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Satan As A Hero - Paradise Lost

In 'Paradise Lost,' John Milton portrays Satan as a complex character who evolves from a fallen angel to a misunderstood hero, challenging traditional notions of good and evil. Despite his role as the antagonist, Satan's democratic leadership and unwavering commitment to his cause allow readers to sympathize with him. The poem ultimately explores themes of loss and the ambiguity of morality, suggesting that Satan's actions can be viewed as heroic from a certain perspective.

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20 views5 pages

Satan As A Hero - Paradise Lost

In 'Paradise Lost,' John Milton portrays Satan as a complex character who evolves from a fallen angel to a misunderstood hero, challenging traditional notions of good and evil. Despite his role as the antagonist, Satan's democratic leadership and unwavering commitment to his cause allow readers to sympathize with him. The poem ultimately explores themes of loss and the ambiguity of morality, suggesting that Satan's actions can be viewed as heroic from a certain perspective.

Uploaded by

lkripapherwanil
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Satan as a Hero – Paradise

Lost

Satan upon entering Heaven. https://www.exodusbooks.com/miltons-paradise-


lost/8257/

By: Norman Hilker

If we as readers need anything for a central character in a


story to develop and build our sympathetic trust for them,
we need them to accomplish something when faced with
dire odds. Satan seems like a character that is impossible
to sympathize with, but in Paradise Lost, author John
Milton makes it so we can be able to with not just the hero
that is Satan, but his overall character. Over the course of
the epic poem, we see him devolve from a spearhead of
evil to a patron of madness, as his process of decision-
making interferes with his and his followers’ personal
agenda. Through these events, it is heavily implied how
heroic Satan’s actions actually are, but not in a traditional
way.
Before delving into the vital events that shape Paradise
Lost, we must first dissect Satan. The poem starts when
he’s cast out of Heaven by God, and he takes his “fallen
angels” to create a new following and hopefully spread
evil throughout God’s newest creation: humans. Milton’s
use of description help identify the concept of good vs.
evil as not so much as a moral dilemma, but one that is
two sides of the same coin. God and Satan are practically
at war with each other, but while God was dictatorial in the
Old Testament, Satan was democratic among his
followers. This may help to “[distinguish] and [isolate] the
different senses of heroism and heroic virtue” (Steadman
254), because Satan’s virtue is to contribute to a society
that he and his followers believe will do the most good for
the world, or in this case, evil. To his followers, his humble,
often diplomatic display of moving forward makes him
heroic. If we were to disregard his mental state, Satan is
described as something even greater, “…his ponderous
shield ethereal temper, massy, large and round…the broad
circumference hung on his shoulders like the moon…His
spear, to equal which the tallest pine hewn on Norwegian
hills, to be the mast of some great ammiral” (Milton 1502-
3). From Milton’s use of epic similes, this is a figure that is
not only physically imposing, but is one that’s as revered
as God. These are the first hints of Milton attributing
Satan to those past heroes of epic British literature that
exhibited chivalry and courage, but his psyche seems to
be more complicated than most.
Old English text of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
http://liblamp.uwm.edu/omeka/SPC2/exhibits/show/classictext/milton/milton1695

At this point, we see Satan’s assembling of fallen angels


as a major characteristic of the epic genre, and when he
resorts to becoming the King of Hell rather than a servant
in Heaven, his following is proven to be definite. But when
he finally reaches Heaven in Book IV, his vision and quest
in general become foggy. When Adam and Eve come out,
a voice tells Satan, “What thou seest, what there thou
seest fair creature is thyself” (Milton 1564). Digging into
the subtext as well as the rest of the events that follow in
Book IV, what Satan sees is two humans that are aiming to
do good, the same that he is in trying to fulfill the
spreading of evil. He’s confused and at ease, unable to
interfere with Adam and Eve or even fight Gabriel. Is what
he’s doing good or evil in his eyes? Is what Adam and Eve
doing good or evil? What exactly is good and evil? One
could say he is “…stripped of his pseudo-heroic mask”
(Steadman 270), because in the end, he is really taking
Hell wherever he goes. The followers that he has gained,
and even the inner turmoil that’s engulfed him, is
something that’s now a part of him that will be very
difficult to disassociate from.

After a break, Satan returns in Book IX in the form of a


serpent to hopefully take on humanity through Eve eating
from the Tree of Life and influencing Adam to do the
same. When the two are discharged from Heaven, “That
space the Evil One abstracte stood from his own evil, and
for the time remained stupidly good, of enmity disarmed
of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge; but the hot hell that
always in him burns” (Milton 1653). Satan’s final act will
have a major impact on humanity for now, but it’s an act
that would be praised by his followers. In doing so, he
realized that the low point he faced shouldn’t matter as he
had a mission to complete, and he stuck with it till the
end. That consistence and sticking to personal core
values is what makes him maintain a heroic virtue, and
even “…the transition from the archangel who had sought
equality with God to the serpentine tempter of Eve”
(Steadman 272) goes to show how far he was willing to go
to make sure his beliefs would persist. The tragedy of his
hero correlates with the tragedy a good-hearted reader
would face reading this: the loss of mankind.

Paradise Lost is literally about loss, as well as Satan’s way


of coping with it by dumbing himself down in order to
interfere with the natural way of life. As the story revolves
around military-esque characters, Milton strives for it to
be the epic British poem to end all epic British poems, and
he succeeds by looking at Genesis through an evil lens.
After realizing that Earth was better than Heaven and
letting humanity, the actions Satan displayed can be
considered heroic from a certain perspective.

Works Cited

Puchner, Martin, et al. The Norton Anthology of World


Literature. W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Steadman, John M. “The Idea of Satan as the Hero of


‘Paradise Lost.’” Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society, vol. 120, no. 4, 1976, pp. 253–294.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/986321.

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