Paradise Lost Conventions

How does a story display a message? Often while reading, people do not realize just exactly how a text displays a message or lesson. People only realize what the message or lesson was after they are done reading most of the time. But in fact there are actually a lot of things that go in to showing that message. Conventions of epics play a big role in this, you may not realize it while reading but if you were to look at the list of these conventions you would make lots of similarities between a copious amount of different texts. While each text may not have the same message, they all include conventions of epics to help portray it. "Paradise Lost" does this by fulfilling and displaying the conventions of epics to help communicate Milton's message

Adam and Eve are our "heroes" in this story. While Adam and Eve were the only people in their civilization, they still embody the Christian notation that humans are weak, sinful, and require God's assistance to find redemption for their sins. This is portrayed when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit which symbolizes them as weak, sinful, and that they need God's help to redeem themselves. This displays Milton's message of justifying God and in this case God's decision to cast Adam and Eve out from the garden of Eden, for the fall of Adam and Eve was actually a good thing because although they would suffer consequences for disobeying God, they would find mercy and grace of God through knowledge and

In most epics the hero descends into the underworld. However in "Paradise Lost" we witness a fall into the underworld, but not from what you would call a hero because he is more of a villain. This villain is Satan, at the beginning of the first book which begins after his fall we get the background on why he had descended. God, Satan, and both of their armies were fighting and after God had won, he punishes Satan's followers and Satan himself by casting them down to hell. At first Satan thinks being cast out of heaven into hell is bad but then emphasizes that he believes that his mind can not be changed by place or time. He expresses this belief by stating, "A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n"(1. 253-255). Along with this belief he gains the idea that the mind has the power to transcend circumstances in to good or bad. Satan chooses to transcend circumstances of his place in to good, he explains that he does this because he is still motivated by ambition to rule as God rules. He justifies this by saying, "Here at least we shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built here for his envy, will not drive us hence: here we may reign secure, and in my choyce to reign is worth ambition through in Hell: better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n"(1. 258-263). This portrays