10 Years After

Guild of Mute Assassins

Ignored again in Milton! The instructor raised the issue of whether Satan's punishment after his return to Hell in Book xi was justified or not. Most people in the class who spoke up thought that the punishment was just. One girl in the back of the class stated that it was different than the typical religious idea that only Satan was punished ~ which seems strange since Satan doesn't appear to be punished for his tempting of Eve. I mean, later in the Bible he's still up in Heaven. Which, seems to be totally ignored by Milton's depiction of Satan cast out of heaven prior to the Fall of Man.

It does seem a good contender for "poetic justice." That is, Satan and the other fallen angels are transformed into serpents as punish for Satan having possessed the serpent and tempting Eve. However, I'd have to question if this is justice or revenge. It seems that if Satan is to be punished for tempting Eve, which omniscient God knew about and knew was inevitable according to his own speeches, then God must also be accountable for allowing it to take place, right? If I know someone is going to do wrong aren't I obligated to stop them? It's not as strong of a case perhaps as in Job, where God grants Satan authority to do ill against Job, but it is in the same ball park.


Anyways, back to being ignored. The topic went from Satan's punishment to Adam & Eve. I commented that there seems a distinction between why Eve fell from why Adam fell. Eve falls because she attempts to use discursive logic and is duped by Satan. Adam, on the other hand, chooses to fall because it is his nature to want Eve. This seems more of a case of his nature causing his fall. This need for companionship was previously recognized by God as attested to Eve being created. (Curiously, since God knew that Eve would be duped by an argument by Satan it seems strange that Eve was not incorporated into the discussion between Raphael and Adam.) I drew a link between the same sort of statements by Satan, that he could recognize that he had done wrong, but by his nature he could not choose the right action.

I commented that this seems to add weight to arguments against Milton's God, such as those by William Empson. His comment was then, "uh-huh", a head nod, and then he went off on some other direction. Strangely, when the middle age psychiatrist in our class commented on myths being used to describe current conditions, and, thus, not required to be logical, the instructor seemed to gleefully accept it. Maybe it was his weight as a doctor or the fact that he didn't come out and seem to make a direct religious statement.

Also of interest, we read over some feminist critics excerpts about the misogynyof Milton. One female student commented that Milton was merely a product of his time. Rueben, however, disagreed and commented that the Puritans were rather extreme in their attitudes toward women. At least their views differed from the Catholic views of women. While neither held women as equals, the held more freedoms and rights under Catholics than under Puritans.

One of the critics commented about Abdiel being the true hero of Paradise Lost since he is the one who faces adversity and maintains his faith. I thought this was quite interesting. It also caused me to think of how a few weeks earlier the instructor lead the class into, more or less, ridiculing, the notion that Eve sought to test her faith. I had a glimmer of doubt then, recalling some later writer (Blake?) who dissinted with Milton's view that faith should go untested. In any case, the comment about Abdiel caused me to think of Eve as a sort of failed hero. Whereas Abdiel remains true to God, Eve is tempted into disobeying God.

Unrelated really to the discussions above, I noticed that the instructor had taken a point or two off several people's journals and commented that their "argument" wasn't an original argument (or no longer much of an issue) and asked what they could do to restate it in an original form. This seems surprising since all we read of criticism is a paragraph at most of several authors on a book, or two or three. It's not as if we really spend much time learning what criticism has been brought to bear against Milton or Paradise Lost. Oh, well. C'est La Vie.