Paradise Lost Satan, Adam, and Eve Who is the tragic hero?

Satan / Adam/ Eve Parallels: Parallels: They all have freedom to choose. They all have freedom to choose. They all fall. They all fall. Why do they fall? Why do they fall? What is the result? What is the result?

Satan knows what it’s like

Northrop Frye Adam and Eve’s choice (but written by Frye as Adam’s choice: Adam and Eve’s choice (but written by Frye as Adam’s choice: “In the third book of Paradise Lost, Milton represents God as arguing that he made man ‘Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.’ God knew that Adam would fall, but did not compel him to do so, and on that basis he disclaims legal responsibility. This argument is so bad that Milton, as he was trying to escape refutation, did well to ascribe it to God. Thought and act cannot be so separated: if God had foreknowledge he must have known in the instant of creating Adam that he was creating a being who would fall.” (211) “In the third book of Paradise Lost, Milton represents God as arguing that he made man ‘Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.’ God knew that Adam would fall, but did not compel him to do so, and on that basis he disclaims legal responsibility. This argument is so bad that Milton, as he was trying to escape refutation, did well to ascribe it to God. Thought and act cannot be so separated: if God had foreknowledge he must have known in the instant of creating Adam that he was creating a being who would fall.” (211)

Tragic heroes Frye continues: “ Paradise Lost is not simply an attempt to write one more tragedy, but to expound what Milton believed to be the archetypal myth of tragedy. Hence the passage is another example of existential projection: the real basis of the relation of Milton’s God to Adam is the relation of the tragic poet to his hero. The tragic poet knows that his hero will be in a tragic situation, but he exerts all his power to avoid the sense of having manipulated that situation for his own purposes. He exhibits his hero to us as God exhibits Adam to the angels. If the hero was not sufficient to have stood, the mode is purely ironic; if he was not free to fall, the mode is purely romantic” (211). Frye continues: “ Paradise Lost is not simply an attempt to write one more tragedy, but to expound what Milton believed to be the archetypal myth of tragedy. Hence the passage is another example of existential projection: the real basis of the relation of Milton’s God to Adam is the relation of the tragic poet to his hero. The tragic poet knows that his hero will be in a tragic situation, but he exerts all his power to avoid the sense of having manipulated that situation for his own purposes. He exhibits his hero to us as God exhibits Adam to the angels. If the hero was not sufficient to have stood, the mode is purely ironic; if he was not free to fall, the mode is purely romantic” (211).

Adam chooses and see a parallel version; parallel versionparallel version

Frye sees Adam as tragic hero “Adam is in a heroic human situation: he is on top of the wheel of fortune, with the destiny of the gods almost within his reach. He forfeits that destiny in a way which suggests moral responsibility to some and a conspiracy of fate to others. What he does is to exchange a fortune of unlimited freedom for the fate involved in the consequences of the act of exchange, just as, for a man who deliberately jumps off a precipice, the law of gravitation acts as fate for the brief remainder of his life. The exchange is presented by Milton as itself a free act, a use of freedom to lose freedom.... Discovery or anagnorisis. [Milton deals with the fall of the devils ]“O how unlike the place from whence they fell!” for Satan, of course, like Adam, possessed an original glory.... [(and his fall would be counterposed by Christ)]

Human-created life Frye: “As soon as Adam falls, he enters his own created life, which is also the order of nature as we know it.” The tragedy of Adam, therefore, resolves, like all other tragedies, in the manifestation of natural law. He enters a world in which existence is itself tragic, not existence modified by an act, deliberate or unconscious. Merely to exist is to disturb the balance of nature. Frye: “As soon as Adam falls, he enters his own created life, which is also the order of nature as we know it.” The tragedy of Adam, therefore, resolves, like all other tragedies, in the manifestation of natural law. He enters a world in which existence is itself tragic, not existence modified by an act, deliberate or unconscious. Merely to exist is to disturb the balance of nature.

Hegel? “Every natural man is a Hegelian thesis, and implies a reaction: every new birth provokes the return of an avenging death.... On one side of the hero is an opportunity for freedom, on the other the inevitable consequences of losing that freedom.” (Frye 213)

Time begins Frye: In Adam’s situation there is a feeling... that time begins with the fall; that the fall from liberty into the natural cycle also started the moment of time as we know it. [ cites Hamlet –”time is out of joint” and Macbeth “tomorrow and tomorrow”]

Tragedy & villain Frye: “Tragedy is a paradoxical combination of a fearful sense of rightness (the hero must fall) and a pitying sense of wrongness (it is too bad that he falls).” (214) Frye: “Tragedy is a paradoxical combination of a fearful sense of rightness (the hero must fall) and a pitying sense of wrongness (it is too bad that he falls).” (214) The affinities of the... villain with the diabolical are naturally close, and he may be an actual devil like Mephistopheles, but the sense of awfulness belonging to an agent of catastrophe can also make him more like the high priest of a sacrifice.” (216) The affinities of the... villain with the diabolical are naturally close, and he may be an actual devil like Mephistopheles, but the sense of awfulness belonging to an agent of catastrophe can also make him more like the high priest of a sacrifice.” (216)

Modern versions First comes the sin or the fall:

More versions

There has to be a sacrifice

And often a resurrection