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V00826627
December 3, 2017
ENGL 369: Milton
Jane Lindroos
December 3, 2017
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Jane Lindroos
V00826627
December 3, 2017
ENGL 369: Milton
The power of pleasure and of pain are associated with most emotions experienced
by both those in good graces and those who have fallen. In order to experience pain, one
must also experience true pleasure; neither can be appreciated without the other. In
relation to Satan, all his pain is also pleasure and all of his pleasure is pain (9.119-123).
Satan throughout “Paradise Lost” is one of the characters the readers spend the most
time with and, as an outcome of this, learn some of his innermost workings. His
interactions and influence over other characters in the epic, particularly Eve, reflect
negative aspects of character which have not been exposed to Heaven or Paradise. His
character struggles to come to terms with his emotions, both good and bad, as he
explores his fallen state. The fate or ‘doom’ of Satan is described as “reserv’d him to
more wrath; for now the thought both of lost happiness and lasting pain torments him”
(1.53-56). This paper will investigate how Satan, of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”,
invents the seven deadly sins based off of the emotions of the human experience through
Milton begins the epic in Hell because we, as fallen beings, through the sin and
state of confusion we possess. In a literal sense, Satan is the father of Sin itself.
Throughout the epic he is not only the creator of the seven deadly sins, but
metaphorically, the father of lies. As the creator of the sins, Satan is a master in his own
regard to all things evil. Negative emotions and evil are often not far off from each other,
negative emotion is self-doubt. Self-doubt is seen throughout the epic across various
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characters when questioning the reasons behind their own thoughts and actions
compared to what God intends of them. Satan feels self-doubt, “upon himself; horror
and doubt distract his troubl’d thoughts, and from the bottom stir the Hell within him”
(4.18-21). Although self-doubt is not a deadly sin, it is a negative emotion that brings out
the Hell from within him similarly to a sin. This disobedience of God or perhaps of one’s
own intuition reflect the seven deadly sins; gluttony, lust, envy, wrath, sloth, pride, and
greed which all involve one ignoring the more selfless choice
A component of the fallen state is the amount of time one spends thinking about
example that pairs well with and reflects sadomasochism is the soliloquy. This
particularly style of navel gazing is practiced by Satan multiple times throughout the
epic and could be considered a condition of being a fallen soul. A soliloquy is viewed as a
fallen form throughout the epic because it is cast inwards as opposed to outwards,
singular discourse, is not isolated in actions. It is true that misery loves company:
however, Satan does not have any company. Even when he is surrounded by other
beings, he still feels alone. Satan explains the pleasure in his own suffering “Which way I
flie is Hell; my self am Hell; and in the lowest deep a lower deep still threatning to
devour me opens wide to which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav’n” (4.75-78). Satan is full
of gluttony as he travels through the epic, particularly, in his soliloquies in key periods
of the plot. During his soliloquies, he reflects on his own feelings and how he feels
towards other and their actions. Selfishly he generally only reflects on his own actions
when they are creating cause and effect for someone else. While in the middle of a
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ENGL 369: Milton
soliloquy, he discusses both his and God’s actions expressing, “permitting him the while
venial discourse unblam’d: I now must change these notes to Tragic; foul distrust, and
breach Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt, and disobedience” (9.4-8). The
encouragement of disobedience through his own actions while having the support of the
fallen angels during his venture only brings him motivation, not companionship. To a
sadomasochist, anti-social feelings are delightful when thinking about one’s self and the
himself. If he were fully sadomasochistic then he would feel delight from suffering. He
understands pleasure and feels it deeply, although, it causes him pain. When he is sent
to make Adam and Eve fall and become disobedient, he feels no delight in the task.
Although, it has to come from the fall of Adam and Eve, Satan wants to get revenge on
God, he does not want to hurt Adam or Eve. His focus remains on God and taking
Paradise away from him, “For onely in destroying I find ease to my relentless thoughts;
and him destroyd, or won to what may work his utter loss, for whom all this was made”
(9.129-132). This obsession that Satan has to have revenge against God is toxic in itself,
though not surprising given that it is an obsession held by Satan. Due to the fact that
Satan is a representation of Hell itself, does this give him the advantage or disadvantage
of feeling such a negative mental state? It could be argued that God took away various
emotions and experience from Satan forcing him to find new ways of representation
through which he created the seven deadly sins. For example, Satan is robbed of delight
when he is in Hell, “the hot Hell that always in him burnes, though in mid Heav’n, soon
ended his delight, and tortures him now more” (9. 467-470). Hell is expressed as a
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ENGL 369: Milton
character. The torture felt by Satan is not limited to his missing of delight, but is spread
through all emotions that he feels creating even greater torture. The thief of delight,
though an ironically sinful statement in itself, is God which further enrages Satan as he
descends towards to his goal of getting revenge through Eve eating the apple.
