Human Truths and Encouragement for Change in John Milton's Paradise Lost

As a female college student reading Paradise Lost in 2008, I suspect a great divide exists between myself and Milton, a blind poet who published his masterpiece in 1667. However, Milton's understanding of basic truths about humanity and the human mind triumphs boundaries of time and culture. Milton's Paradise Lost contains incredibly accurate and precise portrayals of humanity. Milton focuses on deep truths that still connect us innately and involve us instantly with the poem. Milton's intention in writing Paradise Lost was to justify the ways of God to men. Incidentally, he also captured basic and deep human, moral, and spiritual verities. Through the lens of religion, Milton educates us about the workings of our own minds and urges the reader to change.

Yes, Paradise Lost is a heavily religious poem. But even for the non-religious and the secular, Paradise Lost is essential. The Christian values encouraged in Paradise Lost are not damning. Milton champions a centrifugal attitude, an approach of reaching into others rather than recoiling into oneself. Paradise Lost inspires readers to be humanitarian and unselfish. This is not only applied to Christianity, but to all people, and all modes of living. This paper is structured in the same way that my mind originally responded to Paradise Lost. I experienced a heartfelt attraction to Satan and a judgmental reaction against God, like an angry teen who rebels against her parents. Then came a consideration of my own centripetal nature in relation to my original reactions. Finally, my mind wanders back to Milton's depiction of unfallen Adam and Eve as a profound example of the love and humility we should all strive for.

Milton's profound comprehension of the human mind is exhibited by his creation of Satan. Through Satan, Milton reveals important principles about humanity. Our attraction to him as a charismatic leader and our identification with his motives reveals our centripetal natures and the profound difficulty of achieving grace as fallen beings. The readers of Paradise Lost tend to be attracted to Satan as a charismatic villain, an attractive rebel. Some, like me, even find marked similarities between themselves and Satan. As in any Shakespearean play or modern-day movie, we gravitate to the villain because of a mysterious fascination that we do not entirely understand.

As readers, we know we should not identify with Satan, but many of us root for him as the underdog from the very beginning. It's a magnificent moment by any standards when "forthwith upright he rears from off the pool/ His mighty stature" (I, 221-222). Satan, like many humans, considers repentance and grace to be synonymous with defeat. Human pride and stubbornness drives many people, myself included, to equate compromise with failure. Satan is graceless: "'is there no place/ Left for repentance, none for pardon left? None left but by submission,'" he laments (IV, 79-81). Milton illustrates Satan's self-entrapment with the structure of line 80, which begins with 'left,' and ends with 'left.' This dual bookend structure reveals Satan's self-placed snare of pride. Satan impresses with his physical and mental brawn; I was forcefully persuaded and inspired by his philosophical sentiment, "'the mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n'" (I, 254-255). This attitude appeals to human nature because it emphasizes the power of the individual mind and dwindles the influence of outside forces, such as God.

Understandably, I was alarmed when I discerned a similarity between Satan and myself. I am known to be incredibly stubborn, and I have even taken twisted pride in my consistent unwillingness to compromise. I believe that Milton predicted many readers would see some of themselves in Satan, and through Satan's complex character, Milton illustrates a truth of our fallen nature: we are centripetal at our core, instinctively recoiling and revolving inward. But Milton does not bully the reader into becoming a better person. Rather, by creating Satan as an attractive figure on the surface, Milton lures us in with Satan's seductive and magnetic pull, only to break our expectations when we recognize Satan's manipulative villainy, and we recollect that we are not supposed to like Satan. Our temporary expressions of compassion for Satan, and even some frightening similarities between Satan and ourselves, guide us into self-contemplation. By exposing the reader's solicitude for and similarity to Satan, Milton reveals to the reader his or her own centripetal tendencies.

