Feminism and Eve's Role in Milton's Paradise Lost

Introduction: The Fall, Eve, and the Feminist Question

The fall of mankind has always been interpreted from a religious perspective as the terrible moment that marked the complete separation of man from his Creator and the beginning of mortality, with all its challenges and misfortunes. The Fall also marks the break with innocence and the unnatural, undesired adoption of freedom. It would take Jesus's sacrifice on the cross for mankind and God to be reunited and for God to love his creation once again. In religious terms, there was always one character who was to blame for this above all others: Eve.

Indeed, it is always surprising that Eve bears the greatest share of the blame in the story. It was not the snake — most likely because a certain expectation of evil already attached to him and, in fact, God had already tacitly warned the inhabitants of the Garden of Eden that they might be tempted into sin. It was not Adam, probably because, like a child, he simply went along with the plan rather than conceived it. It was Eve who was most to blame, according to most religious traditions, for two separate reasons: she thought of the plan, and she proposed it and convinced Adam to go along with it.

However, an existentialist analysis of the situation is enough to reframe Adam and Eve's story from a more human and secular perspective. According to such analysts, leaving the Garden of Eden — along with tasting from the Tree of Knowledge — was equivalent to a new type of freedom being discovered. At the same time, turning against the will of God in search of knowledge was an act of courage, transforming the Fall into an escape and a positive deed, provoked once again by Eve, who becomes the architect of a search for freedom. It is along these lines that Milton builds his Paradise Lost, a work that can be read as feminist from many perspectives.

In its basic form, feminism argues for women's equality with men across all areas of activity — political, economic, and social. Milton, in fact, goes beyond this type of feminism and argues for the woman as a symbol of freedom and liberation, as well as an inspirational figure who is able to build leadership momentum and take Adam out into the world, offering him his freedom.

The first thing worth examining is not necessarily Eve's relationship with Adam, but rather her relationship with herself — specifically, her capacity to display independence throughout the poem, a strong sense of her own identity. This is not a woman who, once created from Adam's rib, follows him tacitly around Paradise. From the very moment of her birth or awakening, she develops a narcissistic self-regard that is probably a fundamental element in building one's independence through a strong belief in oneself.

Eve's Awakening and the Politics of Identity

As she looks into the pool, several important things emerge. The reader understands how this moment is able to develop later into her independence and freedom: she pays almost no attention to Adam's calling, and is instead fascinated with her own image in the water. It is almost as if she is assessing herself, evaluating what she will be able to do — as a feminist would — and determining what her possibilities are.

God's voice stating:

"What thou seest, / What there thou seest fair creature is thyself, / With thee it came and goes: but follow me, / And I will bring thee where no shadow stays / Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called / Mother of the human race"

— is really the passage that balances and anticipates the future parallelism of the poem in terms of Eve's choices. As Earl, James W. showed, one can read these lines as saying: "That is your image, but it is only a shadow; you are Adam's image; your children will be your real image" (Earl, 1985). There are several things worth examining in these verses.

First, the antithesis between independence and life with Adam is emphasized here. God makes no hidden statements in saying that that face is Eve's own, but in pointing out that her true goal should not be discovering her own identity. Rather, she should live up to the identity that has been chosen and decided for her: that of mothering Adam's children and being the mother of the human race.

This interpretation can stand its ground against almost all the prejudices about the role of women in society that have inflamed feminists throughout time. The idea that a woman's only role is to stay in the house, mother children, and take care of the household had been so entrenched in the past that it seemed the letter of the law. Here, Milton emphasizes this old pattern of women's assigned role — though, as will be argued below, not without a critical distance.

God, Adam, and the Suppression of Eve's Voice

According to Shullenberger, "Milton's God…institutes a rule of masculine authority which is static, closed, and oppressive, especially to women, who are excluded from heaven, and subordinated on earth" (Shullenberger, 1986). Milton's God provides no alternatives for the development of the woman in the Garden of Eden. Moreover — and this is probably even more important — her search for her own identity can only pass through her role as Adam's wife and can only, in fact, begin with her giving birth to his children.

One cannot, however, read a purely satirical perspective from Milton here, which arguably strengthens the case for his taking feminist sides. In his presentation, and in God's words, the situation of women — shown here through their incapacity to become anything other than what has already been laid and established for them (in this case by God, and usually by societal norms) — becomes almost satirically absurd. Milton can be understood as acknowledging a position of sympathy with feminists and women everywhere.

Additionally, God's words create and define the world around Adam as God's primary creation (although Eve is also God's creation, she carries an implied secondary status by comparison). The relationship between Adam and God obviously surpasses in depth that between Eve and God. Adam does not feel, at any point, the need to look around his surroundings or to question; he is thus satirically portrayed as an ignorant individual who simply takes as true anything that God tells him.

Eve, by contrast, searches, looks around, and discovers. Some of the questions she asks may seem naive, but they actually display the intelligent innocence of a child who begins to examine the environment and asks smart, logical questions that are genuinely difficult for an adult to answer. One such case is when Eve asks: "But wherefore all night long shine these, for whom / This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?" — an entirely reasonable question: why would God let the stars shine only at night, when that is precisely the time when people sleep and no one can enjoy and admire them?

The answer Adam gives is reduced to a scientific explanation, which reveals both that he has not really understood the direction of the question and that he ignores — or does not wish to explore — Eve's development as a woman, her inner beliefs and feelings. He simply does not allow himself to contemplate the idea that Eve might be a rational human being with feelings, someone capable of genuine intellectual conversation. The reason is that Adam is, evidently, a misogynistic individual. The reader also perceives an additional dimension of his misogyny: even if Adam were investigative by nature, the idea that Eve could raise a question or a subject of discussion that he himself might have thought of is unimaginable to him, because he cannot conceive of man and woman developing on the same level and attaining equal status — especially in terms of knowledge.