Satan’s “me miserum” soliloquy near the beginning of Book 4 that the fallen archangel demonstrates that he realizes the folly of his ways and grieves for his sins against God. He recognizes that he was an ungrateful, proud wretch:
Ah wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none, nor was his service hard
………………………………...................
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; what burden then? (42-45; 55-57, pg 1875)
But more important yet than recognizing his sin, is Satan’s recognition of the fact that the sin was caused of his own free will, and was in no way forced upon him by a just and loving God:
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst; ………………………………..........
Nay cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! (66-67; 71-73, pg. 1875)
Satan even recognizes his own flaw, his pride, and sees that his vanity is the only thing that prevents him from obtaining God’s grace once more. He could submit and beg for forgiveness, but such is his pride, his dread of shame in the eyes of his followers, that he deems both beneath him. His grief turns to bitterness as he contemplates the new creatures that now receive the love that once warmed him and his compatriots, and he hardens his heart as best as he can, swearing that since no forgiveness or relief from pain is possible for him, he will cause as much grief to God and to his new creations as possible. If he has to go down, he’s going to go down fighting, and take as many people as he can with him---a sentiment that has been expressed by patriots and heroic rebels (such as William Wallace) throughout human kind’s history.
But even after his resolution to work for nothing but harm towards man and God, Satan finds himself shaken when confronted with the sight of the innocent Adam and Eve. The “tyrant’s plea,” as this passage is referred to, is again controversial, since we have to wonder if Satan is speaking truth when he speaks rhetorically to the pair. But it fits well with the rest of what we have seen of Satan’s nature. He feels remorse for what he feels he must do, saying he “could love” Adam and Eve, were the circumstances different, “so lively shines/ In them divine resemblance” of the Lord God (363-364, pg 1882). He even feels pity for them, knowing all too well the anguish they will feel at the loss of God’s light, and is loathe to take out his revenge on such harmless, innocent creatures who have done him no harm. There is no excuse for what Satan does, it is true, no matter how badly he supposedly feels, but his anguished speech creates conflict in the reader on his state of being, if nothing more. It definitely presents a different picture of the Devil than what we may be used to: compassion for the creatures he’s about to wreak havoc on, and grief in knowing that he will be even more damned by taking his revenge on such helpless, innocent beings, but a prideful determination to continue, no matter what the cost.
Throughout all of PL, Milton makes it abundantly clear that Satan is, in essence, wrong: wrong in his assumptions about predestination, wrong about God’s grace, wrong about the options he has left, wrong in pretty much all the choices he makes. Yet he also persists in painting a compelling portrait of a creature that, though created long before humans ever walked a planet called Earth, bears startling resemblance to our vulnerabilities and insecurities, our all-too-flawed existence. All of these play into the definition of what a tragic hero is supposed to be: a heroic, compelling figure with whom the reader (or viewer) identifies and feels sympathy, who has a tragic flaw that causes his catastrophic fall from grace and glory, complete with a moment of self-recognition of their sins. Paradise Lost even has the final prerequisite: the tragic hero’s fall from grace eventually culminates in a re-establishment of the societal or status quo. Essentially, Satan (without meaning to) puts things back to the way they were supposed to be. All of his mistakes and prideful vainglory, all of his actions against God and man, though concocted and acted upon by his own free will, play into God’s ultimate plan: the attainment of grace for Man, made all the more sweet and valuable for the danger of Hell hanging over man’s head if they choose the same path Satan did. But no such possibility of redemption exists for Satan, not unless he gives up his pride; no Son of God will step forward to take sin and death upon his own head for Satan’s part, to allow him access back into Heaven. And that is the ultimate tragedy of Paradise Lost: not that Man falls from original grace and perfection, for man has an eventual happy ending, but that Satan creates his own tragedy, closing his only remaining door to real happiness. God only knows if he’ll ever change his mind.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand now I need to get to CLASS BECAUSE I AM LAAAAAAAAAATE
Just so you know what i've been obsessed with lately.
