Milton: The Contrast of Adam and Eve's Pre and Post-fall Behaviors

Prior to Eve's fateful biting of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, she and Adam enjoy pure, innocent conversation with each other, and their lovemaking is wholesome, affectionate, and adoring. However, upon the betrayal of God's trust, Adam and Eve's conversations with one another turn bitter, resentful, and accusing, and their attraction to one another turns from untainted love to animalistic lust. Ultimately, Satan wins the battle with God by turning his prized pupils against one another and instigating their fall from grace.

In Paradise Lost book four, prior to the fall, Adam and Eve are clearly regarded as upstanding citizens, who epitomize regality and virtue; the text describes them as reflecting the very image of God:

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
Godlike erect, with native honor clad
In naked majesty, seemed lords of all.
And worthy seemed, for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure
(Severe, but in true filial freedom placed),
Whence true authority in men.

The text describes Adam and Eve as images of Christian perfection, both spiritually and physically. Milton depicts Adam as a young Adonis, broad, strong, and masculine. "His fair large front and eye sublime declared/ Absolute rule." His "parted forelock" makes him a vision of modern sexiness, as long hair is often associated with sexuality and attractiveness. He seems the perfect model of valor and domination. Eve, his "coy" partner, seems also a perfect model, but rather of "submission…modest pride." She is depicted as a woman well-versed in the effectiveness of womanly guile and charm. She yields to the desires of her husband Adam, but only if he properly cajoles her: "Subjection, but required with gentle sway." Eve is painted as golden and beautiful, with flowing blond locks and a slender figure. A proper woman, she receives her husband's sexual advances with "modest pride" and "sweet, reluctant, amorous delay," but truly appears as the kind of woman who likes sex. Milton certainly includes language in his description of Eve that suggests a significantly active sexual beast within her. For example, Milton describes Eve's hair as worn, "Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets." When a woman's hair is disheveled, especially a woman with a beautiful young husband to impress, it often implies that she has recently been ravished. The word "wanton" definitely has sexual connotations, and is related to the word "wanting," as in wanting sex or sexuality. She does nothing to hide her nakedness before Adam (or God, for that matter), and is not ashamed of her figure, which she sees as a gift of nature: "Then was not guilty shame, dishonest shame/ Of Nature's works." In fact, both Adam and Eve seem to revel in their nudity, as neither has anything to hide at this point.

Their lovemaking at this point in PL, before the fall, reflects sweetness and love. Adam and Eve seem the perfect pair, made for each other by the very creator, star-crossed lovers in the fashion of Romeo and Juliet. They wander through their beautiful gardens of Eden and feast on nectarines while the cool wind blows across their deliciously nude bodies. Milton mentions that many other creatures in the animal kingdom frolic past the lovers as they sit, and engage in their natural behaviors. Interestingly, Milton also specifies that the animals of Eden are all animals that are now hunted, as if to point out the contrast between the community of Heaven prior to the fall, where all things lived in freedom, and the modern world, after the fall, where all things live in fear of death. The lovely couple, "linked in happy nuptial league," makes love in a pure, loving fashion there under the tree while the business of nature surrounds them. They enjoy sexual intercourse through love, not lust.
After the couple surfaces, Adam addresses Eve and tells her that, out of all miracles God has granted them, she is the dearest to his heart, and that the creator must be the kindest imaginable to shower them with so many blessings for so low a price as to keep up the garden of Eden's producing trees. He tells Eve that she should not complain about the chores they have to complete, but that she should be grateful for all God has given them. Adam proceeds to discuss the tree from which they have been forbidden to eat:

God hath pronounced it death to taste that tree,
The only sign of our obedience left
Among so many signs of power and rule
Conferred upon us, and dominion giv'n
Over all other creatures that possess
Earth, air, and sea. Then let us not think hard
One easy prohibition, who enjoy
Free leave so large to all things else, and choice
Unlimited of manifold delights.

Clearly, Adam thinks it but a small task to avoid the forbidden tree, and he proceeds to eulogize God's word and thank him for his many blessings. Upon swearing his faithfulness to the Lord's wishes, Eve chimes in and reiterates Adam's assertions. She adoring tells him that he is absolutely correct in all of his declarations, and that she is so much less worthy of blessing than he. Eve, too, asserts that she owes God all of her blessings and thanks for his great kindness. Eve speaks so adoringly to Adam that it becomes apparent that she considers herself to be submissive to him: "I chiefly, who enjoy/ So far the happier lot, enjoying thee/ Pre-eminent by so much odds." She even calls Adam her "guide and head," insinuating that, without him, she would be incapable of independent thought or decision. This is an interesting foreshadowing of Eve's decision to venture into the garden on her own in PL book nine, where she does, indeed, make a poor decision without Adam's "head" to protect her own. Milton's depiction of Adam and Eve is extremely misogynistic. Milton clearly portrays Adam as Eve's superior, the reason being Adam's closer relationship to God. Adam was created to serve only God, and Eve was created to serve both God and Adam. Milton comments on the physical difference between Adam and Eve, saying, "their sex not equal seemed." Milton implies that Eve is weaker than Adam both physically and mentally. Eve seems to appreciate her subordinate role in Adam's life, explaining her reliance on Adam by saying that God created her for him and she is lost without him. There are several other instances in PL in which misogynistic overtones are detectable. For example, in PL book ten, the Son asks Adam if Eve was his God or superior, since his "perfection far excelled hers in all real dignity." Again in book ten, Adam calls Eve nature's defect and says that men will never find fit mates. It is this same misogynistic attitude that prompts Adam to forgive Eve, as he believes she is the more frail and infirm by nature of her sex. In Adam's ideology, Eve is excused since she was too weak to defend herself from the serpent. In a dichotomizing twist, Eve's inferiority becomes both the reason she transgressed God's rule, and the reason she should be forgiven.

