Books IX and X of John Milton's Paradise Lost tell of the Fall from Paradise and the judgment rendered on the humanity thereafter. This section contains important thematic developments expressing the fate of humanity in the titanic struggle in Heaven, as noted by A.J.A. Waldock in considering who might be considered the hero of the epic poem:
But again, Man is Adam; his fate is that of all his progeny; should we not say, then, that the true hero of the poem is the Human Race? (Waldock 1-2).
For many critics, though, the hero of the work is an unconventional one, Satan, and the primary opponent Satan faces in Books IX and X is not Adam but Eve. The poem as a whole has been written by Milton to justify the ways of God to man, yet the "hero" of the piece is considered to be Satan, the most powerful figure in the poem and the central intelligence for most of it. Adam and Eve are pawns in his challenge to the power of God, and the subject of the Fall is a central issue in the poem. Eve has long been considered the dupe whom Satan seduced into eating of the tree of knowledge in direct contravention of God's orders, and this original sin would doom their ancestors to death and to expiation for that sin for all time. Yet, it is possible still to see Eve as one of the major ethical protagonists in the poem even though she succumbs to this particular moral lapse, and an examination of her role can be one way to approach the poem and explicate its meaning. She is a different sort of heroine, in keeping with the fact that Satan is a different sort of hero. Both are still linked to the older tradition of the tragic hero punished for a character flaw.
Eve must be considered in relation to Adam, for she was formed from Adam and is inextricably bound with him in the garden. Her form differs from his and is in every way inferior as described by Milton. She represents imagination and fancy, while Adam represents reason. Eve is body, ...