Unmasking Satan and Grinding His Followers into a Useless Pile of Dust
Milton’s portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost has provided fertile ground for debate among scholars for over two hundred years. ... The attempt to answer the question, did Milton intend to portray Satan as the hero, slighted by a tyrannical God, fighting against oppression the only way he can, or is Satan meant to be the representative of evil, the Father of lies immediately recognizable? ... In a truly impressive article entitled, ÒSatan As Hero in Paradise Lost,Ó John Steadman attempts to collect and review all the leading criticisms concerning the Satanic problem, and organize them into a cohesive whole. In the process he boils down the two camps into, Òa legalistic school which insists that the Father of Lies be taken at his own word until caught in an out-and-out perjury [and] a Pyrrhonist school which, conversely, insists on doubting everything he says until proven demonstrably trueÓ (254). Of course, there are bickering factions within these two camps, but upon first breaching the subject it is useful to categorize the opposing parties into these two groups. Separate from these two warring clans is a growing faction of malcontents, unsatisfied with an absolutist view of Satan. These malcontents see Satan as initially good and then slowly, over the course of the action, degenerating into evil. ... SatanÕs moral degeneration is demonstrated; he begins to look like hell. ... According to Wilding, SatanÕs physical degeneration from Archangel to Cherub, Cherub to toad, toad to snake represents his moral degeneration. ... Although this idea that Satan began as good and grows into evil is a step in the right direction to correctly identifying what Milton is intending, it does no go far enough. ... Satan does not grow evil over time, as made apparent by the birth of Sin. If Satan is evil, then his evil began with his choice to defy God. ... Whether SatanÕs defiance is an evil or heroic choice remains yet to be explored. WildingÕs idea of a degenerating Satan is not without merit. It does observe that some type of degeneration is taking place, but it is not the degeneration of SatanÕs internal morality, rather it is the readerÕs viewpoint of Satan as as a heroic figure. His first transformation is when he goes to speak with Uriel, which also happens to be the first moment the reader realizes that perhaps Satan is not as heroic as he originally believed him to be. ... Lewis does, that Satan displays any heroism in the first two books of Paradise lost. Milton intends his reader to see Satan as the hero, until the famous ÒApostrophe to the Sun,Ó in which he reveals himself to be an antihero. The reader becomes aware that Satan has deceived hi Ôm into believing that he is heroic. From this point on our vision of Satan degenerates, until he tempts Eve, when he becomes so obviously evil that he is nothing more than a slithering serpent. ... Lewis, clad in the shining armor of christianity, leads the first camp who believes that Satan is evil from beginning to end, mightily into battle. ... Lewis assumes that the reader is immediately aware of Satan as evil, and sees his Òrant and posture through the whole universe [as] awakening the comic spiritÓ (95). Lewis believes that because Òin the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige,Ó the reader should immediately recognize the evil of Satan (96). ... The only informa ètion given in the first few books is that Satan has lost his battle with God, and has been cast into hell. Even those who meet Satan with the necessary religious background information are subjected to only the Satanic side of the argument. The power of Satan is his ability to seduce his audience, despite what they already know. ... Lewiss criticism considers the poem as a whole, while ignoring the process that the reader undergoes when first encountering the entrancing nature of Satan in the first two books. The Satan of the first two books is heroic, but the change that occurs in him after the first two books is not something that any consciously minded critic can overlook.