Roll no : 05
Class : M.A
Sem : 1
Topic :
Themes, Symbols and Motifs of “Paradise Lost”
Year :
2016-2018
Email id : amitrivedi4288@gmail.com
Submitted to
: SMT.S.B.Gardi Department of English & M.K.Bhavnagar University
v Introduction
In the first book of the Bible, the Genesis account speaks of the origin
and creation of all plant life in the sea and all life on the land including
man. It was at this time that God spoke creation creation into existence, and
the earth became a busting place of activity, and order. Since that time, man
has known there is a God. Christian Fundamentalists believe that the Bible is
true and all that life on earth was formed in six literal days of each other
approximately six thousand years ago.
In Genesis
1:28, the Bible says,
“And God blessed them, and god unto them, be faithful, and multiple, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the flow flow of the air, and the sea, and over every living thing
that moves upon the earth.”
In Genesis 2:15, it says,
“And
the lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and
to keep it.”
Eve in this primitive state, it shows the care that God has for man. God
has given man freedom to be his own
man, to care for his environment. Is there a god or did the universe just
explode out of nothing.? No explosion from. Therefore, there will always be the
issue of the origin of the universe.
“The main reason why people today
fail to see the connection between Christianity and the creation of science is
because of the misunderstanding on its origin we have been told for so long
that evolution is a proven fact, and new people are buying this lie, hook, line
and sinker. The humanist forgets the fact that the basic tents of the
scientific method are, that it must be observation, testable, repeatable, and
falsifiable.
1. Importance of Obedience to God :
The first word of Paradise
Lost state that the poem’s main theme will be “Mans first Disobedience.” Milton
narrates the story of Adam and Eve’s
disobedience, explains how and why it happens, and places the story within
the larger context of Satan’s rebellion and Jesus resurrection. Raphael tells
Adam about Satan’s disobedience in an effort to give him a firm grasp of the
threat that Satan and humankind’s disobedience poses. In essence, Paradise Lost
presents two moral paths that one can take after disobedience; the down words
spiral of increasing sin and degradation, represented by Satan, and the road to
redemption, represented by Adam and Eve.
While Adam and Eve are the
first humans to disobey God, Satan is the first of all God’s creation to
disobey. His decision to rebel comes only from himself he was not persuaded or
provoked by others.
2. Hierarchical nature of Universe :
Paradise Lost is about
hierarchy as much as it is about obedience. The layout of the universe with
Heaven middle presents the universe as a hierarchy based on proximity to God
and his grace. This spatial hierarchy leads to a social hierarchy of angels,
humans, animals and devils: the son is closest to God, with the archangels and
Eve and Earth’s animals come next, with Satan and the other fallen angels
following last. To obey God is to respect this hierarchy.
Humankind’s disobedience is a
corruption of God’s hierarchy. Before the fall, Adam and Eve treat the visiting angels with proper respect and
acknowledgement of their closeness to God, and Eve embraces the subservient
role allotted to her in her marriage.
3. The Fall as Partly Fortunate :
After he sees the vision of Christ’s
redemption of humankind in Book XII, Adam refers to his own sin as a felix
culpa or “happy fault” suggesting that the fail of humankind. While originally
seeming an unmitigated catastrophe, does in fact bring good with it. Adam and
Eve’s disobedience allows God to shoe his mercy and temperance in their
punishments and his eternal providence now experience pain and death, but
humans can also experience mercy, and salvation and grace in ways they would
not have been able to had they not disobeyed. In other words, good will come of
sin and death, and humankind will eventually be rewarded.
4. Disobedience :
God, being God, was by
definition superior to every other thing in the universe and should always be
obeyed. In Paradise Lost God places one prohibition on Adam and Eve not to eat
from the Tree of Knowledge. The prohibition is not so much matter of the fruit
of the tree as it is obeying God’s ordinance. By not god’s rules, Adam and Eve
bring calamity into their lives and the lives of all kind.
5. Freedom :
Freedom is a major theme of
the poem. Perhaps because Milton himself took part in the English civil war on
the side of the rebel puritan force, serving under Cromwell. England was
changing from an absolute monarch to a constitutional monarch. Ideas of freedom
and democracy were under discussion, including Milton’s own treatises on
various topics.
The poem opens with Satan’s view of freedom.
He has just fallen from heaven and claims “here at least we shall be free.” He
rebels against “ the oppressor” in heaven and blames God for imprisoning him in
Hell, though he is the one who separated himself from God, claiming he is
“self-begot.”
ex1. Light and Dark :
Opposite abound in Paradise
Lost, including Heaven and Hell, God and
Satan, Good and Evil. Milton’s uses imagery of light and darkness to
express all of these opposites. Angels are physically describe in terms of
light, whereas devils are generally described by their shadowy darkness. Milton
also uses light to symbolize God and God’s grace. In his invocation in Book
III, Milton asks that he be filled with this light. So he can tell his divine
story accurately and persuasively. While the absence of light in Hell and Satan
himself represents the absence of God and his Grace.
2.
The Geography of the Universe :
Milton divides the universe
into four major regions : Glorious
Heaven, Dreadful Hell, Confusing Chaos and A young and vulnerable Earth in
between. The opening scenes that take place in hell give the reader
immediate context as to Satan’s plot
against God and humankind. The intermediate scenes in Heaven, in which God tell
the angels of his plans, provide a philosophical and theological context for
the story. Then with these established setting of good and evil, light and
dark, much of the action occurs in between on Earth Satan fights God by
tempting Adam and Eve. While God shows his love and mercy through the son’s
punishment.
3.
Conversation and Contemplation :
One common object raised by
readers of Paradise Lost is that the poem contains relatively little action.
Milton sought to divert the reader’s attention from heroic battles and place it
on the conversations and contemplations of his character. Characters comprise
almost five complete book of Paradise Lost. Milton’s narrative emphasis on
conversation convey the importance for a moral person. As with Adam and
Raphael, and again with Adam and Michael, the sharing of ideas allows two
people to share and spread God’s message.
1. The Scales in the Sky :
At Satan prepares to fight
Gabriel when he is discovered in Paradise, God causes the image of a pair of
golden scales to appear in the sky. On one side of the scales, he puts the
consequence of Satan’s running away; and on the other he puts the consequences
of Satan’s staying and fighting with Gabriel. The side that signifying its
lightness and worthlessness. These scales symbolize the fact that god and Stan
are not truly on opposite sides of a struggle. God is all powerful, and Satan
and Gabriel both derive all of their power from him. God’s scales force Satan
to realize the futility of taking arms against one of God’s angels again.
2. Adam’s Wreath :
The wreath that Adam makes
as he and Eve work separately in Book IX is symbolic in several ways. First it
represents his love for her and his attraction to her. But as he is about to
give the wreath to her, his shock in noticing that she has eaten from the Tree
of Knowledge makes him the wreath symbolizes that his love and attraction to
Eve is falling away. His image of her as a spiritual companion has been
shattered completely; as he realizes her fallen state. The fallen wreath
represents the loss of pure love.
Site:
www.sparknotes.com
No comments:
Post a Comment