Kathryn White
Prof. K. Peterson
English H201
Winter Final Essay
Milton’s Satan: Tragic Hero in Disguise
Milton’s epic drama Paradise Lost has long been held as one of the great works of English literature, not least because of its portrayals of Adam, Eve, and Satan. The fallen angel is far and away the most interesting character in the entire work, easily surpassing both Adam and the somewhat more intriguing Eve in his brilliant rhetoric and impassioned performance in the face of hopeless doom. He most closely resembles the tragic heroes of Homeric and Aristotelian dramas, and is also comparable to several of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, such as Macbeth, though it is questionable whether Milton drew on the Bard as an influence. While Milton does not intend to make Satan the hero, as he attempts to make clear from the very first stanza of his mind-bogglingly grandiose epic, the “son of the morning” is portrayed as having a multitude of characteristics we normally associate with the protagonist of a story, including charisma, brilliance, beauty, fortitude, courage, and leadership, to say the least. He presents eloquent, moving arguments for his case, arguments that the reader must sometimes really struggle to remember are illogical and therefore false. But it is during Satan’s moments of self-recognition (the key moment in any epic tragedy, such as when Oedipus recognizes that he killed his own father and married his mother), when he curses himself and his own prideful ambition and laments the fall from an Eternal Love that he sorely misses, that he reaches out to us most, for in these moments Satan seems almost heart-breakingly human. Intelligent enough to recognize his own folly, and compassionate enough to experience anguish over the wrongness of his choices, but too proud and vain to take the steps necessary to correct his mistakes, Satan appears as a (very human) scorned lover, taking out his grieved pain on the hapless new recipients of God’s love---the love that he himself has lost, through no fault of Adam and Eve’s. In short, through his portrayal of Satan as the most sympathetic, complex character in the entire work, surpassing Adam and Eve, the Son of God, and even God himself in the fascination he presents for the reader, Milton makes it a very difficult proposition indeed to classify Satan as anything but a tragic hero. For the defining characteristic of a tragic hero is that despite all the wonderful qualities they possess, they do something very, very wrong, and in this, Satan excels.
From the moment Satan comes hurtling into our field of view, he‘s a bundle of paradoxes. Milton makes it quite clear (temporarily) that Satan is the villian: “ (he) Against the throne and monarchy of God/ Raised impious war in Heav’n and battle proud/ With vain attempt” (Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th Ed, pg 1819). But no one is going to argue with Milton that rising up against the Lord was wrong, not unless they’re willing to argue with the whole of the Old and New Testament. Pride has always been identified as the flaw that caused Satan’s (or Lucifer, or Lucifiel, or Samael, or any number of other names the fallen angel had before the fall, according to various translated texts) downfall, a very common tragic flaw for heroes to possess that causes their meteoric fall from grace. Then the Arch-Fiend opens his mouth, and out comes beautiful, moving rhetoric. From his very first speech to his fallen compatriot Beelzebub, Satan’s arguments are compelling, as he declares his (supposed and/or fleeting) lack of regret for the actions that brought them to Hell, and first shows his indomitable will and courage, two characteristics we associate with “the good guys”:
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else to not be overcome? (105-109, pg 1820)
And despite his words, meant to give heart to the other fallen angel, Satan is doing what any good leader should do and hiding his own anguish for the sake of his follower’s morale: “So spake th’apostate angel, though in pain/ Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair” (125-26, pg 1821). And while he’s not exactly pleased with their new home (to make a vast understatement), Satan decides that since Life has handed him a huge lemon, he’s going to make lemonade, and declares with the most-quoted line from PL that it is “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav’n” (263, pg 1824). But again, despite his courageous speeches and outward semblance of disregard for the awful situation he and his angels now find themselves in, Satan reveals himself as other than the hard-hearted fiend it would be so to label as evil. Upon looking over the ruined glory of his comrades-in-arms, and knowing that they are fallen and cast out from grace for him and him alone, Satan tries three times to speak to the assembled angels, and each time is overcome with tears of grief and remorse for the pain he has caused his followers. One supposes that Milton does such a good job of portraying Satan as noble, compassionate, and brilliant, among other things, for the sake of showing what happens when such glory falls victim to its own prey. But he does almost too good a job---it’s hard to hate a character who weeps for the pain he causes others and is described as still being beautiful beyond belief.