God had taken away the experience of pleasure from Satan by not allowing him to
feel it to its full capacity leaving him with only temptation. The character of Satan, also
known as the Tempter, is in himself a temptation for the reader. For almost the entire
epic all of the characters, even the fallen angels, have godly or angelic qualities about
them. Satan is the character most relatable to humans and in a lot of aspects represents
the largest range of human qualities, both good and bad. The theme of the epic truly is
the inherent human tendency towards disobedience. As Milton justifies the ways of God
to man, it is ironic that the character specifically made to represent evil and Hell is one
of the most likeable and relatable. This irony of tempting the fallen readers to connect
with Satan more than the other characters is itself a reflection of man’s disobedience
towards God. Satan is tempting to the readers and to Eve before she falls. Eve is
temptation thus began” in convincing her to eat the forbidden fruit (9.532). Temptation
is not a sin, yet can lead to any number of sins because of its influence over one’s actions
and choices. In this scene in particular, Eve is gluttonous, wanting some of the
forbidden fruit knowing full well that she is not allowed, yet is tempted because of the
power it has supposedly given the serpent. Adam is outwardly aware of the potential
that temptation has which he warns Eve saying, “for hee who tempts, though in vain, at
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least asperses the tempted with dishonor foul, suppos’d not incorruptible of Faith, not
speaking, temptation is the gateway to Sin. Temptation acts as the slippery slope
between innocent human imperfection and immoral acts of sinning. Due to the fact that
Satan is presented as the ultimate tempter, it is ironic to see his role reversed as he is
being tempted by Eve and is challenged to balance his pleasure and pain.
Although, Satan tempts Eve into eating the fruit, she is also a temptation to him.
Eve hold a special kind of pleasure that causes him pain. This torture experienced by
Satan doubles in a single moment in book nine when he experiences his greatest pain.
The greatest pain that Satan feels is “stupidly good” as he is watching Eve in Paradise.
His evil is petrified by the sight of her: “that space the Evil one abstracted stood from his
own evil, and for the time remaind Stupidly good, of enmitie disarm’d of guile, of hate,
of envie, of revenge” (9.463-466). This raw experience felt by Satan leaves the entire
scene open and up in the air as he is momentarily elevated and caught in a sense of bliss.
Both on a physical and spiritual level, Satan is suspended in time and space losing focus
of his “fierce intent” (9.462). The fierce intent he has of forcing Adam and Eve to fall
runs parallel to his fierce desire of Eve herself. He is infatuated with her multiple times
and each time is bewildered as to the lust he feels for her. Satan has sexual desire while
watching Adam and Eve make love and lusts after them, however, has no capacity for it
since being sent to Hell. Sex is one of the greatest forms of pleasure, particularly for the
angels before they fall and it is one that Satan is no longer able to experience or rejoice
in. He invents lust as he can only desire sexual action and be tempted by it. Lust is an
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outcome of the fallen state and is experienced after eating the forbidden fruit by Adam
and Eve.
Adam and Eve inspire the creation of not only lust, but also envy. Envy is never
cannot have. Milton turns the relationship between Adam, Eve, and Satan into a love
triangle. Adam’s character is aware of temptation and of envy. Adam describes the
possibilities of envy and their potential danger as “what malicious Foe, envying our
happiness, nad of his own despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame by sly assault” (9.
253-256). He is aware that the “foe” he speaks of is just as envious of their happiness as
pleasure without pain. It is difficult to say whether or not Satan is more envious of Adam
and Eve’s relationship or of the Son of God. The initial intention of his mission and the
start of his rebellion is because God reinvents the hierarchy putting his Son above Satan.
