Learner Resource 4
Satan and Eve, a kind of seduction?
Key concepts: Courtly lover
Look at lines 434-734.
Explore the way Milton presents Satan’s first view of Eve.’ Much he the place admired, the
person more.’ He uses an epic simile lines 445-455.
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Explore the way this simile presents Satan’s attitude to Eve. Does it create sympathy for
him?
Explore the paradoxical connotations of the way Eve’s appearance is said to ‘with rapine sweet’
bereave ‘His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought.’ and leave Satan ‘stupidly good.’
 How do you interpret these descriptions?
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Milton suggests this is only momentary and that ‘the hot hell that always in him burns’
supersedes any fleeting moment of goodness.
 What does this suggest about Satan as a moral being?
Look at lines 473-552. Explore the different aspects of Satan’s character presented here.
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How do his attitudes and feelings expressed in soliloquy differ to those he expresses
directly to Eve?
What does this contrast reveal about his character?
How does it modify our response to him?
How far is it possible to see him as a tragic figure here?
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Satan uses a courtly mode of address ‘sovereign mistress’ and seeks to flatter her.
 How far is he successful?
 Do you see his behaviour as a kind of seduction?
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How does Eve react to the talking serpent?
What surprises her?
Do you see her as adventurous or foolish as she follows the serpent?
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At first Eve repeats God’s injunction and tells the serpent ‘we might have spared our coming
hither.’ How does Satan persuade her to try the fruit?
Milton the narrator says ‘Into her heart too easy entrance won’. Do you agree with this?
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Was it too easy for Satan?
Who has made it too easy? Satan? Adam? Eve or do you feel God can be blamed at all?
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Extension work, A level: Compare this episode with an episode of persuasion, deception or
seduction in your dramatic text.
 Think about the way persuaders, deceivers or seducers are portrayed.
 How far do we feel weaknesses have been exploited?
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