Who is the Hero of Paradise Lost?

Who is the Hero of Paradise Lost?

The most controversial question of Milton’s Paradise Lost history. There are a lot of divergent views about who is the hero of Paradise Lost? Ever since it has been written, the most debated questions is, that who is the hero of this epic poem. Some are of the views that, Satan is the real hero of the poem, some support the Adam and some of them are of the opinion that Milton himself is the hero of the poem. Every critic who has the views about the hero of the paradise lost, has its supporting facts to claim its opinion.

Thomas Arnold, William Blake and Dryden support the Satan as being the hero of the paradise lost. Everyone knows that the Paradise Lost consists of twelve books and every book has its certain characteristics and its proceedings. It we talk about the Book-I, the book-I glorifies Satan’s character from its beginning to its end. Satan is described as magnificent leader of the fallen angels. He stood like a towering personality in book-I. He has shown great qualities of great leader who had overwhelmed the great despair and dismay, terror of hell very rapidly and stood against the god to take revenge what has been done to him. He has been driven out of the Heaven and put into the hell, he is still feeling himself as Archangel. Still he is dreaming about the life in heaven. He is talking about the change, he has gotten. He also tells to the fallen angels about this drastic change from heaven to hell. Even when he has driven out of Heaven and thrown away into the deep portion of hell, and even when he is falling and resuscitate himself from the horror of fiery lake and looked around himself. Everyone is in a bad condition. He tried to talk his companions and tries to bring back them into the life, prepares them to accept what has been done to them and started them to take revenge. He has all the heroic qualities of a great hero. He is matchless, no one can compete him in his great qualities of a great leader. The most important part of the Satan’s heroic description is, when he rises off the fiery lake and addressed the fallen angel like a great leader and delivers his speech. First he talks to the hell then his comrades:

Hail horrours, hail

Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell

Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings

A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.

The mind is its own place, and in it self

Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

And in another speech he describes that to be the king of the land is of worth, no matter what the land is, whether it is the heaven or hell, it makes no matter. The thing which makes matter is the king or servant. Here in the hell we are king of our land and in heaven we were servants.

 To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.

But what we read the other books, instead the book-I, we see that the character of Satan falls down to the ground because no doubt that he has the heroic qualities, and standing like a towering personality, but he is available only in Book-I. So we can say that he is the hero of Book-I only. And even in Book-I he himself admits his defeat and applauses the thunder of the God. He admits that no one can defeat His thunder. The hero who admits he defeat and admits the powerful army of the opponent and admits that his opponent cannot be defeated, is no hero. And he even knows that while ruling in hell is also depends on the God. He can take away what He has given to him (Satan) even in hell because what they have comes from the God. No matter how much great qualities he has, he is negative nature, he is fighting against the God, against the nature, and against the positivity so that he is called the Demon/Devil and Demons and Devils are not called heroes.

There is a lot of difference between the Adam and the Satan. Adam wants what God wants, but Satan wants what he himself wants. Satan wants to glorify himself against the glory of God, but Adam wants to be a slave of God.  So the real hero is Adam, because he wins, Satan is a looser and a looser cannot be the hero.