Despite John Milton’s infamous anti-feminist ideals, his epic poem "Paradise Lost" proves to give women a great deal of credit for the accomplishments of man and male angel alike.  The only masculine character within "Paradise Lost" who was able to create anything of use or execute any plan without assistance would be God himself who, with his omniscience and power, clearly needs no one to help him.  Milton, as a Puritan, would be the last man to claim that God needed assistance in any form in creating Heaven, Hell, or Earth. Those created by God, however, are not as powerful or blessed as God himself and, despite whatever his knowledge or power, no angel or man (including The Poet himself) would have been successful without the aid of a feminine individual.  Each female character in Milton’s "Paradise Lost" was created by her male counterpart, and serves him in one form or another—be it through loyalty, submission, or inspiration.  Paradoxically, each of these women is empowered, as it is only through her that the male character is empowered to create or make use of their creations.  Milton’s decision to make this a truth for The Poet (or himself) as well as Adam and Satan, implies that he finds it to be the archetype of male and female relationships even within his lifetime; perpetuated by partnerships from the creation of man to 1674 A.D.

               Satan only directly created two beings in "Paradise Lost": Sin and Death.   Sin springs from Satan’s head when he comes to the conclusion that he must revolt against God; much like how Athena sprouted from Zeus’ head.   Satan’s initial response to the sight of his daughter, however, is a surprising one. She reminds him of what took place:

                Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing
                Becam’st enamored, and such joy thou took’st
                With me in secret, that my womb conceived
                A growing burden.
                                                             (Milton, 2.762-767)

After creating Sin, Satan immediately becomes infatuated with his own image, which she embodies, and impregnates her with Death.  This all had taken place, yet, not twenty lines before, Sin is forced to tell Satan their connection as he had exclaimed, “I know thee not, nor ever saw till now /Sight more detestable than [Death] and thee” (2.744-745).  Although Sin has suffered some transformation from her birthing of the Cerberus-like monster, Satan is unable to recognize the face that reminded him so much of himself he was compelled to seduce her. After she tells him of their association, Satan reacts her statement with a greater calm than before, and beguiles Sin into helping him leave Hell in order to enter Chaos and eventually Earth.  Sin agrees to help Satan, saying, “Thou art my father, thou my author, thou/My being gav’st me; whom should I obey /But thee, whom follow?” (2.864-866).  With this statement Sin has proved to be more loyal and honorable than Satan himself; she gives her devotion to him because he created her, while Satan is on a quest to destroy the secret project of God, his creator.  Despite the fact that Sin has the power to reject Satan’s request, (a more than reasonable response as it was from his sinful attraction to her that led to the birth of Death, and her subsequent rape and birth of a creature that destroyed her) she comes to his aid.  He promises both Sin and Death that with entry into Chaos he will return and give them access to a place where they “Shall dwell at ease” (2.841) and “shall be fed and filled /Immeasurably” (2.843-844).  It is only through Sin’s opening of the gate into Chaos that Satan’s creations can have access to the Earth and the humans who shall live within it; at this point they merely serve a trifling function of guarding the gate between Hell and Chaos.  So Sin agrees, and “Forth with the huge portcullis high up drew,/Which but herself not all the Stygian powers /Could once have moved” (2.874-875), and Satan can now enter Chaos to discover God’s secret that he so desperately wants to learn of and damage, allowing Sin and Death to roam within Earth’s realm and execute his intentions even in his absence.

               Eve, much like Sin, essentially comes from her counterpart.  Although it is God that technically gives Eve life, it is only through the sacrifice of Adam’s rib that she is brought into existence (4.441).  Although Adam and Eve are extremely different characters, (Adam being much less contemplative than Eve) she manages to serve him well as a companion.  At one point in the poem Milton describes an embrace between the two: “[Adam] in delight/Both of [Eve’s] beauty and submissive charms/Smiled with superior love” (4.497-499).  Adam both expects Eve to interact with him in a “submissive” manner, and admires her ability to provide such love for him.  Despite Eve’s loyalty to Adam and God, (to whom he is blindly faithful) Satan does manage to convince Eve to bite the apple of knowledge, and subsequently so does Adam.  Because of their action and eventual confession to God, God dispatches Michael, the warrior archangel, to inform both Adam and Eve of their expulsion from paradise, as well as tell Adam the whole of human history up to Noah’s flood (Book 11 Summary, 848).  Adam is given this extensive knowledge because of Eve.  God has Michael tell Adam this glut of information as a punishment, yes, but it is powerful knowledge all the same, and Adam would have not had access to it if it had not been for Eve eating the apple herself;

