Satan as Hero: Paradise Lost

Satan as Hero: Paradise Lost

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  Satan as Hero:Paradise Lost By: Keenan M. Afram
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   2    John Milton framesParadise Lost as an epic by delineating his grand subject and by invoking his Muse, which is no less than the Holy Spirit, “Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song/…And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer/Before all temples th’ upright heart and pure,/Instruct me” (1.13-19). Milton’s intentional reference to epic conventions permits his audience to see the characters, chiefly Satan, through this epic lens, and has been instrumental in creating an age-old controversy. Termed the “Satanist controversy,” one of the great questions of the text is whether Satan is in fact hero like those found in the great epics, (Achilles, Odysseus, etc.) or a villain. The difficulty in resolving this polemical question stems largely from ambiguous language – there are at least two types of basic and contradictory heroism, Hellenic (epic) and Christian. As we will see, Satan is at once a Hellenic hero, but not a Christian hero. With this answer, however, another question arises – why is there such difficulty in discerning Satan’s status as a hero, or at the very least, why did Milton create him in this way? What is a Hellenic hero? According to William R. Herman, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, a Hellenic hero is “[one] we associate those qualities of individuality, self- determination, and physical courage that endure alone against what seems to be ineluctable odds” (Herman 13). Like brave Achilles, the Hellenic hero possesses incredible martial prowess, physical strength, and often is the herald and vanguard of victory. However, also like Achilles, he does not have to possess outstanding moral character, and “he need not to be suave, physically graceful, or tender, for we have the bumptious Ajax and the clumsy Hercules (Herman 13). These types of heroes are exemplified by the Old West gunslinger, a soldier who bravely follows orders, and cunning Odysseus. All of these heroes have “stood alone, in individual combat, resting life and death on a razor’s edge” (Herman 13). These secular heroes display restlessness,
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   3    audacity, and guilewhich have marked all the mighty hunters of mankind from Alexander the Great to Napoleon. Satan, in the first book, is a spirited commander and superb orator, capable of rallying his defeated troops, restore military discipline, and oversee the creation of a new kingdom During the battle of Heaven, Satan challenges God the Creator, a being infinitely powerful and infinitely wise, yet Satan’s doomed courage persists, “He is Odysseus and Jason on their heroic voyages, leader and chief warrior in battle during and after the War in Heaven” (Herman 30). Satan, when he convenes with the fallen angels in Hell, “claims to have undertaken his enterprise for the public good, the salus populi. It is matter of ‘public moment,’ and his followers praise him for placing the "general safety" before his own” (Steadman 281). Satan is a democratic leader concerned foremost with his followers’ well being and holds a fierce belief in self-determination, “Here we may reign secure, and in my choice/To reign is worth ambition though in Hell/Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n” (1.261-264). “Satan’s ambition was the greatest, to sit on the throne of the universe, and for it, his punishment was greatest. His fortitude was as great as his sufferings and his strength of mind matchless as his strength of body” (Steadman 258). Like the epic heroes of antiquity, Satan possesses those Hellenic and laudable qualities of courage, a fierce desire for self-determination, as well as limitless ambition. The Christian hero, in contrast to the Hellenic, although he may possess them, is not exulted for any of these earthly characteristics. His main characteristic “is not physical strength but moral strength, permitting him to be obedient to God when all others reject God or the need to be obedient. The Hellene obtains glory through defiance; the Biblical hero obtains glory through submission” (Herman 13). The Hellenic hero fights for the glory of himself, the
