Milton & # 8217 ; s Paradise Lost Essay, Research Paper

Satan, otherwise known as the archfiend, is the chief character in John Milton s epic verse form, Paradise Lost. Historically seen as the incarnation of immorality ; Satan is presented in a baronial mode in Milton s work and has many of the features of a tragic hero. The extract from the verse form starts with a brief sum-up of the events that lead up to Satan s ostracism in Hell. These events help to the reader to understand Satan s emotions and attitude subsequently in the verse form.

Satan and his personal ground forces of angels pay war on God and his angels. Satan and his followings are contending because they believe that angels should be equal to God. Satan & # 8217 ; s ground forces is defeated, nevertheless, and banished into Hell. In Hell, Satan is chained in a combustion lake, there to endure for all clip. This drumhead leads straight into Satan s foremost epic quality, leading.

Satan leads his ground forces into conflict believing that their cause is right. He doesn t battle because he is evil, he doesn t battle for celebrity, he doesn t battle for hatred. He fights for a cause that he believes in, and contending for a merely cause is a really good known step of gallantry.

A definition of a tragic hero may be something like

: A baronial character of high rank or stature that suffers a autumn through his ain actions. Satan is precisely that. He starts as a outstanding archangel, leads the rebellion, is defeated, and suffers his autumn to Hell. Peoples hate to give the rubric of hero to the Satan but if the names in Paradise Lost were changed and it was turned into a normal conflict narrative alternatively of a spiritual narrative ; so I believe that Satan s character would be doubtless viewed as a tragic hero. It is merely his name in the narrative that provokes hatred in people, non his actions.

I think Milton chose to do Satan baronial for many different grounds. Not the least of which is that people had already read narratives where Satan was wholly evil and the new mentality made his narrative different. Besides, Satan is the chief character and if people abhor the chief character it makes it difficult for them to be interested in his actions. Possibly the greatest thing that comes out of Milton s portraiture of Satan is that he is viewed as a individual, and as a individual we can understand what he is traveling through and why he did some of the things he did. In a sense, doing Satan existent, alternatively of merely an object of hatred, lets us acquire into his caput. It adds a really new interesting component to a really old narrative.