The readers' judgmental reactions to God, too, illustrate a basic truth that Milton consistently conveys. My original reaction to God was bewilderment flavored with disappointment. I had difficulty remedying the omnipotence of God and his creation of humans. I wondered, if God knew we would fall, why did He even create us? It seemed that God gave us free will only because He gained pleasure from our obedience; clearly, I attributed a selfishness to God. With Milton's portrayal of God, the reader ascribes human characteristics (like selfishness) to Him because of the difficulty of looking outside of oneself and recognizing the existence of Something Greater. Human nature is one of self-involvement and self-importance. Like the fallen angels in Pandemonium, who, one after the other, forgot God's omniscience and omnipotence, the human mind faces major difficulty in understanding God through anything other than human terms.

Our centripetal natures cultivate several tendencies of thought. We like to think we are self-created, self-governed, and innately important in this world. In comparing Satan and Adam's beliefs about creation and God, and by examining my own responses to their contradictory sentiments, I realize the difficulty involved in acknowledging something so profoundly greater than myself. When Satan advances the belief that we are "'self-begot, self-raised by our own quick'ning power'" (V, 860), I felt encouraged and empowered in my first reading, and I was supportive of what I saw as Satan's independence. Meanwhile, I scoffed at Adam's unquestioning and innate acceptance of God; moments after created, Adam recognizes his creation was "'not of myself; by some great Maker then'" (VIII, 278). In my initial reading, my own centripetal attitude led me to perceive Adam and Eve's unfallen behavior toward God as sycophantic and downright unrealistic. Luckily, Paradise Lost requires more than one reading-for me, an essential part of understanding the epic is analyzing my own first reactions, and comparing the knowledge I glean upon further consideration.

When Milton first introduces us to unfallen Adam and Eve, their blissful love is sandwiched between Satan's magnetically villainous soliloquy and the deliciously suspenseful standoff between Satan and Gabriel. Our attention is again distracted from the moral precept relayed by the perfection of Adam and Eve's relationship when Raphael describes the war in Heaven. Throughout the epic, I was consistently drawn to Satan in a way that influenced me to overlook the contentment, beauty, and love exhibited by Adam and Eve. In comparison to the slimy perversion of Satan and the war in Heaven (albeit strangely caricatured and non-bloody), Adam and Eve seemed, well, boring. As our minds are distracted from the euphoric love of Adam and Eve, Milton illustrates how our minds naturally oscillate away from centrifugal perfection and towards depravity and sin. But if a reader can overcome the distraction provided by villainy and violence, and focus deeply on Adam and Eve, Milton will educate the reader about the importance of love and humility. Adam and Eve represent an ideal we should strive for; here, Milton teaches by example.

Love is a theme I almost entirely overlooked in my first reading of Paradise Lost. Despite our vague and unclear definitions of love, it is certain that love combats the centripetal tendency condemned by Milton throughout the epic. This mysterious sentiment can be characterized as a centrifugal emotion, an extension of care to the loved one, an unselfish outpouring of oneself into another. When Adam and Eve are first united, Milton illustrates a truly centrifugal moment. Even the natural imagery demonstrates the outpouring of love that occurs: in the words of Adam, "'the earth/ Gave sign of gratulation,'" the "'gentle airs whispered it to the woods,'" and "'from their wings/ Flung rose, flung odors from the spicy shrub'" (VII, 513-517). The centrifugal outflow of love that occurs between Adam and Eve is physically manifested by nature's sensory deluge-the breeze sings to the woods, the flowers fling their aroma outward and upward.
Milton writes: "Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source/ Of human offspring" (IV, 750-751). But love is not merely the "true source of human offspring"; it is a powerful condition of overcoming our innate centripetal tendency. The conclusion of the epic is a poignant reminder of the importance of love; as Adam and Eve vacate Paradise and enter the grim world, they "hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,/ Through Eden took their solitary way" (XII, 648-649). Adam and Eve are alone, but alone together. They are "hand in hand"; it is love that will soothe the new hardships of life, and love will support their repentance to God. Absolute, unselfish love for another human promotes a humble and generous existence.