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   4    Christian hero fightsfor the glory of God. According to Herman, “the main difference between them are primarily a matter of consciousness of doing wrong, and, following from this consciousness, secretiveness in acting” (Herman 14). The sinning God-fearing man cloaks his sin in darkness; the Hellenic hero is openly defiant, “although he may not be aware that he is being defiant” or immoral (Herman 14). The saintly martyr who gives up his life for God and goodness is the essential Christian or moral hero. It is readily apparent why Satan fails as a Christian hero – he is consciously and openly defiant towards God. In doing so, Satan becomes the antithesis of goodness, and acknowledges this by saying, “Evil, be thou my good” (Milton 4.110). Yet, Satan is neither a villain because he rejected God; nor simply a villain because a “good devil” is a non-sequitur and the very definition of devil or Satan requires evil. While a devil hero or godlike fiend is indeed an oxymoron, Satan more importantly fails as a moral hero (Steadman 255). It could be said that Satan’s catalyst for falling was his sense of injured merit, a theme common to many epic heroes like Achilles. The crime against him, however, is trivial. C.S. Lewis, in A Preface to Paradise Lost, writes, “He [Satan] thought himself impaired because Messiah had been pronounced Head of the Angels. No one had in fact done anything to Satan; he was not hungry, nor over-tasked, nor removed from his place, nor shunned, nor hated- he only thought himself impaired. (Lewis v- vi). Lewis believes that the devil’s sense of injured merit comes perilously close to absurd and even comical; Satan’s entire reason for rebelling is false and thus his legitimacy as a rebel is forfeit. He rebels out of arrogant pride, not out of justifiable and righteous indignation. Satan is not merely offended that he has been displaced by Christ; in his arrogance, he actually considers himself greater than God and wishes to supplant him. Raphael, in describing the war in Heaven to Adam, reveals Satan’s motivation, “That self same day by fight, or by surprise/To win the
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   5    Mount of God,and on his Throne/To set the envier of his State,/the proud/ Aspirer” (6.686-90). Satan is the “proud aspirer,” not the noble aspirer – this line reveals how a “heroic” thing like prideful aspiring can in fact be ruinously pernicious; it is vital to differentiate the Hellenic qualities from moral qualities. While Satan’s catalyst for betraying is false and thus he is an illegitimate rebel, his actions themselves are villainous. Because Satan’s assault on Heaven fails, he knows he cannot topple God by directly confronting him. Instead, Satan resolves to “get back at” God by poisoning and corrupting his beloved creations, Adam and Eve. In Eden, seeing Eve alone and vulnerable to his persuasion, says, “The way which to her ruin now I tend” (Milton 9.494). Satan is so consumed in the “hot Hell that always in him burns” and so wholly evil, he is willing to destroy innocent Eve and all of humanity just to get even with God for a nonexistent crime; this is petty revenge, not heroics. In addition, unlike the Hellenic hero who might not be aware of his defiance, Satan is fully conscious of his evil actions. He says: But say I could repent and could obtain By Act of grace my former state, how soon Would Heights recall high thoughts, how soon unsay What feigned submissions swore! Ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. (Milton 4.93-97) It is debatable whether God would accept his repentance or not, nonetheless, the passage reveals that Satan does indeed know he is wrong and would require repentance to regain his former status. The passage also reveals Satan’s greedy pride – he does not wish to repent out of apologetic sorrow, but merely to regain his former status to escape the debasement of Hell. Thus,
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   6    the repentance wouldbe a “feigned submission.” One of the theological purposes of Satan is that he must choose to go against God; Satan, contrasted with Adam and Eve, does not need to eat from the Tree of Knowledge to understand good and evil. Satan chooses evil, not out of heroics, but out of sinful and misbegotten pride. When asked separately whether Satan is a Hellenic or Christian/moral hero, the issue seems markedly simple. Then why, “For roughly three centuries, readers have demanded justice for Satan; and the validity of his title as hero has been the oldest, and possibly the most persistent, of many controversies over Paradise Lost” (Steadman 253). In this same piece, John Steadman facetiously comments that many have weighed in on the issue, from “psychoanalytic schools… that diagnose Satan’s malady as acute paranoia…to sporting clubs that insist that the devil, as underdog, should be given a reasonable handicap, a decent chance to win” (Steadman 254). Why is there such difficulty in discerning if Satan is truly a hero – why is there this Satanist controversy? C.S. Lewis argues that the success of this portrait was largely due to