The True Face of Evil
The True Face of Evil
An intro to Paradise Lost...
John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost is an unchallenged classic for one reason — evil. Though he was far from the first to grapple with the problem of evil, Milton engaged it from a challenging angle: the perspective of evil itself.
Paradise Lost retells the story of the Devil’s origins — formerly the greatest of God’s angels, Satan grew enamored of his own beauty and sought to be worshiped. He rebelled against God’s rule and, after losing the ensuing war in Heaven, sought to undermine God’s creation by tempting Adam and Eve to sin.
In his great epic poem, Milton gave this well-known story a daring turn by casting the Devil as a quasi-protagonist. While Milton didn’t actually sympathize with the devil, he did choose to write him as a tragic hero who tugs at readers’ sympathies.
Why would he do this? In many ways, Milton’s commentary on rebellion goes deeper than most readers realize, proving just how little most people understand the true nature of evil.
If you’re ready to be one of the few who truly understands the epic that turned Heaven and Hell upside-down, read on…
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Reign in Hell
Milton’s Satan goes down with a battle cry that reverberates through the ages:
“Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven!”
The image of Satan as the proud, unrepentant ruler of Hell, surveying his infernal kingdom from a fiery throne, is so embedded in popular culture that it’s hard to believe it’s only been around for a few centuries.
Until Milton penned his epic, Satan had never been portrayed as Hell’s monarch. In fact, the few nuggets of information in the Christian Bible hint that the Devil is actually a prisoner of Hell, not its ruler. Earlier cultural depictions of Satan adhere to this view — in Dante’s Inferno, for example, the Devil is portrayed as the underworld’s most miserable inmate, frozen in his own evil.
Milton’s interpretation of the Devil as an unrepentant rebel was both a reflection and a harbinger of cultural changes. By the late 17th century, the Catholic monopoly on Europe was beginning to crack. The Protestant revolution sent shock waves throughout the continent, and the currents of thought that would eventually blossom into the Enlightenment slowly began to gather steam. The political dynamics that would culminate in the French Revolution a century later were already unfolding.
Western Europe’s culture was caught in a moment of religious rebellion that would soon lead to widespread atheism and political revolution. It’s no wonder that a story about the original rebel, preferring to strike out on his own instead of continuing to serve a faceless hierarchy, caught fire.
At the same time, Milton’s story didn't just reflect culture: it created it.
Sympathy for the Devil
Milton’s Satan is more than a rebel: he’s an attractive antihero. In fact, the version of Satan that’s portrayed in Paradise Lost is similar to that of a tragic Shakespearean hero: a man full of good qualities, yet unable to save himself from his faults.
This portrayal of Satan made history as the first of its kind. Dark and divided protagonists — from Crime and Punishment’s Raskolnikov and The Fountainhead’s Howard Rourke to Deadpool and Jack Sparrow — trace their inspiration back to Milton’s epic.
Similar to Deadpool, Milton’s Satan is devilishly charismatic. But by exploring the character’s inner life, Milton also gave Satan a conscience, describing his sensitive side as he sorrows over the destruction of Creation’s beauty.
Seeing the world from Satan’s perspective, the reader can’t help but feel tempted to side with him. After all, why should one all-powerful God dictate His will to everyone else?
Shouldn’t a brilliant, daring, visionary angel be allowed to try things his own way?
Wouldn’t it, after all, be better to have things your own way in Hell, than begrudgingly put up with smug goodness in Heaven?
But these questions (and most readers) miss the real point of Paradise Lost — because there’s an almighty, unspoken twist to Milton’s tale…