Milton enlightens us about love; he also teaches us about humility through Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve know their own smallness in relation to God. Here, I define smallness not as a measure of literal size, or a quantification of importance. Smallness is humility, and the meek lack of pride that is easy to disregard yet profound and complex. Once fallen, it is a severe struggle for any human to recognize his or her own smallness because of our innate pride and centripetal natures. The sincere acceptance of inferiority in relation to God is a towering advantage of the unfallen mind. Adam speaks of "'branches overgrown/That mock our scant manuring, and require/ More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth'" (IV, 627-629) and "'this delicious place/ For us too large, where thy abundance wants/ Partakers, and uncropped falls to the ground'" (IV, 729-731). Adam recognizes that all his heartfelt effort is nothing but "scant manuring" in comparison to God's power; he is humble and small in "this delicious place/ For us too large." Adam and Eve's quiet awe and appreciation of nature prompts them to tend the garden lovingly; the respect and attention bestowed upon the garden embodies their love for God.

Though Adam and Eve do make a fatal mistake, they also are the heroes of the epic. Even with fallen minds, Eve's grace and Adam's contemplation shepherds them to re-adopt their former repentance:

What better can we do, than to the place
Repairing where he judged us, prostrate fall
Before him reverent, and there confess
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg, with tears
Watering the ground, and with our sighs the air
Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign
Of sorrow unfeigned, and humiliation meek. X, 1085-1092.

Adam and Eve reaffirm their inferiority in comparison to God; they reject the centripetal tendency and push their pride away. The act of a fallen mind accomplishing such genuine humility is severely difficult. In an unworthy comparison, I imagine a massive fight with my mother- screams, door-slams, and all. An intense personal struggle would surround an overcoming of my pride and stubbornness, and profound difficulty would be involved in my "prostrate fall" at her feet, with my "tears watering the ground."

Like Adam and Eve, the pre-figurations of Christ and Christ himself are also expressions of humility in their understanding of God's greatness and their acceptance of inferiority in relation to Him. Enoch "'spake much of right and wrong/ Of justice, of religion, truth and peace/ And judgment from above'" (XI, 666-668). Noah "'preached/ Conversion and repentance, as to souls/ In prison under judgments imminent'" (XI, 723-725). We see Abraham "'not wandering poor, but trusting all his wealth/ With God, who called him, in a land unknown'" (XII, 133-134). Moses, too, acknowledges his own figurative smallness. Christ manifests his humility through an outpouring of love: "'The law of God exact he shall fulfill/ Both by obedience and by love, though love/ Alone fulfill the law'" (XII, 402-404). These figures, along with Adam and Eve, display a meek humbleness, an obedience to Something Greater. By relaying the story of Adam and Eve and having Michael eulogize the future lives of these biblical men, Milton illustrates a moral precept for the reader, and educates by example.

Paradise Lost is certainly a Christian poem- more specifically, it abounds with Protestantism. But the epic applies to everyone: those of other religions, or no religion. It unfurls across borders of gender, culture, nationality, and generations. At the heart of Paradise Lost are universal truths captured and communicated by Milton. Milton champions a reverence for God, repentance, an embracing of Christ-but beneath that is the all-inclusive notion that we should work to overcome our centripetal natures and liberate ourselves from the entrapment's of pride, selfishness, and stubbornness. Being nineteen years old and still somewhat new to the world, my thoughts on God are still vague and unformed. However, having been raised by one Jewish and one atheist parent makes me doubt that Paradise Lost will convert me to Christianity, or that I will ultimately accept Milton's God as my own. But Milton, by appealing to credos of human nature that connect us all, improves me not only as a 'fit' reader, but also as a 'fit' person.

Because of Milton's appeal to deep human veracity, Paradise Lost is the kind of literature that involuntarily creeps into my consciousness daily. I am touched spiritually and morally-since reading, I have focused on reducing my hefty pride and stubbornness through attempts at genuine generosity and frequent self-reminders of humility. I am changed by Paradise Lost. This seems, to me, the ultimate indication of great literature- literature that will continue to be essential and significant as humankind progresses. Milton will never go out of style because he divulges truths that are at the heart of humanity's soul. Readers will always be riveted by Paradise Lost, and many will continue to be transformed.