Paradise Lost

To develop the thesis that Satan is the true hero of Paradise Lost, it is useful to examine the principal line of action of the poem, which is in epic format and divided into twelve books. The first notable fact is that the action of the story moves almost exclusively for the reason that Satan, also called Lucifer, is the prime mover of action, either the principal agent of action on his own or the motivation for the actions of others, in particular the fall of man from God's grace. In Book I, Milton explains this directly, noting in the Argument that the serpent is the "prime cause" of the fall. The power of Satan to affect events is illustrated in the situation of the opening chapter, which is that the fallen angels have been cast from heaven and into Chaos. But even as he surveys the "darkness visible" (I, 63), Satan finds the bitter strength to utter "bold words" (I, 82) of defiance against the very God who has cast them out. Admitting to being startled by the force of God's wra

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lain, or again like Macbeth's deliberate embrace of the void when he is on the brink of killing Duncan: "I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself, / And falls on the other" (I, vii). For the reason that Satan takes on the characteristics of the picaresque, roaming hero, he may also be compared to another hero more cunning than grand, Odysseus, who travels to Troy, then adventurously roams both Mediterranean and underworld, only to light in his homeland and dispatch a palace full of suitors before reclaiming his ever-faithful wife Penelope. Before Satan ever encounters Eve in her dreams, he is, like Richard, determined to be a villain, and like Macbeth he is an ambitious one at that. Taking the form of a toad, he assaults her sensibilities in a dream. At the opening of Book V, Eve relates her concerns to Adam. Also in this book the angel Raphael visits Adam and Eve, in part to warn them of Satan's design. But what is decisive about this chapter is not the warning but the fact that the focus is on Satan as agent of the war in heaven, in particular on Satan as the jealous rival of the Son of God, whose introduction to the angels occasions the rebellion. Satan, as
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Approximate Word count = 5393
Approximate Pages = 22 (250 words per page)

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