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  • Essay / Eve's Vulnerability and Suffering in Paradise Lost

    Humans have instincts. However, some are often suppressed and seen by society as immoral and unnatural because not all of them have pure intentions. In Paradise Lost by John Milton, Milton tells the story of Adam and Eve and their fall from Eden, exploring the minds of each. Due to her struggle between her strong desire for wisdom, her vanity, and her desire to obey, Eve experiences an inner torment that portrays her as a flawed and, above all, human character, which Milton uses to comment on human vulnerability and the sometimes irresistible and great temptation to sin. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Although forbidden, Eve longs for knowledge, asserting that "...wisdom, which alone is truly right" (4.491) in comparison to "How beauty is surpassed by manly grace" (4.490). She immediately inflates the magnitude and grandeur of wisdom by asserting that its appeal and importance cannot be matched even with those of Adam's appearance. Her open comments about the wisdom she is forbidden to obtain from the Tree of Knowledge illustrate this uncertainty that torments Eve's mind as to whether or not she should act on her instinctive desire to obtain something she can't have. especially because he was told. His rationalization of his ambition for wisdom that "For the unknown good is certainly not had, or had / And yet unknown, is as not had at all" (9.756-757), or that being "good" but not having the knowledge of what. “Good” is really like not having it at all, underlines his thirst for wisdom. With this natural tendency to have a strong curiosity and to yearn for something inaccessible, the character of Eve is more realistic and humanistic because she is more accessible, as it is a universal instinct. Because it is more relevant, it creates a connection with Eve: when she is tempted by Satan to act on his wise desires despite his restrictions, there is an empathetic response that emphasizes the strength of temptation and exposes a vulnerability in humans to such things. temptation. While Eve's urge to seek wisdom torments her with its doubts and doubts, her vanity illustrates that she is not a perfect, goddess-like figure. When she first wakes up, she sees her reflection in a lake for the first time, to which “Of sympathy and love; there [she] had fixed / [Her] eyes until now, and languished with vain desire…” (4.465-466). Even when she discovers Adam, Eve finds him “...less amiably gentle, / Than this sweet and watery image” (4.479-480). Her fixation on her own reflection and appearance and her inability to create one for the man she's supposed to be with indicates a flaw, and this flaw, again, encourages a connection with her character, making her more human and less goddess. Because Satan uses this flaw against Eve as a means of persuading her to disobey by calling her "Goddess among the gods, worshiped and served / By angels innumerable, thy daily train" (9.547-548), this leads him to debating his obedience, adding to his conflicting thoughts and desires for wisdom. This inner torment resulting from this flaw also helps us understand that Eve's fall from Paradise is unintentional and that her vulnerability is being exploited, based on the constant battle she wages with herself. existing without the initial desire to obey that she possesses. In Adam, in the case of sex, “...nor Eve the / Mysterious rites of conjugal love refused;...” (4.742-763), manifesting his submission and his recognition of obligation. This submission illustrates that it..