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Illusion Of Hope In Milton's Paradise Lost

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Milton’s Illusion of Hope, An Analysis on Milton’s Paradise Lost
"Which way I fly is Hell; my self am Hell" (IV-75)
Most interesting and unpredictable character in Milton’s Paradise Lost is Satan. Milton encourages the reader to empathize with Satan. However, again and again this empathy strengthens and loosens due to the Satan’s overly complicated characteristics through the text. Despite his glorious and ambitious appearance at first, he slowly descends and questions his actions. The aim of this paper is to analyze Satan’s descent and try to guess why Milton could have designed his own Satan in such a way.
Book I includes Satan’s rise in hell. He and his followers were punished by God for rebelling against him. From the beginning, it is normal …show more content…

Satan makes an impressive speech with a strong leader image. Here, some readers empathize with Satan and blame God for such cruelty. The important thing here is that Satan does not only influences his fallen angels, but also influences the actual reader to agree with him. Arguably, reader does not get this idea until meeting Satan in person. Reader is forced to question his own morals to decide which side here is actually the righteous one. Due to moral differentiations, readers split into two sides, supporting God or Satan. So, the line between true and false is not really clear. In Satan’s perspective, God is described with authoritarian and dull characteristics that make the reader see the God as an unattractive entity. On the other hand, it is possible to see Satan’s seductive nature and avoid choosing him over God. In their military-like discussion under Satan’s leadership, fallen angels decide to stay in hell while Satan goes alone to Eden, willing to conduct their plan of destroying the humankind. Along his way Satan finds Sin. Sin is Satan’s child born by his disobedience towards God. Sin is attractive but somewhat wicked. These qualities are exactly fits what Satan thinks, making him an ideal father. Satan persuades

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