The speech of Satan in Paradise Lost

Satan's successful temptation of Eve, which is the core episode of the fall of man, may be said to occur in large part because of Satan's ability to entice Eve to what seems a higher state of being than humanity. He does this by differentiating human and divine attributes and by suggesting that Eve and Adam can become as God by becoming themselves gods of a kind. When Satan refers to the lower gods, he suggests that they have specific functions in the running of the universe, and suggests that Eve may attain some connection with the workings of the universe if she eats the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

When he first approaches Eve, Satan refers to her as the "Empress of this fair World" (IX. 568). In the course of his seduction, he calls her "Queen of this Universe" (IX. 685). Such flattery, which contains a grain of truth, is designed to cozen Eve into a sense of confidence in her primary status in the world. Once this is accepted by Eve, it becomes possible for Satan to posit a universe of proportional o

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o try to defeat heaven and fail again holds no meaningful revenge. Belial does not want to take the chance of losing what dominion the fallen angels have been able to establish. On the theory that God can make hell even worse than it already is, he suggests that the fallen angels may get used to hell and that in time God will relent: "Thus Belial . . . Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth" (II. 227). Mammon's argument is that in fact the fallen angels do not really want to get back to heaven anyway; of what use, then, is another war? Mammon suggests working "ease out of pain/Through labor and endurance" (II. 261-2) and as it were build up hell as a rival heaven. This appeals to the fallen angels, who as a group do not particularly want another war. It falls to Beelzebub, second in command to Satan, to reject all three solutions as limited in scope and at the same time offer an idea of revenge that does not involve a direct confrontation with God. It is at this point that the rumor of Man comes into play, and the stage is set for the events in Book IX: What if we find Some easier enterprise? There is a place (If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven Err not)--another World, the happy seat Of some new race, called Man
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Approximate Word count = 2654
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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