How Is Satan Presented In Book Ix Of Paradise Lost?

Satan is presented as a human character torn between the emotion of weakness as a victim and his darker nature as Satan. Milton uses this duality to show his hate of Charles I and show his original support of Cromwell before he also succumbed to aspiration of power, a concept that Milton considers evil. This extract shows Satan to be mostly manipulative and charming, but he can also be interpreted to be a victim of Eve s charm.

Satan is presented as a manipulative character, as shown in the snake having a circular base of rising folds . Milton s use of sibilance emphasises the smoothness of the movement of the snake, and how characteristic this is of Satan s character throughout the epic. Milton continues this in the epic simile indented wave and Satan controlling the snake s body like a ship by a skillful steersman wrought , a motif throughout the poem. Satan is now at the end of his voyage and he has nearly fulfilled his desire to corrupt mankind and have Eve eat the fruit. The imagery used invokes an earlier reference to the serpent being the fittest vessel , where Milton utilises a fricative to create a harsh, sharp effect that is quite striking and shows how selfish Satan is in his path to power. Here, the end justifies the means, a concept that Milton supported. Charles I s death was celebrated by many, yet many still condemned Milton for actively supporting regicide, which was considered to be a heinous crime. Milton considered aspiration for power as a sin and that the Divine Right of Kings (the idea that kings in power only answered to God) was an idea that was abused by tyrannical kings, such as Charles I. He therefore associated royal imagery with Satan Satan towered , he was crested aloft , his eyes were carbuncle and his neck was burnished with verdant gold . He not only suggests that royalty is corrupted by wealth, but also that they are imperfect and imcompetent rulers. This is shown by carbuncle , which is a semi-precious stone. It is not a precious metal, merely semi-precious, suggesting that although Satan was once an angel, he is now a fallen angel. Milton continues this royal imagery but with an alteration in the phrases erect amidst his circling spires and the surging maze . Circling spires suggest the spires of a castle, again initiating the connotation of royalty. However, erect has a somewhat sexual connotation as well, and maze suggests that Satan is metaphorically surrounding and raping Eve. This could be revenge for the hateful siege of good surrounding him in an earlier soliloquy, where he is shown as trapped and surrounded by good, which could quite possibly be alluding to the fact that Satan and his fallen angels were outnumbered by God s angels. Another interpretation of this metaphor is Satan is currently attempting to appeal to Eve s aspiration by appearing as covered in precious metals. He also ventures to call Eve sovereign mistress and celestial and attempts to raise her to the level of God, as celestial has connotations of stars, which are close to the heavens. However, none of his praise on Eve is praise on her personality, it is all praise on her appearance, which is the fairest resemblance of [thy] Maker fair . It could be interpreted that Satan does not actually understand and empathise with Eve, but that Satan is speaking from his own desires. He had rebelled after he became vain about his beauty and his position. This explains why he is attempting to make Eve vain by praising her appearance and tries to make her crave for a better position by not only including the potential spoils of a higher position, but also excludes Adam by calling Eve a sole wonder . This is characteristic of the epic, as Satan repeatedly targets Eve and utilises her charm to persuade Adam to eat the apple. Moreover, Milton breaks up the flowing poetry in his use of the plosives tract oblique , which contain harsh consonants t , b , c and q to stutter this scene. Milton had originally used several caesuras throughout the extract to invoke tension, slow down the poem and make it emphatic, but the plosives harshly interrupt it. Milton proceeds to use allusions to Greek mythology to contrast Satan to characters such as Hermione and Cadmus, characters who transformed into friendly snakes, and do not shun mankind, or do them harm . This is a juxtaposition to Satan, who is planning to woo Eve to cause the fall of mankind. This is also a subtle judgement on Charles I and Oliver Cromwell who were leaders of a country, just as Hermione and Cadmus were king and queen of Thebes. Milton hints at their corruption and suggests further deceit and manipulation in Satan having an impulse of vocal air . Satan attempts to copy Adam and Eve s vocal worship to the choir , but cannot, as snakes are unable to produce music. Milton suggests here that Satan is using his snake tongue almost like an instrument pitching fork, so that the sound that he makes are simple vibrations in the air, not songs of prayers. This suggests that Satan not only is restricted by his serpentine body unlike Adam and Eve with their human bodies, but also that Satan has sinned so far that he is not able to sing songs of prayer. This is characteristic of the epic, as Satan is shown as admiring and also being envious of things that Earth has and also that Adam and Eve were replacements for him, and the reader can begin to view him as a victim.

However, Satan is also presented as a victim, who shows signs of weakness at certain points throughout the poem, such as when he is an inmate bad . Inmate suggests that he is imprisoned by good, but that now he has already escaped. It also suggests how he is a bad inhabitant of the serpent, who was originally an upright creature before the Fall, but travelled on its stomach after God punished it for being the vessel for Satan s ill-doing. This shows how selfish he is in carrying out his plans. However, his admiration for Eve can be interpreted as Satan being a victim to Eve s unintentional charm. She is described as having a Circean call that animals obey. Circe was a Greek witch who cast spells on men who landed on her island, and Eve is shown as partly responsible for the Fall. Furthermore, Circe s magic turns men into wild boars that are docile on her island. Eve s magic has turned Satan into Lucifer, as suggested by his gentle dumb expression and his admiration of her as he licked the ground whereon she trod , which invokes pathos, as Satan is unable to resist. Milton further develops the admiration Satan possessed by calling the way that he follows her a tortuous train . This allusion to Diana is an oxymoron: Satan follows Eve like Dehlia s train, which shows admiration for her and almost places him in an inferior position to Eve, but it juxtaposes with tortuous . This is similar to Satan s bitter epistrophe heavenly spoils, our spoils which suggests the injustice he felt at being replaced by beings made from so base original . This is somewhat characteristic of Satan, as the motivation for his inhuman manipulation roots from his human envy of being replaced. This evokes pathos, as his feeling of envy allows for readers to understand why Satan would want to devote himself to opposing the work of God in every way possible.

Satan is mostly shown as an inhuman manipulator in this extract, yet there is plentiful evidence throughout the epic of Satan showing human emotions like envy to which readers can sympathise with. Milton has effectively shown Satan s inhuman side most effectively in his wooing of Eve, where he is corrupting Eve with new concepts that she is stranger to, such as his admiration of her beauty. In conclusion, the idea of Satan s self-destructive desire to destroy being driven by his envy of his replacements is very easy to sympathise with. Although the reader may not agree with his actions, the reader can certainly have pathos for his jealousy.