Hindsight Sucks /////// Isabelle Ferguson

     I'm gonna forego the demons in Paradise Lost literally turning the Earth into a hell-scape for a moment, so I can jump straight to poor, pitiful Adam. His point of view is really heartbreaking, and, even if you feel no sympathy, I feel like everyone at least pities him. The paradise that Eden was, really was only a paradise because he and Eve didn't know hell. They were purely innocent until they ate that apple. It's interesting that everything seemingly normal to us wasn't normal for Adam and Eve. They were the rulers and caretakers of Eden. The plants always grew, the weather was always perfect, and the animals were always friendly. Now, he and Eve are watching the world go to war with itself. The most heartbreaking thing, is that they caused it and they cannot fix it. 

    Milton seems to be a fan of hindsight in his flawed characters. Adam looks back with guilt on his time in the garden before all hell literally broke lose. He knew the temptation was coming, and he still committed the sin. Satan looks back with regret on his attempt at replacing God. It goes  against his very nature, and still he goes to war. Again, Milton constantly makes more similarities between Satan and man, than between God and man. I understand the idea that humans are fallen as Satan is fallen, but we are still made in God's image. This entire reading is extremely frustrating. 

P.S. I commented on Raygan's and Emily O's posts.

Comments

  1. Emma DSeptember 27, 2021 at 10:30 PM

    I definitely agree, Isabelle! It was also frustrating from the perspective of no one being able to do anything about it. Adam couldn't act and stop things from happening in his visions, and he can't stop the "inward Hell" from tearing apart his conscience. The consequences continue to echo and haunt both Adam and Eve at every turn in ways that are heartbreaking and horrible (especially how eating the fruit stole Adam's innocent curiosity and capacity for heavenly knowledge). It is a small relief that Milton gives Adam (and us) that one glimpse of hope through Noah and the ark for us to have some sort of reprieve from the endless consequences and the new entropy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bug OlsenSeptember 27, 2021 at 10:46 PM

    I think we can also see this with Eve's lament over being kicked out of the garden, and I definitely agree that hindsight is a large theme throughout the novel. I think the best point of pity was when Adam had to watch his future children die because of his and Eve's actions, and I believe that if Eve had seen this as well she too would have felt the same. I think Eve gets a bad wrap because she never deals with the angels or theological issues that arise, but she certainly would have reacted the same as Adam did if she has seen the visions as well.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A House Divided//Emily Otts

The words Jesus spoke in Matthew 12 remind me so much of this play: "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand." (Matthew 12:25) King Lear, at the end of the day, is about a family being divided multiple ways. These divisions arise over greed and hatred for one another and cause the whole family to be ruined because of it. King Lear first divides the kingdom after his daughter Cordelia does not proclaim her love to him, so he banishes her. Later, his daughters go against him for not doing as they asked, believing he is unfit and unworthy to be king, secretly plotting against him. But all of this comes to a head in Act 5. After capturing King Lear and Cordelia, Edmund plans to have them killed. You would believe the sisters would be able to work together because their plan is working, but an even greater division has risen between them. Both of them wish to have Edmund for themselves, and they plot against each o...
Read more

The Plague in Everyone// Emily Otts

     In part 4 of the Plague , Tarrou tells Rieux about how he has had the plague forever. Except, this is not the same plague as the one ravaging the town. Tarrou speaks of how his father was a lawyer who believed in the death penalty, how he saw so many people support it and be comfortable about it, and how he had to witness the executions of prisoners. He explains how this sort of mindset is a plague itself, one Tarrou had been fighting for a long time. " That's why everybody in the world looks so tired; everyone is more or less sick of plague. But that is also why some of us, those who want to get the plague out of their systems, feel such desperate weariness, a weariness from which nothing remains to set us free except death" (Camus, part 4, chapter 6). Tarrou wants to desperately not submit to such awful ways of thinking.      Tarrou does not realize it, but the plague he is talking about is sin. Everyone has it, some people give in to it and let...
Read more

The Thirst for Knowledge

     With Book Seven of Milton's Paradise Lost, Raphael is continuing his exposition on Satan's apostasy. The plan is to expose Adam and Eve to the wretched fate of those who cross God's will. The more he shed's light on the subject, however, the more Adam is inclined to ask for more information. He wants to know everything about the subject, as well as God and His creation.      However, while the taste of such knowledge leaves Adam yearning for more, there are boundaries. It is like a toddler eating a cookie... and eventually begging her mother for the rest of the jar. Is it a coincidence that the one thing Adam and Eve are not to touch is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Most readers know how the story ends: these toddlers are never going to be content with a few cookies. They're going in for the jar.   There is a statement in the Bible that is constantly being repeated throughout the Old Testament: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of ...
Read more