The serpent's persuasion is very traditional. Praise the subject and entice them. But Eve is completely oblivious to his comments that "all that fair and good in thy Divine/ Semblance" (606-7). He constantly addresses her as "the sovran mistress" and "resplendent Eve" (532 and 568). To the reader all this praise appears to be useless on Eve because she gives no hint to being flattered by Satan's words, but Milton mentions "Into the Heart of Eve his words made way" (550). Milton emphasizes this fact by his punctuation and italics in this quote. However on the surface Eve is amazed with his ability to speak. Satan's story is flawed. He was the ONLY one that could climb the tree and eat the fruit? What about the birds, the giraffes, the fallen fruit? Eve is just a complete novice in this world if she didn't think about these possibilities. Satan plays an excellent game though because the fruit apparently just made him think of Eve. How romantic!
Milton mentions that the serpent made the "intricate [path] seem strait" (632). This line obviously not only talks about Satan physically guiding Eve to the Tree of Knowledge, but also making his point obvious and easy to accept in Eve's mind. This resembles the persuasions of Screwtape this summer. They always wanted to make their twisted and sinful ways seem like the road straight to heaven. Go to church but do it because a woman is there. I really liked Milton's simile here to the flames in the Dead Marsh in The Lord of the Rings. It is the same idea that if you follow the wrong light during the night, the traveler will end up at the wrong place.
EXCELLENT!! Do you remember the line last week: "Long is the way and hard that out of hell leads up to light"? Compare that with how the serpent describes the path to the tree to Eve. Can you find it?
ReplyDeleteOh sure the opposite idea is stated when Satan says, "Empress, the way is readie, and not long" (626). With this line Eve should have seen the impossibility of this statement. Never is something easy in this world, but she just takes it right in.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything that is said above, however, Eve's world is very different from ours today. Eve did not know anything of hardship or evil or fear. She says "rather what know to feare/ Under this ignorance of Good and Evil,/ Of God or Death, of Law or Penaltie" (IX. 773-5). It's much easier to take on more when the extra load and its effects are unknown rather than to get rid of the load. The load being knowledge or a challenge. I think of eating food. You see a buffet and you pile everything onto your plate. Once you eat a few items, you realize you cannot finish the food. You eat all that you can because you have to keep the food. As a result, your stomach hurts and you waste. Its easy to take more than you need without understanding or realizing the effects. Humans do this all the time! Just another idea to consider for Eve's justification. But yes, Eve did not think logically about Satan's story.
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