humanity’s fallen nature; it is easier to project oneself into an evil character such as Satan than a good one. He writes, “The Satan in Milton enables him to draw the character well just as the Satan in us enables us to receive it… A fallen man is very like a fallen angel” (Lewis 94). While debatable, it is generally advised to avoid the dangers of confusing theological polemics and literary debates. Approaching it more from a literary perspective, Douglas Bush, a literary critic, writes concerning the Satanist controversy, “In brief that, since God is unpleasant and Satan is a being of such magnificent vitality, Milton, in spite of his consciously different purpose, must have put his heart and soul into the projection of Satan” (Bush 33). In addition, similar to Lewis’ position
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   7    sans the theology,Bush points to Satan as “a very human villain” to explain his preeminence as a hero (Bush 111). According to Milton’s theology, God and Christ are both divinely perfect – there is no possibility for character development, conflict, or interest to the reader. Milton, unable to develop or play with the characters of God and Christ as they are zenith of perfection, instead chose Satan, a very humanly figure, full of greed, contempt, and disastrous pride. Steadman, disagreeing with Bush’s theory that the “heroic” fiend was created unintentionally, believes that Milton deliberately created Satan’s ambiguity by playing with the ideals of the Hellenic hero and the moral hero. He writes, "Milton deliberately played these different meanings against one another … the entire portrait is a consciously fabricated illusion - an image of an eidolon, a pseudo-hero (Steadman 254). Steadman argues that the purpose of this false image is to reinforce Satan as a parody of God and Christ. He writes: Hell is a pseudo-Heaven, an illusory imitation of the king of God, just as the prince of hell is a pseudo-diety, a caricature of the Lord. As in a distorting mirror, where values like directions are reversed, we can recognize in the devil not only a faithful prototype of the fallen world, but a shadow of the heaven they have lost. (Steadman 288) Satan’s heroics, then, are intentionally created to mimic the heroics of providence and to reinforce his position as a fallen angel. By retaining the illustrious beauty of Heaven, we are better able to see Satan as a mere shadow of what he once was – his beauty and heroics a twisted parody. Milton intentionally portrays Satan as not merely evil, but an inversion of goodness and a “prototype” of fallen humanity – capable of great feats of courage, but ultimately a flawed copy of the original perfection of Adam and Eve.
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   8    It seems wrong,then, to reduce Satan to a simple formula of either Hellenic hero or villain. It is more appropriate to explore the contrasting ideals of heroism implicit in Satan’s character as well as the role he must play in the structure of a “Divine Poem” concerning the fall of man. In a theological epic, the criterion of merit should be theological – thus, Satan is ultimately a villain not only out of moral crookedness, but through design. Satan’s role is of course vital to the plot – he must precipitate the Felix Culpa of man and thus Milton cannot redeem him. In this antithetical but doomed role, we must give the devil his due as a creature possessing fierce self-determination, cunning, and courage in the face of an insurmountable foe. Perhaps God is to blame, as he is the author of all things, and required Satan as an instrument to his own end. Our fallen angel retains a figment of the former grace bestowed by his dictatorial creator – yet it serves not to comfort, but to contrast with the grace and perfection in heaven. With this, a portrait of Satan as a tragic figure is painted – he, like man, is flawed yet valiantly persists. Our identification with this “very human villain,” along with Milton’s intentional creation of the pseudo-hero, fuels the Satanist controversy as well as humanity’s paradoxical desire to defend the one who supposedly precipitated all of humanity’s suffering.
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   9    Works Cited Bush, Douglas.Paradise Lost in Our Time: Some Comments. New York: Cornell University Press; First Edition, 1945. Print. Herman, William R. “Heroism and Paradise Lost.”. National Council of Teacher of English 21.1 (1959): 13-17. Web. 2 May 2011. Lewis, C.S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. New York: Penguin Books, 1961. Print. Steadman, John M. "The Idea of Satan as the Hero of “Paradise Lost.”. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 120.4 (1976): 253-294. Web. 2 May 2011.