I wanted to
start this blog by talking about the close reading we did in groups on
Wednesday. I thought the activity was a great way to get different people’s
perspective on Paradise Lost. While I
have enjoyed the language of the poem, I have found “Book 1” to be rather hard
to follow. The group activity was beneficial because it gave me a different and
more thorough understanding of the text, than what I was able to do on my own.
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One of the
discussion topics, we had as class, was about the description of Hell (lines
690-729). Hell is described in ways that almost make it sound beautiful, like
the “golden architrave” (715) and the “organ” (708), as well as life in Hell
like the army. These characteristics made Hell sound like a physically
beautiful place that was organized, rather than ugly, depressing, and chaotic,
which is what I expect when I think of Hell. From this discussion, the question
of “why Hell come across the way Milton describes?” was presented.
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One
possibility I thought about, in response to the question, was the idea of
temptation, which is a theme that was presented in the beginning of “Book 1”,
when describing Eve’s temptation in Eden (4) to the fall of Satan from
Heaven (31). The examples that Milton
uses are of situations of temptation like knowledge or power. All of the ideas
make me believe that the purpose of having Hell beautiful and structured is the
temptation and attraction that these qualities have to people.
Most people do
not want to make bad choices or follow the wrong path, but when they do, it is
generally because there is some reward to that decision. That, to me, is the
same reason to make Hell seem like a nice place. There would be no reward in
going someplace that was miserable, but making Hell attractive causes people to
not be as terrified of going there. This is another form of temptation that the
Devil creates. He allows people to see goodness in Hell, and as a result they
are able to make bad choices without seeing the true horrible consequences.
Post 3/5
I really enjoyed your ideas on why Hell is made out to be such a spectacular place. It makes me wonder why I couldn't have figured that out on my own! I agree with your ideas. I think it makes a lot of sense to have at least one "rewarding" aspect in Hell. It would describe why so many people are continuously making bad decisions. "You don't know what you've got until it is gone" and in this case "You don't know what you've got until you truly experience it."
ReplyDeleteA World of Warcraft podcast once made the rather poignant observation that your average WoW player would gleefully complete a quest to drop a sack of kittens off a cliff every day for a month, if at the end of that month, the player was rewarded with a fancy new mount to ride around on.
ReplyDeleteTemptation is a powerful thing.
That said, Paradise Lost Hell sounds pretty sweet, at least before they decide on the whole "corrupt the humans" thing. Without the fire and the lava, it'd be kind of awesome.