Adam And Eve In Paradise Lost

In 1667, John Milton, an English poet, and polemicist published Paradise Lost: A Poem in Ten Books, a volume of epic poetry where he raises arguments regarding the book of Genesis, Sin, and both the rise and fall of man told through Adam and Eve. To further examine Milton’s dialogue and unearth the messages weaved throughout the epic, it is imperative to review both John Milton’s life and the political, social, and religious beliefs he held as a man. John Milton was a Puritan and during seventeenth-century England, religion and politics were largely controlled together, thus Milton’s political sympathies of the time lay with the Puritan Revolutionaries who were majorly against the king, living under the rule of both James I and Charles I,

In the Book of Genesis, it states “Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15). Adam and Eve are both thought to be required to look after and maintain Eden, however, Eve seems to be the only one of the pair even thinking about tending to the garden and being productive. Eve even goes as far to propose Adam and herself split work keeping up paradise, Adam states “nothing lovelier can be found / In woman, than to study household good, / And good works in her husband to promote” (Book IX, 232-234). Immediately, Adam believes a women's job is to tend to domestic and household work, while he does not yet possess a clear idea of what his own work should consist of. Adam’s immediate inequality speaks as ignorant to modern readers of Paradise Lost, however, Milton entrusts and grants Eve to control domestic issues, playing to the mid-sixteen-hundreds views on femininity. Critics Bob Hodge and David Aers present the argument that Milton’s outlook on Adam and Eve’s relationship throughout the poem offers a look at a “relationship as a mutually beneficial one while also reinforcing masculine consciousness of its conviction that the right to rule was the male’s.” Although Milton’s ideals of authority and free will may not reflect equally on both genders, one must remember

When Eve is visited by the Satan disguised as the Serpent she does not easily fall prey to Satan, instead, she is curious and poses questions, it is not until Eve is “impregened with reason” (Book IX, 737) that she even tries to eat the forbidden fruit. However, when Adam eats the fruit, he simply eats it out of impulse because Eve has already eaten it, he does not fully think through his choice. Milton’s fall of man depicted in Paradise Lost displays the women initially questioning temptation and then proceeding, while the man responds with his heart rather his head, and falls to temptation almost immediately, thus Milton illustrates the pair equally at fault for the fall. Ultimately, Eve is placed responsible for the fall and Adam is considered courageous for falling alongside Eve out of