Williams
Steve Williams
Abigail Heiniger
GSW 2500-002
21 October 2013
Over many generations, roles have been assigned, reassigned, and rearranged in large
part to how society views the strengths and weaknesses of a group. Among those groups, gender
is included. Some of these roles are more instinctual, such as the perceived male desire to be
alpha, or head of his respective pack. Some of these roles more scientific, such as females being
the carrier and nurturer of the baby until it is time for birth. Some of these roles are cultural,
such as something as simple as men taking out the trash and cutting the lawn. Religion also is a
major factor in how society judges and assigns roles based on gender. In many ways the religion
that a person is raised following will play huge dividends into how that person perceives his role
and others based on gender. One example of this is that under the Christian faith one is
traditionally raised to believe that the Man’s responsibility in the family is to be the head of the
household and the bread-winner, and traditionally a woman is raised to b submissive to her
husband. This paper is going to examine the way John Milton uses alliteration in the poem
Paradise Lost to construct gender role and identity as it relates in and through the church during
the 1600s to depict woman as an inferior creature to man to just physically, but mentally and
spiritually as well; although what he truly shows in the end is how in all actuality it is actually
woman that is more strong of mind than her male counterpart.
From the moment Milton introduces Eve in Book Four of Paradise Lost, he immediately
begins to imply her inferiority. Speaking as Satan, Milton describes gazing on man, and seeing
how he was made more so for a deeper since of intelligence and, describing man as exuding
bravery. To the contrary, Milton constructs woman through Eve as being built more delicately,
gracefully, and more aesthetically pleasing than was Adam. Man is constructed through Adam
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as woman is through Eve. Adam is seen as powerful and looking to be in control. Milton
describes Adam as being an extension of God close to God, whereas Eve’s relationship through
God is through Adam. When Eve is formally introduced to the poem, she is ignorant of
essentially all vital knowledge. When Adam first addresses Eve, it is more of a father speaking
to his child than it is a husband to his wife. Adam starts off having to explain to Eve who she is,
where she comes from, her purpose, and the laws to live by. Adam receives messages from God
and Angels, and it is essentially up to him to bring knowledge to Eve. When Satan, in the form
of the serpent, is in the Garden of Eden and ready to take his revenge out on God, he speaks of
Adam almost in reverent fear. The serpent views Adam as more intelligent, stronger willed and
loyal to his Maker. The serpent does not want to approach Adam and Eve while they are
together, rather he would prefer to catch Eve by herself and prey on her ambitious nature. Adam
also describes himself to Eve as more capable of fighting off the enemy than she. Throughout
Milton’s poem, Eve is always being cast in far inferior light than is her male counterpart, Adam.
Women are also portrayed through Eve as flawed in Paradise Lost; while Man on the
other hand is constructed through Adam, as a more perfect, capable, and divine being. One of
the first analyses of women made in this poem is how vain Eve was. She was far more entranced
by herself and her own reflection than she was her mate. Eve finds herself more fair than Adam
and it takes him more than one attempt to get her away from staring at herself. Adam on the
other hand is depicted in this poem as being far more righteous and caring about God’s will.
When Eve suggests that they depart from each other and divide their labor up to do it that way,
Adam immediately warned Eve of a need to protect her because there was an enemy lurking and
plotting to deceive them out of Eden. Adam spoke of his shame being so great that he would be
able to summon a deeper strength in him needed to defeat the enemy. Eve is depicted as the
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weak link that for all intents and purposes single-handedly led to Man’s exile from Paradise.
The serpent sought her out by herself, so that he could manipulate what is being portrayed as the
weak mind of woman. Eve is charmed by all of the serpent’s flattery and praise of her, for a
moment she even becomes slightly suspicious over the serpent’s praising nature.
Milton had shown through his poem Eve’s ambitious nature as it set up her demise. Eve
in many ways viewed herself as equal or even superior being than Adam. Different times
through this poem you see Eve preferring to be away from Adam, and on her own, versus Adam
only wished to be in the presence of her or the divine. For example, instead of working side by
side with Adam to complete the labor God had laid out for them, Eve preferred to go her own
way and Adam go his and they each take on tasks individually. When the serpent came to Eve,
he not only flattered her, but told her how just being adored by Adam should not be enough for
her. Satan tells Eve of how god-like she is and should be praised by all creatures everywhere as
a deity. It was through this ambition that Eve lost sight of the laws God had put in place in her
quest to become more god-like.
If you examine Paradise Lost more closely, you will come to find that Man in the form of
Adam is truly the weaker link, contrary to what Milton is trying to construct. As history has
proven in other cultures, men and their choices are very often swayed by the female of their
affection. This actually gives women the real power and the power over men. When Eve was
created, she had no initial interest in Adam even though, as he pointed out to her, she was of him
and created for him. She decided that she liked herself better, whereas Adam was completely
enchanted by her. Eve actually has the power in their relationship because her mind is free to
itself. As the initial argument, Milton made in Book One of his poem, the mind is its own device
free to make Heaven of Hell and Hell of Heaven, in that same regard Adam’s mind is trapped
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through its dedication to God and Eve. Eve does not have the same conviction toward Adam or
God, so she is more willing to explore her free will. Adam, through wisdom passed to him by
the Angel and God, knows that he was designed to be stronger against the enemy than is Eve,
and tries to explain to her that is why she should not separate from him and they should labor
together. With all this being said, Eve was able to not only talk Adam into agreeing with her
idea, though he knew she was wrong, but to make a retraction of his statements about him being
better suited to deal with the enemy and reassure her that she is just as capably made to deal with
the enemy by herself. After Eve ate of the forbidden tree, Adam had a certain level of fear of
being without Eve, so he essentially followed her in eating the fruit.
This paper was to show how in his poem Paradise Lost; John Milton used alliteration to
construct gender role and identity through the religious story of The Creation using Adam and
Eve to represent men and women and their strengths and fallacies. In his poem, Milton tried to
use Eve to build a weaker gender role of women than that of man, portrayed by Adam. Women
were made to come off as vain and weak minded and the ultimate downfall of man. However,
when examined more closely you can see that in actuality, it is woman who displayed a stronger
mind than man. Man may have come off more righteous and obedient, but he could not come to
his own decisions in the poem; he was either obedient to God or swayed by Eve, and that is not
true strength of mind. Despite the consequences of actions before and after Eve was deceived by
the serpent, they were her own decisions she came down to herself. This can be found to be true
throughout history and even in today’s society. Because of the perception of the roles men and
women play, it seems that men are the decision-makers, but as John Milton showed in Paradise
Lost women actually poses the strength of mind over men to make those decisions.
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