Is Satan A Hero Or Villain In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Book I?

Satanic References in Literature Depictions of the ultimate force of evil have existed for thousands of years. In Christianity, the name Satan or Lucifer has been given to define this evil, depicting him as a half human and half goat. Lucifer is fabled to exist since the beginning of time. Due to Lucifer being the representation of the most ancient evil, he is presented in many different forms in dark literature. This is shown in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”

“What make ole Satan for follow me so? Satan ain’t got notin’ for do wid me. Hold your light. Hold your light. Hold your light on Canaan’s shore.”

In Dante's Inferno, Dante who is main character is getting a tour of hell by his tour guide Virgil. Virgil his tour guide presents to him all the nine levels of hell, including the punishments the sinners must suffer with for all eternity. In the ninth level of hell, the worst sinners are frozen in a giant lake. The sinners are then eaten alive by whom is so called satan. According to Dante, Satan is described as “Than do the giants with those arms of his; consider now how great must that whole, which unto such a part conforms itself… O, what a marvel it appeared to me, when i beheld three faces on his head!

The short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, by Flannery O’Connor and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, by Joyce Carol Oates revolved around the themes of good and evil. Both the themes of good and evil are parallel to how people portray the concept of both dark and light. The short stories are similar in their religious references conveyed by their antagonists, but the development and the characters give readers varying perspectives. The antagonists of the stories are figurative representations of Satan.

Through this comparison, the monster also laments that, unlike Adam, he has been abandoned by his creator and uses this to justify his anger towards Frankenstein and all of humanity. The monster then concludes this allusion by stating that Satan is the best figure to represent his

When Dante and Virgil go to the last circle which is the ninth circle of hell they see sinners in ice some are more deeper than others Then they see a giant shape in the fog and they realize that it is Satan. Half of his body is under the ice and he has bat like wings. Lucifer had one head but three faces the face in the middle was red the face on the right was yellow and the face on the left was black “when i beheld three faces on his head!

My knowledge of the Bible is limited to what was reiterated to me in church. Growing up, I was taught that Satan was once a good angel who rebelled against and disobeyed God because he was jealous and wanted to be more powerful than God. I never questioned this because I thought seeking answers and clarification would be going against God. For some Christians, Satan is the

Dante’s portrayal of Satan shows him to be monstrous and empty as he does not fulfill any satisfaction that is felt if something is missing in one’s life. The thing that is missing in the readers’ lives is God as only God can satisfy our desire. This paradox of Satan by Dante speaks truth as to the fact he is both monstrous and empty. This is an astounding idea to think but it makes sense as he is seen with three heads gnawing on the sinners in the final realm of Hell, Judecca, but is also empty as he is the epitome of sin and, as said earlier, sin is empty and never truly

In Dante’s Inferno, Dante Alighieri's depiction of Satan at the bottom of hell reveals the theme that in Hell the punishment is always befitting of the due to the fact that the lower you go, the farther that person is from god. The picture of Satan satisfies the reader because he shows that he is the opposite of god and that he is full of evil. Lucifer is the demon in the circles of hell which he has three faces, and bat like wings in which he creates the cold wind where the sinners suffer. “The face in the middle was red, the color of anger. The face on the right was white blended with yellow, the color of impotence.

It is only after he begins to read stories such as Ruins of Empires and Paradise Lost that he discovers evil in the world. Once he find the journals of Frankenstein he craves revenge on Frankenstein. At the end of the novel, he reflects, “No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.

The Creature begins with killing the people that are most dear to Victor. Satan does the same thing in a similar way by bringing death to God’s own children. Lucifer causes trouble and even mortality to Adam and Eve’s perfect life. Once he introduces sin to them, all of God’s children thereafter are doomed. It is from these actions, that it is easily said that the Monster and Satan are damned for eternity.

The devil in the story is the subconscious and innate desires of humanity because he reveals that, “Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race” (Hawthorne 8). Once a person comes to the realization of his or her own personal

”(Chapter 24, pg 221) Getting to the point where he asks Victor to create him a partner, which never comes to animation. Thus, resulting in the rebellion of the monster against Victor, his creator, like how Satan defied his. With reference to these allusions, the author creates a sensation of pity and empathy towards the creature, making it easier for the reader to understand the monster’s perspective. The use of the allusion to Paradise Lost helps the reader interpret the characters within the

As Louis L. Martz dictates in his piece titled, “Paradise Lost: The Realms of Light,” Satan’s descent into Hell, following banishment from Heaven, catalyzes the entrance of light and dark imagery into the novel. Satan, now barred from the, “happy Realms of Light,” recognizes his separation from his former alliance with the divine essence (qtd in Martz 72.) In his brief period of grief, Satan finds himself struggling towards the light that radiates from Heaven, signaling the presence of innate light still within the fallen being. However, this light soon becomes squandered when Satan finds it, “better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven,” (1.263) In his decision, the prevalence of darkness within Hell increases and eventually seeps into the secular realms created by God.

To begin his mission, Milton devoted his first book of Paradise Lost to introduce Satan along with his falling angels in Hell attempting to plan a revenge on God. So, Satan is the central figure of book 1, a figure that Milton presents with plenty of epithets and with a magnificent energy and a personal pride. To what extent did Paradise Lost present Satan as a moral agent? Given the politics of the English revolution and restoration, how precisely should we interpret Satan’s language and policy in Hell? Did the spiritual poem reveal the 17th century religious beliefs or Milton’s ones?