I'm pretty sure all girls love the brooding bad boy. There's something so irresistible about the forbidden, isn't there? Sadly, this post isn't about my rendezvous with some bad boy. I don't know any at all. This is yet another post about Paradise Lost-Satan, in particular. You see, I haven't gotten very far in the first volume, but I have read Satan's speech. Milton really sounds sympathetic to his predicament. He took on God, obviously lost and was thrown into Hell into a burning lake. He tricks the reader into feeling really sorry for Satan, and then suddenly it hits you. You're sympathizing with the Devil himself. And then you see Satan is the underdog here. All of us want the underdog to succeed. And, well he does portray God as an unforgiving tyrant. I don't know if this counts as blasphemy. If so, I'm sorry.
Satan is almost Shakespearean. And Milton seems to be, literally, the Devil's advocate. I call him Shakespearean because he can be compared to some of Shakespeare's greatest characters-Macbeth, Hamlet, Caesar, Othello. All good men, possibly great-but with one fatal flaw that unravels everything. Satan just started believing that he was greater than God and deserved his throne. And being considered one of the most beautiful angels and being closest to God, it is kind of an insult when God calls a mere mortal his son. It's the age-old emotions in play here-anger and envy. All of us feel it. Usually together. You'd think celestial beings would be above all this, but that just shows, emotions aren't restricted to mortality.
Satan is the ultimate bad boy. He knows just what to say to pluck at the strings of your heart. He's like the villain you can't hate. You know he's evil, you know he's wrong and yet you still root for him. Milton manages to tempt and seduce the readers into feeling sorry for Satan. Some say it's his way of tricking the readers. Much like how Satan tempted Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. He re-enacted the 'Fall', showing that we are, at our very core, the same. Basically, we aren't much smarter now. We still give into temptation. The allure of the dark and the forbidden is just too irresistible to hold back. The best of us have given in. Hey, Satan, or rather Lucifer, couldn't control his thirst for power and that's what landed him in Hell. And he was an archangel. He was supposed to be an embodiment of goodness. We're humans. How much can you expect from us?
So, the good can definitely be boring. And the bad can be so incredibly attractive. However, at the end of the day, we have to choose the good. Because how much ever the dark tempts us, it's going to lead us off a cliff, figuratively and sometimes literally. But then, being just a tad bit bad never hurt anybody. You're only young once, right?
Satan is almost Shakespearean. And Milton seems to be, literally, the Devil's advocate. I call him Shakespearean because he can be compared to some of Shakespeare's greatest characters-Macbeth, Hamlet, Caesar, Othello. All good men, possibly great-but with one fatal flaw that unravels everything. Satan just started believing that he was greater than God and deserved his throne. And being considered one of the most beautiful angels and being closest to God, it is kind of an insult when God calls a mere mortal his son. It's the age-old emotions in play here-anger and envy. All of us feel it. Usually together. You'd think celestial beings would be above all this, but that just shows, emotions aren't restricted to mortality.
Satan is the ultimate bad boy. He knows just what to say to pluck at the strings of your heart. He's like the villain you can't hate. You know he's evil, you know he's wrong and yet you still root for him. Milton manages to tempt and seduce the readers into feeling sorry for Satan. Some say it's his way of tricking the readers. Much like how Satan tempted Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. He re-enacted the 'Fall', showing that we are, at our very core, the same. Basically, we aren't much smarter now. We still give into temptation. The allure of the dark and the forbidden is just too irresistible to hold back. The best of us have given in. Hey, Satan, or rather Lucifer, couldn't control his thirst for power and that's what landed him in Hell. And he was an archangel. He was supposed to be an embodiment of goodness. We're humans. How much can you expect from us?
So, the good can definitely be boring. And the bad can be so incredibly attractive. However, at the end of the day, we have to choose the good. Because how much ever the dark tempts us, it's going to lead us off a cliff, figuratively and sometimes literally. But then, being just a tad bit bad never hurt anybody. You're only young once, right?
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