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In Book I of Paradise Lost, Milton describes the battle between good and evil, and the portrayal of Satan as a hero to try and destroy Gods magnificent plan. The first impression of Satan that Milton tries to get across to the reader is of Satan's absolute greatness: this particular quote refers to the hugeness of his spear alone, To equal which the tallest pine / Hewn on Norwegian hills, and he even states that his shield is the size of the moon. Milton uses human terms to express the sheer size and power of Satan and his followers, the fallen angels. He above the rest, / In shape and gesture proudly eminent, / Stood like a tower; Even though Satan is the leader of the fallen angels and of Hell, he would not be able even to think about fighting God without them, but he is still represented by Milton as a huge figure, even to the most powerful of his followers. The poet builds up Satan's character by referring to earthly objects (the tallest pine, tower) as comparisons, and he is able to use more monstrous and horrifying similes to portray this (bottomless perdition, penal fire). A very important first epic simile describes the utter magnitude of Satan, and represents Satan as the leviathan: With fixed anchor in his scaly rind, /... / So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay, which is then mistaken by the fishermen to be a land mass, Deeming some island, .
Some quotes, while they render Satan still to be huge and overpowering, also give an impression of Satan being graceless and cumbersome. As whom the fables name of monstrous size, / Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, / Briareos or Typhon, whom the den / By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast Leviathan, which God of all his works / Created hugest that swim the ocean stream: Even though Satan seems to be the fault in Gods plan to make a somewhat perfect world, when Milton describes him as the leviathan, it shows that even Satan, the creator of sin and death, was made by God. To be a real interpreter of Milton's Paradise Lost, it seems to me, even from the first book, that the reader has to have a basic foreknowledge of the ancient world, and this quote relates Satan to famous mythical characters (Jove, Briareos, Typhon), and so the reader has to know something of their characters. From the beginning of Book I, Satan is quickly established as the main character, but I think that Milton intends him to be the hero as well: his evil character is attractive, but his impenitent will is very courageous, too. To bow and sue for grace / With suppliant knee, /... /: that were low indeed; / That were an ignominy and shame beneath / This downfall; This quote, and the next one mentioned, in my opinion, really draws out his positive leadership qualities, because it shows that he will never give up, and will fight for himself and for his angels until the end of time, if there really is an end.
If I were one of the rebel angels, I would put great trust into Satan for doing this, even though some of the time he can be portrayed quite imperfectly. To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: / Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. I think this shows tremendous character and I really admire Satan for doing that because he would rather keep on losing to God in Hell, than ever serve God in Heaven. This suggests strength in will, but a slight weakness in mind because he will never be able to defeat God, and so there will always be an ongoing battle, or at least until Satan is destroyed. Since by fate the strength of gods / And this empyreal substance cannot fail; Even though previously Satan had admitted that he had initially lost to God, he calls himself and the other fallen angels Gods, even though they have just been defeated, which makes him sound very pagan and unenlightened.
He also says that he and the rebel angels are derived from the sky and could never die, which, in my view, makes him sound very arrogant and conceited, but earlier on in the same speech he says: All is not lost: the unconquerable will, / And study of revenge, immortal hate, / And courage never to submit or yield; Here he uses anaphora (AndAndAnd) to build up emphasis in his speech, which is an example of rhetoric, as his aim is to keep the rebel angels on his side, and to persuade them that God is bad. These are the qualities that Satan thinks are admirable, and he uses very aggressive words (unconquerable, revenge, hate) to describe what he thinks a leader should be like. Another example of rhetoric has Satan flattering the angels by using attractive-sounding words (puissant, self-raised), so he does not get on the wrong side of them, and says that the army is very powerful and will not fail again. This is very meretricious, because they can never succeed, since God has a foreknowledge of everyone in the whole universe, so he knows exactly what Satan will do, even though Satan does not know that God knows.
In this way, Satan does show some stupidity, as he is taking his army into an uphill battle that they can never win, but again shows audacity for trying to beat God. But still his strength concealed, / Which tempted out attempt, and wrought our fall. This is another example of Satan's stupidity, because he says that he didnt realise exactly how powerful God is, and so he thought it would be a good idea to attack, but instead he miserably failed, and was banished to Hell for eternity. But he moves on to saying: Henceforth his might we know, and know our own, / So as not either to provoke, or dread / New war, provoked: our better part remains / To work in close design, by fraud or guile, / What force effected not; In this part of one of his speeches, Satan uses sophistry, again another form of rhetoric, to persuade the rebel angels to attack God as Satan now supposedly knows how strong God really is. In a way this proves Satan to be quite nave once more, as he thinks he can defeat God, but his persuasion has no real backing behind the actual argument, and so another attack is hopeless. The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
I think that these lines have the most impact in the whole of Book I, because Satan says that anything can come true if you believe in it enough, and that is where he gets his hope from, to be able to keep trying to attack God. Another reason why I think it is important is that the sentence is only two lines long, which is very unusual for Milton as most of his sentences are up to a paragraph long, which provides emphasis for the reader to notice it. This shows that Satan thinks that his own free mind is greater than Gods free will, and although this might seem stupid and foolish at first, I think it shows great courage. Finally, I believe that there is an underlying meaning that suggests that any individual can create their own Heaven or Hell on Earth in the way they live their life.
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Research essay sample on Examining The Representation Of Satan In Paradise Lost