Eve proceeds to tell Adam about her awakening to consciousness. She tells him that after she awakened (in shade, rather than light, which possibly symbolizes Eve's distance from God's truth, which is constantly compared to light in PL), she was immediately mesmerized by her own reflection in the water. This scene is reminiscent of that of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection and died staring at himself. Milton may be foreshadowing yet again that Eve's vanity might contribute to her downfall later in the story.

Adam and Eve's perfect rapport and meaningful sex life completely changes in book nine, after the fall of the human race. After Adam gives in to his desires and takes a bit of the forbidden apple, he suddenly views Eve in a whole new light: "He on Eve/ began to cast lascivious eyes." He looks at her with unadulterated carnal lust, not love. He desires her as a lonely man desires a whore, not as a man desires his blessed wife. Milton describes him as "intoxicated" as he goes to Eve and casts upon her his lusty gaze; he looks at her like a connoisseur eager to indulge his taste. Their healthy, untainted sexuality is distorted, and their sexual love turns to animal lust.

Eve, also under the spell of Satan, looks wantonly upon Adam as well, and "In lust they burn, / Till Adam this 'gan Eve to dalliance." Adam tells Eve that she has never looked so inviting, and leads her to "a shady bank" to have sex with her. Their sex is truly sex, not lovemaking, for it is driven by carnal lust and "their mutual guilt" and in no way love. They exhausted themselves and slept. When they awoke, plagued by unpleasant odors and bad dreams, they were suddenly ashamed of their nakedness. Their "Innocence, that as a veil/ Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone." They could no longer bear to see each other naked, and tried desperately to cover their nudity. They no longer saw their bodies as beautiful creations, but as Satan's vehicles, and they couldn't bear to look upon each other anymore.

When Adam finally speaks to Eve, it is not kindly. They begin to argue for the first time, demonstrating their newly shattered unity and peace. He blames her for listening to Satan's voice and for disobeying God's orders. He no longer speaks of love to her or treats her gently, but says, "Bad fruit of knowledge, if this be to know, / Which leaves us naked thus, of honor void, / Of innocence, of faith, of purity, / Our wonted ornaments now soiled and stained." He proceeds to warn her that they better find a way to cover their nude bodies so as not to feel so "unclean." They seek out giant fig leaves and fashion makeshift loincloths from them to cover their nakedness. "O how unlike/ To that first naked glory!" Their relationship was no longer one of peace and understanding, but of "high passions, anger, hate, / Mistrust, suspicion, discord, and shook sore/ Their inward state of mind." He darkly accuses her of bringing about their current state by insisting that she be allowed out on her own earlier that day. Eve reverses the accusation, and tells Adam that their situation is his fault, as he, "the head," should never have let her venture out on her own. Adam lashes back with,"Is this the love, is this the recompence/ Of mine to thee, ungrateful Eve!" He proceeds to tell her that he warned her of the impending danger, and that she did not listen. He admits that his only fault in the situation was to believe Eve too pure and good to be gotten by evil. Again, Milton's argument turns misogynistic when Adam claims:

Thus it shall befall
Him who, to worth in women overtrusting
Lets her will rule. Restraint she will not brook
And left t' herself, if evil thence ensue
She first his weak indulgence will accuse."

Adam is clearly blaming womanly weakness for their downfall, and takes no part in aiding the fall. He believes that, had he not trusted Eve to take care of herself, she would never have gotten them into this mess in the first place. Adam and Eve continue to battle tirelessly for hours, reaching neither conclusion nor compromise. Neither will admit fault or concede that the other may not be entirely responsible for the fall.

Adam and Eve move from exhibiting the deepest love for one another to relentlessly blaming each other for their fall from grace. By transforming the relationship of God's perfect children, to be the mother and father of the human race, Satan has ultimately shaped the future of the earth into a place more like hell than heaven. By destroying the possibility for purity and love, Satan ensured that Adam and Eve's sons and daughters would never be the untainted creatures God had desired them to be, but would forever reflect the qualities that Satan, himself, had instilled in them.