Miltons Paradise Lost - Essay Example

Firstly, it would be noted that in the poem, Satan is given an unusual hero’s role, where his major struggle and functioning is more centered on himself. This is because after Satan becomes defeated after leading an attack in heaven and he is cast into Tartarus, Satan feels s defeated that he feels self defeated, unrecognized and unconscious (Gardener, 121). The very first heroic role that is assigned to Satan thus has to do with Satan having to fight a hero’s fight to regain his self consciousness and recognition.

To do this, Satan stays in Pand?monium and employs what may best be described as a rhetorical skill of organizing his army to go about his heroic mission. In comparison to a classical hero’s scenario, one may argue that Satan is not actually a classical hero but an epic hero or an antihero. The description of antihero is given to Satan purposely due to the roles that the author assigns to him, where he is made to lack the attributes of a traditional hero. This is because according to the Columbia Encyclopedia (2009), “The anti-hero's lack of courage, honesty, or grace, his weaknesses and confusion, often reflect modern man's ambivalence toward traditional moral and social virtues.

” Meanwhile, Satan is seen as a much grieving and bitter character that must go about what he sees in his own eyes as heroism through the use of anti-moral and anti-socially accepted values such as deceit, lies and shame. It is not surprising that unlike what most heroes enjoy, which is admiration, Satan rather receives condemnation for his actions in the eventual while. To a large extent thereore, even though Satan could be said to be the hero of Paradise Lost, this role of heroism is one that is unusual and unlike a classical modern hero.

This would however not take much from the role of Satan as the hero of Paradise Lost because it was the infamous achievement of Satan that brought about the said lost of paradise that the poem’s theme carries. Second discussing paper Apart from Satan, Adam could also be said to be the hero of the poem because of some of the major characteristic roles that he is made to play in the poem. Generally, a hero is a protagonist, a role that we read of Adam playing in several ways. Adam however has two major sides of roles in the poem.

First and foremost, he is seen as the hero of paradise, who possesses special and enormous power and talent to be brought to almost a co-equal as Raphael. This is because Adam is able to converse with Raphael in a manner that no ordinary person could do. He also has the power to perfectly understand the message of Raphael and to make implications of it, giving him an advantage to be a hero who was in a position to fight the cunning pride of Satan (Beck, 62). In accordance with the Columbia Encyclopedia (2009) which sees the hero as having character that is courageous, honest and graceful, Adam possessed all of these while in the garden with his wife.

He was intelligent and perfect, making it possible for him to have a near-god relationship with God. The qualities of Adam notwithstanding, he would become an epic hero, who must fall in the fight he was engaged in before gaining self consciousness on the need for him to establish a new order of perfection with God. The fall of this hero came when Satan came to the scene. But more specifically, the author gives Adam such a powerful characterization when it comes to his affection and love for his wife, Eve.