The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

In today's world, imagine writing a novel that portrays Adolf Hitler as a protagonist and his actions as justified, including the extermination of over millions of Jews. Well, in Paradise Lost, John Milton's epic poem, the author thrusts a dagger into the heart of controversy of his time. Few other writings can compare to the debatable plot and its assortment of characterization and imagery which Paradise Lost proudly displays.

The book opens to a scene depicting broken and devastated soldiers lying strewn across the plains of Hell, with Satan and Beelzebub gathering some of the fallen angels for a council meeting in the recently constructed capitol, Pandemonium. After debating the next course of action, listening to the wise words of Moloch, Belial, and Mammon, Satan volunteers to fly past the flames of Hell, convince Sin and Death to open the gate, journey through the nothingness of the Void, and find out about God's latest creation, Man. While God and His Son foreshadow Man's fate, Satan uses the guise of a cherub to trick Uriel into revealing the location of Earth and enters the Garden of Eden, surveying the land and inhabitants with envy, hatred, and a twinge of remorse. After Gabriel catches him whispering to a sleeping Eve and shoos him away, Rapheal visits the pair after Eve recounts her disturbing dream to Adam the following morning. Rapheal warns Adam about the enemy, Satan, and proceeds to recount the tale of the battle waged in Heaven that led to Satan's banishment. He finishes his set of anecdotes with the story of creation, of the days before Adam's “birth”. Adam, wishing to keep the angel's company, tells of the story of his own making by God's hands. The next day, Eve suggests that she and her husband work in separate areas of the garden, ignoring Adam's warning that the enemy may be near. Eve meets a serpent and becomes fascinated by his speech and reason, wondering how he acquired them. The serpent, Satan, explains that by having eaten a fruit of a certain tree, he attained his new skills and tempts her to consume a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Adam, fearful for his wife's fate, concedes to eat one too and the pair try to cover their nakedness with leaves. Because of their transgression, not only are they banished from the garden, but Sin and Death enter the mortal realm and the demons of Hell become cursed with the bodies of serpents. In the end, the Son of God hears the repenting of the human couple and God sends Micheal to lead them out of Eden, reassuring the humans that someday, they may have paradise regained.

The characters each possess diverse personalities—from the aggressive and proud Gabriel to the loyal and brutal Moloch—but no story captures a creature quite like the antihero, Satan. In most writings, the author usually portrays the devil as a flat, static character that only exists to cause trouble for a group of innocent humans. Although the latter may be true in the eyes of any son of Adam, Milton creates a Satan whose goals are heroic in the opinion of his fallen army and already foreseen by the Father. The depths of his character surface after he enters the garden, has a small bout of remorse, and mutters to himself, “...Till Pride and worse Ambition threw me down... he deserv'd no such return / From me... nor was his service hard” (121). This Satan, possibly on his knees and holding back sulfuric tears as he says those words, regrets his betrayal to an extent, understanding all that he has given up for his selfish quest, but his own arrogance and hatred that brought about his damnation keeps him from repenting and regaining his angelic status. Instead, he remains the calm, collected leader of a gang of rebels, almost attacks Gabriel for mocking his lost appearance and power, and causes Adam and Eve to lose their home in Paradise. And yet, for all his flaws, Milton has somehow molded a character that needs to be pitied and possibly respected.

Imagery can be tricky, since an author does not want to leave his readers flailing in the dark, mistaking the story's monster for a dragon when it is a giant crocodile, nor does he want to exhaust the readers with elaborate details, like most modern-day romance fictions. However, Milton finds the perfect balance of “showing, not telling,” enriching the passages with vivid descriptions, but holding back on ridiculous “purple prose” like telling what the color of every angels' hair is. The imagery is so deep and compelling that a person can see, hear, smell, feel, and even taste the worlds of Heaven, Hell, and Earth in his/her mind. On the second page of Paradise Lost, Milton already sets to work describing the dark and ominous pit of Hell as “A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round / As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames / No light, but rather darkness visible” (48). Throughout the book he forms truly grotesque images like the serpentine Sin with dogs devouring her intestines and her inbred, ravenous child, Death; the beautiful pictures of the abundant, tranquil fields of the Garden of Eden; the impression of the innocent, docile humans ignorant of things like hate and greed.

Brilliant plot, excellent characterization, rich imagery. They are the key ingredients to any delectable story and Paradise Lost contains a surplus of each, as well as helpings of delicious irony, dialogue, and battle scenes. So, in the mood for a book that had the same effect in the fifteenth century as Animal Farm did in England in 1945? Grab Milton's greatest epic poem, curl up in a comfy chair or bed, and enjoy the read.