        She gave him of that fair enticing fruit
        With liberal hand: he scrupled not to eat
        Against his better knowledge, not deceived,
        But fondly overcome with female charm.
                                                (9.996-999)

Adam receives the knowledge of sin, guilt, shame and a great deal of future human history, and with them the feeling of God’s omniscient power, yet he would have remained peacefully ignorant had Eve not bitten the apple and told Adam of her mistake.  Thus Adam was given knowledge and power, and he changed as a person because of it.  After both Adam and Eve have bitten the apple and come to realize that they must meet the punishments, Eve proposes to Adam that they kill themselves in order to stop human existence in a world of sin and suffering (10.981-1006).  Adam sees that Eve has slipped into despair, and convinces her that life is worth living, and that he wants to live on with her (10.1013-1019).  It is only with Eve—as they have both eaten from the apple and now suffer mortality—that Adam can create human kind, and so he must insure that she remains alive with him in order to propagate beings into existence.  So Eve once again, despite Adam’s need for her submissiveness, is the key for Adam’s power and his desire for human development.

               Both the relationships between Satan and Sin, and Adam and Eve take place in a non-worldly and ancient Earth, respectively.  Satan and Sin are clearly not of the Earth, and Adam and Eve come to represent the future of human existence as they struggle with the difficulty of facing God after going against his one request.  Milton melds these two connections by creating a relationship between The Poet and Urania.  Urania is not of this world, (she is the muse of astronomy) yet The Poet recreates her into a different figure than she has been known within Greek mythology:

        The meaning, not the name I call: for thou
        Nor of the muses nine, nor on the top
        Of old Olympus dwell’st, but heav’nly born
        Before the hills appeared
                                                (7.5-8)

The Poet takes the general idea of Urania, and designs her to be of the Earth and Christianity—“In presence of th’ Almighty Father” (7.11). Urania, as The Poet’s muse, must serve him in through inspiration for his poetry.  Despite the fact that she is obligated to assist The Poet, it is The Poet that is in need of Urania’s knowledge;

        Instruct me, for thou know’st; thou from the first
        Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
        Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast abyss
        And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark
        Illumine, what is low raise and support.
                                                (1.19-23) 

Urania is The Poet’s guide, as she knows the truths of God and the Earth that he is struggling to convey through his poem.  He needs access to her experience and knowledge in order to create a successful piece.  If Urania is not careful in her inspiration, The Poet could suffer the consequences on contemporary Earth, which he explains using the metaphor of Bellerophon, who “Dismounted on th’ Aleian filed [he fell] /Erroneous there to wander and forlorn” (7.19-20).  Urania has the power of knowledge as well as control over The Poet’s well being, and he begs her to be cautious, while simultaneously compelling her to serve his poetic needs; “I thence /Invoke thy aid to my advent’rous song…while it pursues /Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme” (1.12-16).  The Poet is aware that without Urania he cannot convert one of the oldest known religious stories into poetry.  He calls upon her in the middle of the poem, for her continual help, “[S]till govern thou my song, /Urania, and fit audience find, though few” (7.24-31), almost as if he doubts her loyalty or continually worries over his fate by writing the poem.  Yet Urania manages to serve The Poet well, as he writes "Paradise Lost" with exceptional elegance and strength.

               Just as Satan and Adam would have lacked knowledge or creation without their female counterparts, so too would have Milton’s Poet been without the power to write without for Urania’s inspiration and guidance.  Milton very cleverly echoes the relationships between the characters within the poem between himself (or The Poet) and his muse.  He draws from the pattern within the story and its ancient past and applies it to his modern writer.  The truths of relations within "Paradise Lost"—be it between mortals or non-mortals—have not changed a great deal, according to Milton.  He expects that the man must remain in the elevated position within the male to female relationship, but concedes that without the woman each of these three men would have been without the power to execute the actions that were necessary for their development in one form or another.  Just as Adam and Eve leave paradise, “hand in hand with wand’ring steps and slow, /Through Eden took their solitary way” (12.646-649), so too do The Poet and Satan continue on in “solitude” yet with constant companionship of their counterpart who help them in accomplishing their respective objectives.  Milton in his life was not exempt from this model of relations. Of the first of his three wives, Milton had three daughters who lived through adulthood.  Despite his eventual blindness, he was able to lead the household in a despotic manner and demanded strict obedience from each of his children.  Yet it was only through their aid that Milton was able to continue writing his personal, political, and creative pieces, (including "Paradise Lost"). In life and on the page, Milton lived within the same model of relations as Satan, Adam and The Poet.  He created these three women, and commanded they be submissive and loyal, yet without them he was blind and powerless.

Works Cited

Milton, John. “Paradise Lost.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. Eighth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. 723-852.