The Tempter links his emotions together, “he it was, whose guile stird up with Envy and
Revenge, deceiv’d The Mother of Mankind, what time his Pride had cast him out of
Heav’n” (1.34-37). Both his envy and revenge have put him in his current position of a
The envy he has towards the Son of God when the hierarchy is shifted under
God’s command motivates Satan to challenge him. Satan’s quest towards getting
revenge on God creates new conceptions of sin; wrath, sloth, and pride. The amount of
anger Satan possesses towards God drives his actions in wanting to ruin the perfect
paradise that God has produced. He attempts to share this anger with his followers,
giving them hope that, “All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, and study of revenge,
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immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield: and what is else not to be
overcome? That glory never shall his wrath or might extort from me” (1.106-111). The
revenge that Satan wishes to achieve before God is a direct disobedience and
representation of the sin, sloth. By challenging God, he is going against the will of God,
and in a rather gluttonous, wrathful fashion. One of the first moment of sin is at the very
beginning when Satan does not agree with the change of hierarchy and the exaltation of
the Son of God. Satan’s belief that he can challenge God and come out as a potential
hero is an elevated level of pride. Through Satan’s expressed emotions about God and
his lack of claimed responsibility, it is easy to believe that Satan considers them equal in
power. This belief could even be stretched as far to say that Satan believes that he is
better than God. Satan explains good and evil to his supporters of the rebellion, “out of
our evil seek to bring forth good, our labour must be to pervert that end, and out of good
still to find means of evil” (1.163-167). The pain inflicted on Satan is at the hands of God
making him the ideal torturer bringing into question who represents the good and the
evil in the epic. When seeing this perspective, it also begs the question that if deciding
between God and Satan, which one is the real hero of the epic? The question of hero is
tied back into the one of the sin, wrath, when talking about Satan’s “sad task, yet
argument not less but more heroic then the wrauth of stern Achilles on his Foe” (9.13-
15). With a bundle of sin put together including wrath, sloth, and pride, it is hard not to
analyze where these deep-rooted feelings of anger come from. The aggression Satan has
towards God and how he questions him steers the epic making Satan an even more
relatable character.
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ENGL 369: Milton
The wrath Satan feels towards God puts forward a number of questions about
good, evil, and the motivation behind His actions. In questioning the ways of God and
his motivations, it is a wonder as to how Satan can see paradise for what it is, a paradise.
It is also funny that Satan believes Paradise to be better than Heaven, “O Earth, how like
to Heav’n, if not preferr’d more justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built with second
thoughts, reforming what was old!” (9.99-101). It is debated if Satan being able to see
and appreciate Paradise is a form of torture being performed by God. Due to the fact
that he can see Paradise, it gives him a new extension of pleasure and therefore a new
pain. The torment Satan feels as he goes through Paradise is epitomized through the
passage stating: “the more I see pleasures about me, so much more I feel torment within
me, as from the hateful siege of contraries” (9.119-22). Though it is clear that if this was
God’s intention, he succeeded; in a sense, it backfired because out of it Satan creates the
last of the deadly sins, greed. The more Satan sees of Paradise, the more he longs for it
which in turn causes him more desire, and consequently, more pain. The pain Satan
feels in relation to Paradise is because Paradise confirms the Hell within him. Satan in
the epic has always been a representation of hell. In Paradise, Satan clarifies by saying
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n."
(1.254-255). Paradise, though beautiful, is similar to Hell in that it is not about the place,
but about the state of the mind and being. Paradise was a paradise for Adam and Eve
because they were in love. Their love was the state of mind that kept them in paradise
even after they had fallen. The physical locations do not define beings because
habitation is not physical. Habitation is a spiritual, personal, and individual sense of the
self.
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of Satan. His character goes beyond the usual folkloric tales of an evil hooved fallen
angel, and instead paints him as vulnerable, relatable, and most unsettling of all,
humanlike. His experiences wrestling with the deep emotions of pleasure and pain lead
to his creation of the seven deadly sins. He is inspired by both his own turmoil and his
internal conflicts surrounding his relationships with other characters such as Eve and of
course, God. The seven deadly sins were argued in this paper to clearly be a reflection of
Satan’s anguish turned outward. The inner-conflict that Satan experiences is verbalized
through his soliloquies in the epic which demonstrate the various types of pleasure and
pain he feels. After all, what greater torture is there than to grapple with every new
Works Cited
Milton, John. "Paradise Lost." The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton.
Ed. William Kerrigan, John Rumrich and Stephen Fallon. New York: The Modern
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