Analysis of Paradise Lost, 2, lines 910 through 927 - Book Report/Review Example

At the same time, the author brings out the allegory of all this during Satan’s encounter with both sin and death. Milton does this by bringing out abstract ideas by using these three characters. Due to Satan’s insubordination, Sin is born and becomes the first child. Being amongst the first of God’s creations, Satan personifies disobedience and given that Sin is the first in his lineage apparently suggests that all transgressions rose from ingratitude and disobedience towards the Creator.

The ultimate providence of a sinner is illustrated in how sin dwells in utter torment and in solitude. Death is illustrated as not only as the biological end of life but also as the inevitable punishment meted on humankind for both sin and disobedience. Lines 910 through to 927 speak of the inevitable destruction of the human race by the Creator through death. The passage speaks of how humankind has turned by being so ungrateful to the abundances meted on them by God. The human race had become disrespectful and disobedient to the will of God.

As stated in line 911 and 912, nature had given birth to all these evil in humanity. Their pride could not allow them to be saved; thus, the human race had to be punished to death by neither water, lack of air or fire. Hell is the only most equitable way of punishing all this evil amongst men. The author makes use of several poetic styles in putting down the passage. The first obvious style is the use of rhythm throughout the passage. The author makes proper use of rhyming words that emphasize the theme of the passage.

In this case, rhyme is the use of words that have similar sound. Lines 913 and 914 could be said to rhyme. Line 913 ends with the word ‘mixt’ while line 914 ends with the word ‘fight’. Both the two words are comprised of the same consonant‘t’. The word ‘mixt’ has been alternated with the word ‘mixed’, which would have been the most appropriate word to use in this case. However, it has been changed in order to rhyme with the last word in the following line of the verse. The two words have been used to emphasize what the author has been trying to bring forth all along: that the impudence of sin in the world has been mixed to such extent that it can only be fought by the fury of the Creator.

A lot of sound devices have also been used by the writer. One such sound device is the use of alliteration. This is defined as the usage of identical sounds that may be either vowels or consonants at the very beginning of words. Line 912 begins with similar words throughout the entire line; ‘nor shore, nor air, nor fire’. Similar to repetition, alliteration is used as a means to emphasize. The word ‘nor’ in this line is used to emphasize the fact that none of these three vices, shore, air and fire, had the capacity to incapacitate the world of its evil.

The words ‘Abyss’ has been repeated twice in this short passage. This is both in line 910 and line 917. The word ‘Abyss’ has several meanings in the English language. The word could be used to mean a gulf or a hole in English. In this passage, however, the writer uses the word with the intent of meaning ‘a dark hole’. This is a synonym for the hell that he is speaking of. Despite the fact that man has been living freely in the world, humankind could be said to be living in ‘a living hell’.

What this means is that man has no opportunity to enjoy being the free willed creature that god intended due to his