Throughout more than three hundred years of criticism on John Milton's Paradise Lost the character Satan has been a subject of controversy for many reasons and from many perspectives. Despite being God's adversary, Milton shows his readers a satanic character with many faces, experiencing different changing emotions, and more inner conflict than any other character within the text of Paradise Lost. However, Satan is not the hero of this epic. Perhaps if Milton was writing a classical epic Satan would be the hero, but Milton wrote his work as
a Christian epic and that distinction predetermines who is good and who is evil. But how did Milton do this? How did he take a character like Satan, whose reputation both inside and out of the literary world takes precedence before him, to make such a sympathetic character that experiences a hero's journey, and ends up as the anti-hero of epic proportions?
[...] This is Satan's first change in appearance that he has intentionally chosen in order to deceive. Also, as a cherub, Satan commits the sin of fraud, which, according to Dante, is the worst of all sins. Since Milton was in fact influenced by Dante, it seems as though Satan starts his journey with the most beautiful and powerful shape he can become, but commits the most vicious of acts. The only option left to Satan is to sink lower and lower in both form and mind. [...]
[...] It is almost as if Milton wrote the character of Satan for the readers own moral judgment and understanding. For once a reader comes to see the evil in Satan, one understands the Christian good. But if one recognizes his own conflicting nature in Satan, as most criticism claims to hold as accurate, than it is as if Milton wants his readers to see the evil inside their own selves, that satanic force that can cause one's own personal fall, in order to prevent it. [...]
[...] After the fall of the rebel angels, Satan is described by Milton as having lost his luster, his brightness faded. He has become an impure version of his old angel self physically as well as emotionally yet his form is still that of the angel. He even weeps when he sees his fallen comrades, thus implying that his emotional nature, though tainted by his sin, is still somewhat angelic. It is when his grief turns into anger and frustration which fuels his ambition that he changes. [...]
[...] Satan ponders forgiveness and repentance, thoughts which are not exactly what one thinks of from an ultimately evil being. But then again, Satan's journey is inward as well as outward, and his actions show his descent into evil. For right after that, he concludes that even if God forgave him and let him back into heaven, he would still feel the same pride and jealousy that caused him to rebel in the first place. Through Satan's internal debate, Milton makes the point of showing that Satan cannot hide his inner impurity. [...]
[...] Satan's transformations, both inwardly and physically, throughout the text of Paradise Lost, takes Him from fallen angel to serpent, from lacking luster to crawling in dirt, from heaven to hell, and from guilty to evil. Though at times he may have attacks of conscience, perhaps warning signs from God reminding him of what he is doing, he ultimately chooses to doom himself, convincing himself that there is no other choice. Certainly, in Milton's theodicy, there is no other choice, for Satan must make mankind fall for the Son to lift them up again, therefore justifying God the Father through His Son. [...]
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