Superiority and Solitude in Milton’s Paradise Lost
From existing in a paradise that imitated the divine to becoming only a shadow of that imitation, the proverbial fall of Adam and Eve is illustrated in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Removed from their state of innocence by succumbing to temptation, Adam and Eve not only doom themselves, but all who succeed them. Tricked by Satan, Eve is the first to bite the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, but does that mean she is to blame? When examining the way Eve is treated by her husband, a variation of the story emerges. Eve, being a woman, is perceived as the inferior sex, a slave to Adam’s higher reason. She has become accustomed to adhering to his desires, so when she finds herself away from him, she is at a loss of reason. Eve wonders what it would be like to be her own person, to be governed by her own mind; it is this thirst for knowledge, prompted by Adam’s degradation, that drives her to choose sin. In Paradise Lost by John Milton, Adam is to blame for the fall of mankind as seen by his treatment of Eve.
Eve was created as inferior to Adam. Only a mere part of him, Eve was put in her place from the start of her existence. Milton clarified the hierarchy of equality when the mother and father of mankind were first introduced: “Though both / Not equal as their sex not equal seemed” (IV, 295-296). This is followed by, “He for God only, she for God in him” (IV, 299). Even in God’s eyes, Eve is seen as second best. Before the fall, Eve acknowledges her subservient position, saying, “My author and disposer, what thou bidst / Unargued I obey; so God ordains. / God is thy law, thou mine” (IV,635-637). As God is the author of all, Adam is the author of Eve. Made out of his rib to quell his loneliness, Eve’s only purpose is to support Adam and do as he orders. For much of her time in Paradise, she accepts her limited state. This is evident when she lets Adam make the decision about the Tree of Knowledge, declaring that “what thou hast said is just and right” (IV, 443). She obeys his command and adopts a life in his shadow. The harm in this is that Eve has relied on Adam’s intellect for so long—because she believes his direct connection to God gives him superior knowledge—that she has forgotten how to follow her own moral compass. She has willingly fit herself into the place made for her, a place where Adam is her superior.
Despite her surrender to her inferior state of being, Eve still has free will. There comes a point in Paradise Lost when Eve realizes she has a mind of her own. This monumental event occurs when she discovers her reflection, claiming that “Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks / Of sympathy and love” (IV, 464-465). This was the first time that Eve saw herself as a being separate from Adam, and she sympathized with herself for having lived a half-life. However, this moment of realization did not inspire Eve to break free from Adam’s bond, it only sparked her curiosity about what it would be like to be her own person. These fantasies existed only within her own mind, and she continued life in Paradise as Adam’s puppet, obeying him in her autonomy. Despite constantly being reminded of Adam’s inferiority, Eve had realized that she was more than just a “lifeless rib” (XV, 1153-1154).
The relationship between Adam and Eve was not solely based on hierarchy. Adam did love Eve, and Eve, Adam. They were interlocked in a bond so strong that Adam chose to eat the apple and be punished with Eve than let her be banished by herself. Due to the combination of her inferiority as well as her love for Adam, Eve lost faith in her own sense of reason, stating, “The bond of nature draw me to my own, / My own is thee, for what thou art is mine. / Our state cannot be severed. We are one / One flesh: to lose thee were to lose myself” (IX, 956-959). This quote is not only a testimony to the reciprocal love they share, but the dependence Eve has on Adam. Without him, she would be lost, unable to execute her ethical reasoning and make effective choices. Her inferior state has been impressed on her so constantly that she believes she really is inferior in faculty. So, when Eve finds herself alone, she is at a loss for reason, and she takes the easy path instead of the right one. Though Eve was the first to put the apple in her mouth, it was not her fault, neither was the fault shared by both Adam and Eve. When love combines two people, it does not combine their minds. Both Adam and Eve are governed by their own brains, their own reason, their own choices. This is seen in the final two lines of “Book 12,” which state, “They hand in hand with wand’ring steps and slow / Through Eden took their solitary way” (XII, 648-649). Even bound together by their love, Adam and Eve are ruled by separate wills and possess separate minds. Adam did not have to eat the apple, but he did so out of love. Eve did not have to eat the apple either, but she did so out of neglect. Similarly, it was not Satan who forced the pair to eat the apple; it was their own choice. What makes Adam and Eve different is that Adam knew the capacities of his reason; Eve did not. Adam had spent his life making sure Eve knew her place. Though he loved her, he mainly loved her body and physical appearance. This is seen when Raphael had to remind Adam to love Eve for who she is, proclaiming, “Fair no doubt and worthy well / Thy cherishing, thy honouring, and they love, / Not thy subjection” (VIII, 568-570). Raphael tells Adam that he must love and respect Eve, but it is already too late as he has been led to believe that he is superior. Eve may be set in her ways, but she begins to feel trapped in the inferiority placed on her.
Constantly under the burden of derogatory words from Adam, Eve’s inferior state is emphasized throughout this epic. There came a point where Adam failed to maintain this hierarchy—when he allowed Eve to go off on her own during their daily labours. A mixture of Eve’s desire for change and her loss of knowledge without Adam resulted in her giving into temptation. Whether it was to spite Adam or to gain the knowledge promised by the apple in order to impress him and be treated as an equal is irrelevant. What matters is that because of the way Adam treated her, Eve felt the need to get to know herself better. To do so, she needed to be alone, away from the superiority of her husband. In her solitude, Eve was led astray by Satan. Satan gave her the opportunity to be a god among man, or in other words, a god among Adam. Since Adam had led Eve to believe she was worth less than him, naturally Eve wanted to be perceived as more. In addition, once Eve was given a taste of her own identity through her reflection, she realized that she was Adam’s reflection. Put into motion when Adam allowed Eve to wander off on her own, Eve was given a chance to think for herself, yet she was not confident with her own ability for reason. She found herself lost without Adam to guide her. Overtime, Eve had grown so accustomed to Adam’s superior aura that once she was free, she was lost without him. Thus, she ate the apple.
Since Adam is written as superior to Eve, he is given precedence and control over her. This, along with the fact that Eve is a part of him, implies that Adam is to watch over Eve and guide her. This not only constitutes making decisions for her but making sure she does not go off and make choices for herself. In this sense, it is Adam’s fault that he let Eve, a woman with only a partially grown faculty for reason, out of his sight, especially when he knew that evil was afoot. By taking her first steps apart from Adam, Eve finds herself in unchartered territory within her own mind. She was finally able to think for herself, to accumulate knowledge on her own, and in her honest intention to be treated as equal to Adam, jumped at the first opportunity to change her status in the hierarchy. If Adam had exerted his ‘superior’ power over Eve to stop her from embarking without him, or if he had treated her as an equal in the first place, the fall could have been avoided.
In the beginning of Paradise Lost, Milton characterized Adam as superior to Eve. Their relationship was built off of love and hierarchy, a deadly combination that lulled Eve into submission. Though dictated by mutual love, both Adam and Eve had the ability to be governed by their own minds. Each made their choice, but Adam’s more advanced faculty for reason meant he was fully aware of his choice. Eve, on the contrary, had been coerced into believing that her mind was impaired due to her inferior state, putting her every move in Adam’s hands. Since she was conditioned this way, Eve learned to rely on Adam’s superior knowledge, so that when she found herself alone, she was unable to assess the risks that came with the choice she made. Whether she was not confident in her own knowledge (as she had been informed that it was inferior) or whether her lowly state of being had inspired her to obtain knowledge to be treated equally, Eve was affected by Adam’s perception of her. As a result, Eve’s first steps on her own, which were allowed by Adam, led to the fall of mankind.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Penguin Classics, 2003.