Presentation of Satan in Paradise Lost

Essay by murathan March 2004

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Paradise Lost which has been written by John Milton, is the longest poem of him. In this poem Milton tells us a classical Adam and Eve story by a different way. Milton sees himself as a prophet while he is writing this poem. His aim is, to show and vindicate God's aims to people. He wants to see past and get a divine thought. While Milton was writing this poem he made very good presentation of Satan and Fallen Angles. He represents the Satan so extreme that, many critics thought that Milton defends the Satan. He talks about the Devil as a proud and right existence. Now I will briefly talk about this representation of Satan and Fallen Angles.

When we look at the poem in book 1 lines (50-51-52-53) we can see he talks about, sending Satan to Hell.

"Nine times the space that measures day and night to mortal men, he with his horrid crew lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf confounded though immortal"

In this paragraph Milton tells first fall to Hell of Satan.

He says, Satan and Fallen Angles Lays in the Hell nine days and nine nights as an effect of fall. Their minds confuse but they didn't lose their immortality and their hate is still continuing, although they are in the Hell. In this paragraph we can see sending to Hell all the Fallen Angles are shown us as a punishment, so it is expected to Fallen Angles and Satan to be sorry, but they never lose their hate.

All the fallen Angles lost their name after they had fallen to Hell. If we look lines (84-85-86-87) we can see here Satan's first talk and he is thinking about things that he lost after he had been driven away.

"If thou beest...