For Milton does describe Satan as beautiful. Ruined, yes, divested of his former blessed light, but Satan was an Archangel in Heaven, perhaps even the first and highest (as some sections of PL hint at) and such glory cannot be so completely wiped away:
His form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than Archangel ruined, and th’excess
Of glory obscured […] (591-94, pg 1831)
Admittedly beauty does not inherently qualify one as being either good or evil, and in fact is often the indicator of such evil in countless stories, but it would certainly help if Milton didn’t also persist in describing Satan with “brows of dauntless courage” or having eyes that “cast signs of remorse and passion” (602-605, 1831).
The scene that follows shortly after this---the Stygian council---is a murky proposition as well. As usual, Satan’s rhetoric is astounding, but it is during this scene that Milton makes it quite clear that the fallen angel is misguided. Satan presents a false dilemma, one of the classic logical fallacies, such that it appears to the angels that they have only two choices, open war or covert war, which is really no choice at all. He also obscenely parodies the Son of God volunteering to take on the price of man’s sin in order to allow men to obtain grace, by volunteering to go alone to Earth on a mission of revenge. At this moment, Satan appears both courageous and self-serving, displaying both leadership qualities and duplicitousness. But at the same time, this is a prime example of Satan’s tragic flaw as a tragic hero: his obdurate pride prevents him from seeing the illogic of his own arguments and ideas, however brilliantly put together those arguments may be, and drives him further down the road he has carved out for himself. The core of his false reasoning always comes back to the fact that Satan, save during his apparent moments when he comes out of self-denial, falsely believes that God has fore-ordained everything that happened, and that God chose for him to fall from grace, and that he has no choice in any matter. At least, this is what Milton tries to portray. But Satan does have moments where it seems he realizes that everything that has come to pass is his own fault, the fault of his vainglorious pride and stubbornness (both all-too-human characteristics).
We jump ahead to book 5 to see Satan at his rhetorical, charismatic finest, when he gives a speech to the assembled angels before the fall. He makes an argument of equality and freedom from tyranny, beautifully paraphrasing republican theory against earthly monarchy that Milton himself agreed with, an argument against monarchial rule:
Who can in reason then or right assume
Monarchy over such as live by right
His equals, if in such power and splendor less,
In freedom equal? (794-97, pg 1912)
This argument speaks especially to modern readers, who are well-accustomed to debates about freedom and justice and liberty. Again, Milton shows that Satan’s arguments are fallacious by introducing a foil to the Archangel, the Spirit Abdiel, who denounces the other’s arguments as not applicable to the current situation: there is no way the angels can be equal to the almighty being who created them. Satan counters with what is clearly fallacious reasoning, claiming that since the angels don’t remember being created, they must have created themselves. This is Satan’s most blatant act of logical fallacy, and by necessity his most key one. And even in his moment of monstrous error, his prideful ignorance of the true nature of things, his charisma and charm persuades a third part of the Host of Heaven that he is correct, all of whom follow him down to doom.
So clearly Satan has a tragic flaw, his overwhelming pride, and obviously it causes his meteoric fall from grace and glory. The other remaining prerequisite for classification of a tragic hero is the moment of recognition, or else the fall has no significance and nothing is learned, no pain is felt. We’ve already established that Satan feels remorse and pain, at the very least for his followers. But it’s in Satan’s “me miserum” soliloquy near the beginning of Book 4 that the fallen archangel demonstrates that he realizes the folly of his ways and grieves for his sins against God. He recognizes that he was an ungrateful, proud wretch:
Ah wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none, nor was his service hard
………………………………...................
