Character of Satan in the Book Paradise Lost - Essay Example

College Satan, Hero? In paradise lost book the devil is considered a hero, a phenomena that makes the poem unique. Satan has always been seen as a bad person whose main interest is to stop all the good things that God has planned for man. It is due to this that most poets have always written negative things about the devil and in most cases have always associated him with bad things. It is therefore very strange to find a poem whose main point of view is related to seeing the positive things that the devil does. This paper is a critical review of the character the devil and some of the ways in which he is made different from what we would expect. Milton clearly brings out some artistic styles can be of great use in analyzing this topic and coming up with a clear conclusion. Is Satan the hero of the epic poem paradise lost and does he shows signs of a likeable and sympathetic hero from the story? Milton starts by taking us to the creation story. However, his main interest is not about God, Adam or eve. He is more concerned with the challenges that face Satan: “F Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast Brought Death into the World, and all our woe With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat” (Milton 1) He starts by explaining some of the challenges that Satan underwent during the creation period and why he was to resist all these challenges and become Gods worst enemy. He starts the poem by saying that in the beginning all humans are oppressed by one ruler who he says is God until one-man (Satan) come and sets us free. This is a clear indication that Milton loves Satan and would follow him all the way to the gates of hell if given a chance. He sees the life that Adam and eve lived and link it to that of dictatorship. It is for this reason that Satan come out and convinces man to eat the forbidden fruit and be like God. This is a clear epic story told by an expert who knows how to involve his character and makes people love his character. From this statement, it is easy and normal for the reader to start hating God and at the same time start loving Satan. It is normal for one to start realizing the dictatorship of god and start seeing the deliverance of Satan. The other point that shows the devil as a hero is the fact that Satan realizing the oppression and dictatorship that God has, decides t fight all these with just a group of his loyal angels. This shows that the devil is not just ready to reveal the dictatorship of God rather he is also ready to fight for it just to see that man is finally free from the dictator. This puts Satan like a human rights activists who is ready to die just to ensure that other people are well and that people are delivered from the dictator. This is one of the most common forms of epic stories and poems and is a clear depiction of mastery of poetic strengths. Milton uses his skills not only to make one like Satan but to also make the reader to have some hatred of Gods view of the world and how he intended us to live. It also makes the reader have some sympathetic feelings for Satan and see him as a person who had a determination for the entire world population to be rescued from the dictatorship of God. This makes Satan likeable (Milton 6). With mastery of classical tragedy, Satan in paradise lost contains some elements of a hero. In a classical tragedy, a faithful man is put to many troubles and undergoes many problems just to save his people or to fight the master who has all the power to control everything and therefore uses his powers to kill the dreams of the hero. In paradise lost, God is seen to have many supernatural powers, which he uses to his advantage. With all these resources, it is close to impossible for the devil to fight him and win. To start with, he has many angels who Milton considers his army and the devil only has a few of such angels who God refers to as demons. It is therefore close to impossible for Satan to win but he still has the power to fight and by so doing, he clearly shows the characteristics of a classical tragedy hero. In an epic story, the story always revolves around the protagonists with many things touching his life and that of the people he is fighting for. Milton clearly uses this to show that Satan is indeed the protagonist of the poem. He talks about Satan right from the first stanza to the last stanza and in most cases us seen to openly like his ideas. This is a clear indication that the devil has been contrarily used in this poem to represent good instead of bad. He is the protagonist of the poem and so the reader is more likely to like him and sympathize over the things that he passes through. It is also evident that god is the antagonist of the poem from the entire goings that are in the poem (Milton 10). From the above, it is evident to conclude that the character Satan in the book paradise lost has been used contrary to the expectations of most poets as a good character rather than a bad character therefore raising many questions. This poem has disobeyed every poetic culture that has always been there and in the end shown that indeed Satan can be and is the protagonist and a very likeable one as opposed to God who in this case is the antagonist. Work cited Milton, John, and Merritt Y. Hughes. Paradise Lost: A Poem in Twelve Books. New York: Odyssey Press, 1962. Print. Read More