Character of Satan

Debleena Das, PG II

Satan is the most important character in Paradise Lost. Though the action of the poem turns round Man’s first disobedience, yet the character that gives epic grandeur to Paradise Lost is that of Satan. Though Satan represents evil, he has a greatness of his own. He is a born leader and would not shrink from any risk or danger to help his followers. To him weakness is crime.

“Fallen cherub to be weak is miserable

Doing or suffering”.

The first two books of Paradise Lost depict the greatness and grandeur of Satan. In fact he appears as the real hero of Paradise Lost. It is surely the simple fact that Paradise Lost exists only for one character that is Satan just as Iliad exist for Achilles and Odyssey for Odysseus. It is the figure of Satan that the imperisible significance of Paradise Lost is centred. His vast unyielding agony symbolizes the profound antimony of modern consciousness. But as the poem proceeds the character of Satan degenerates. When on reaching Earth, he enters into a serpent, h e is completely degenerated. Pride was the cause of his fall from the Heaven-pride that had raised him to contend with the Mightiest. From grand that he was in the beginning, he is changed into a mean cunning fellow in the end.

While portraying Satan, Milton projects himself into him and expresses his own indomitable personality through him. Milton himself was proud and stood against the tyranny of the king and though he had been defeated he remains as courageous and defiant in the teeth of adversity as Satan. It is because Milton expressed his own feeling through Satan that the portraiture of Satan’s charecter

Is so intense and powerful. His ambition was greatest and his punishment was the greatest but not so his despair for fortitude was as great as his sufferings. His power of action and suffering was equal. So we can easily say the Satan is the real hero in Milton’s Paradise Lost.