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; what burden then? (42-45; 55-57, pg 1875)
But more important yet than recognizing his sin, is Satan’s recognition of the fact that the sin was caused of his own free will, and was in no way forced upon him by a just and loving God:
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst; ………………………………..........
Nay cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! (66-67; 71-73, pg. 1875)
Satan even recognizes his own flaw, his pride, and sees that his vanity is the only thing that prevents him from obtaining God’s grace once more. He could submit and beg for forgiveness, but such is his pride, his dread of shame in the eyes of his followers, that he deems both beneath him. His grief turns to bitterness as he contemplates the new creatures that now receive the love that once warmed him and his compatriots, and he hardens his heart as best as he can, swearing that since no forgiveness or relief from pain is possible for him, he will cause as much grief to God and to his new creations as possible. If he has to go down, he’s going to go down fighting, and take as many people as he can with him---a sentiment that has been expressed by patriots and heroic rebels (such as William Wallace) throughout human kind’s history.
But even after his resolution to work for nothing but harm towards man and God, Satan finds himself shaken when confronted with the sight of the innocent Adam and Eve. The “tyrant’s plea,” as this passage is referred to, is again controversial, since we have to wonder if Satan is speaking truth when he speaks rhetorically to the pair. But it fits well with the rest of what we have seen of Satan’s nature. He feels remorse for what he feels he must do, saying he “could love” Adam and Eve, were the circumstances different, “so lively shines/ In them divine resemblance” of the Lord God (363-364, pg 1882). He even feels pity for them, knowing all too well the anguish they will feel at the loss of God’s light, and is loathe to take out his revenge on such harmless, innocent creatures who have done him no harm. There is no excuse for what Satan does, it is true, no matter how badly he supposedly feels, but his anguished speech creates conflict in the reader on his state of being, if nothing more. It definitely presents a different picture of the Devil than what we may be used to: compassion for the creatures he’s about to wreak havoc on, and grief in knowing that he will be even more damned by taking his revenge on such helpless, innocent beings, but a prideful determination to continue, no matter what the cost.
Throughout all of PL, Milton makes it abundantly clear that Satan is, in essence, wrong: wrong in his assumptions about predestination, wrong about God’s grace, wrong about the options he has left, wrong in pretty much all the choices he makes. Yet he also persists in painting a compelling portrait of a creature that, though created long before humans ever walked a planet called Earth, bears startling resemblance to our vulnerabilities and insecurities, our all-too-flawed existence. All of these play into the definition of what a tragic hero is supposed to be: a heroic, compelling figure with whom the reader (or viewer) identifies and feels sympathy, who has a tragic flaw that causes his catastrophic fall from grace and glory, complete with a moment of self-recognition of their sins. Paradise Lost even has the final prerequisite: the tragic hero’s fall from grace eventually culminates in a re-establishment of the societal or status quo. Essentially, Satan (without meaning to) puts things back to the way they were supposed to be. All of his mistakes and prideful vainglory, all of his actions against God and man, though concocted and acted upon by his own free will, play into God’s ultimate plan: the attainment of grace for Man, made all the more sweet and valuable for the danger of Hell hanging over man’s head if they choose the same path Satan did. But no such possibility of redemption exists for Satan, not unless he gives up his pride; no Son of God will step forward to take sin and death upon his own head for Satan’s part, to allow him access back into Heaven. And that is the ultimate tragedy of Paradise Lost: not that Man falls from original grace and perfection, for man has an eventual happy ending, but that Satan creates his own tragedy, closing his only remaining door to real happiness. God only knows if he’ll ever change his mind.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand now I need to get to CLASS BECAUSE I AM LAAAAAAAAAATE