Paradise Lost

Book 11 tells shorter versions of important biblical stories that show how good or bad people will choose to be because of Adam and Eve’s original sin. Their expulsion from Paradise is the beginning of a long and winding road to redemption, but Michael helps keep Adam positive instead of in despair. Interestingly, God tells the Son that he must expel Adam and Eve from Eden because if they stay, they may keep eating from the Tree of Knowledge, and God then insinuates that they would live forever. It’s an odd and fast insinuation, one that questions God’s omnipotence and control. However, Milton does not return to this insinuation, and Adam and Eve leave Paradise. The expulsion is a symbolic way for Milton to express an important message: God is everywhere. In the late 1600s the physical space of a church was considered the appropriate place to worship, that altars and priests and the institution that came with religion was the proper way to praise God. One of Milton’s controversial opinions was that individual worship was just as valid as institutionalized worship, and he wrote many antiprelatical pamphlets that portray these views.

The stories Michael tells Adam is a quick foray into other important biblical stories. The first death, the murder of one of Adam’s sons at the hands of his other son, is a terrifying scene to behold. Adam wonders why he must be put through the pain of seeing a future he cannot change, but Michael reminds him that this is part of his punishment. God’s punishments seem to grow as the epic continues, but Milton does not suggest that God is being unjust. Instead, Milton blames most of the truly terrible things on Earth, such as death, on the symbolic concepts he developed in earlier books.

Michael specifically takes Adam up to the mountain to bear witness to the future, leaving Eve behind. Though Eve is identified as the future mother of a saved mankind, she is still relegated to second-class status next to Adam. Many of the visions Adam is shown portray women seducing men away from their work and from God, continuing Milton’s attack on women as the source of men’s sins. To further the point of misogyny, all the heroes in the stories that Michael shows Adam are men. It appears that Milton is suggesting (or the stories he selects from the Bible suggest) that women are not capable of being righteous heroes for mankind and God.

Milton uses these mountaintop visions to impart one more crucial message of Christianity: that humans can put up with all types of destruction and loss if they have faith in the salvation of God and the Son. Adam mourns the loss of entire civilizations of humans, but every horrifying story of death and destruction is accompanied by hope for redemption. This suggests that any Earthly pain is endurable with faith in God.