In Paradise Lost, Milton plays with his readers' preconceived notions by presenting perspectives perhaps never before imagined. God is not strictly the protagonist and Satan is not strictly the antagonist, instead Satan is presented in a triumphant and glorious manner even though, ironically, he has just fallen from heaven and been condemned to death. 'hell. In Satan's eyes, God is oppressing him, and he is doing nothing more than what Milton himself does in a literary context. Milton is a revolutionary and writes things that are not commonly accepted. He has radical ideas about how society should and could work better. Such parallels can be drawn with Satan, as he too tries to make Hell his own "heaven" and literally rise up against the oppressive force in his life. Theologically, Satan's thought process about being evil is highly irrational, and thus he is excluded from God's good graces. What is inherent in this discourse, however, is that true evil is only consciously committed when good is knowingly subverted. It is clear from the distinctions between Satan's use of the first and second person that he has knowledge of what is good, and yet at the end of the speech he still expels all goodness from his evil being. This is irrational, and it is this irrationality that causes both theological and psychological pain. It is as if the light of God and the beauty of Heaven causes physical pain to Satan. He is suffering both in hell and now here, and it is as if Satan literally brings hell with him wherever he goes. It is through Milton's brilliant depiction of Satan's continued state of tension and disarray as a subjective soul that the reader finds sympathy for him, for Satan is no longer strictly evil, as the clearly shows his speech on Niphates, Satan is only a confused being. which represents a lesser evil from a psychological and theological point of view. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay When Satan first sees Heaven, he immediately switches to the second person. He is overwhelmed by her beauty and, unable to fully appreciate her purity and innocence, he is forced to shift, literally, into another state of being. His speech begins with an appeal to the “thou,” where it is not initially clear whether the “thou” is God or in fact Himself. He continues to say "O you... Look from your sole domain as the god/Of this new world..." (lines 32-33), which clearly shows that he is looking at heaven as if he was. God, but he is not God. It is clear now that the "you" is him, which makes the situation even more confusing for the reader, because this is the first scene in which Satan's internal struggles have been exposed, literally so that the "new" world everyone can witness it. He invokes his other self, “you” but “without a friendly voice,” because the sun reminded him of the old good he displayed, his old self that originally presided over the sky. He cannot identify with this other side of goodness in his character, and so, even though he unconsciously realizes that he is the same and has the same qualities as before, his conscious mind refuses to accept this simple fact. Satan must split into two distinct sides of his being, the old separate good self and his modern evil self. “O sun, to tell you how much I hate your rays,” says Satan, for he is literally telling his former self how much his current self hates being reminded that once he was different, once he was good and notproud, but in the service of God. Satan is forced to switch to the first person when he says he hates the rays of the sun, because his former good self is too pure to express any kind of hatred. Satan in his fallen state is capable of hating, as he is angry and now deceitful, but through Satan's internal separation we can now see that Satan is only corrupt in his current state. As Satan continues his speech, he notes that God created him (first person), implying that God created Satan with the evil he now displays. God also has choices, like Satan, Adam and Eve. What makes someone evil is the active decision to turn away from good and embark on the darker path of known evil. But in these lines, Satan draws our attention to the fact that God knew what he was doing when he created evil. If God created everything and knows everything that will happen, why is Satan condemned to hell? What God says to his “only son” (Book III, line 80) is that he created man “just and upright, sufficient to stand, though free to fall.” (Book III lines. 97-98). God is the one who introduced sin by single-handedly creating the possibility for evil to exist, and yet God justifies his actions by saying that without choice, man would not have been created free and "free, he must stay ". God appears in this interaction to be quite pompous. He states that the only reason salvation will occur is because He is merciful and just. Although what he says can be understood, the practical logic behind his argument is quite cyclical and sometimes incomprehensible. Theoretically, God had the ability to create a more ideal universe in which Satan is not necessarily evil and man does not fall, and yet God consciously chooses not to do so. Satan, on the other hand, almost seems more human in the sense that he is a sentient and more conscious being. Satan is only vengeful because he believes that God will not have mercy on him, and this logic has no flaws from the reader's point of view because in Book III there is textual evidence which states that God will not help Satan and other fallen angels because of their sin. came from themselves, and from them alone. Thus, Satan is condemned to hell forever. When God is taken literally, evil undoubtedly arises, for Satan would cease to exist as an evil creature without the rash tongue of God. In the first person, Satan recognizes that he owes God "an immense debt of endless gratitude, so heavy still to pay, still to owe..." but it is destiny, a destiny created by God that keeps him as a "lower angel". I have fallen” indicates that it is the bad side of Satan that has fallen, not the “thou” or “you” that represents his good state of being. Satan separates himself from his good state, but his motivation for doing so is vague. It does not necessarily identify more with the bad state than with the good, as we are used to thinking, because this can only happen when goodness is accepted and evil does not surface when goodness itself is ignored. He splits himself into two beings to protect the goodness of his former self, thus preventing good from ever being corrupted again as it once was, resulting in his expulsion from heaven. “Pride” and “worse ambition” are the cause of his downfall, Satan says, and yet it is clear that it is not pride that motivated this speech, but uncertainty. “Through you [Satan], and perhaps more than half [of the human race] will reign” (line 112), he says; for ambition here becomes a source of motivation when Satan is insecure, as he sees revenge through the corruption of Adam and Eve as the only way to eventually triumph over God. Satan has lost some of his former glamour,.