Preliminaries

             Part of the problem with being a subordinate is reconciling the binding restrictions imparted by one’s superiors with the perceived freedoms witnessed in those higher on totem pole. In any situation in which a hierarchy exists, there will always be an internal struggle to either accept one’s subjugated lot, or attempt to transcend one’s position into a higher existence. No more in this evident than in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, in which Milton presents a universe rife with characters that are in constant struggle to reconcile their ordained position in their individual sphere’s of existence, with the possibility of transcending their position into a very tangible higher plane.

Quotes

Go Michael of celestial armies prince,

And thou in military prowess next,

Gabriel, lead forth to battle these my sons

Invincible, lead forth my armed saints

By thousands and by millions ranged for fight;

Equal in number to that godless crew

Rebellious, […] (6. 44-50)

• I picked this quote because i want to try and prove Satan's not acting out of pure innate evil. So the idea is that its not plausible for him to have persuaded millions of his peers to join his rebellion unless they felt, at least on some level, the same way

O earth, how like to Heav’n, if not preferred 

More justly, seat worthier of the gods, as built 

With second though, reforming what was old (9. 99-101)

• I want to use those quote to show that Satan recognizes beauty, and in doing so he's breaking the mold of being truely evil. How can he be evil if understands how incredibly majestic earth is?

           

Why then was this [fruit] forbid? Why but to awe,

Why but to keep ye low and ignorant

His worshippers; he knows that in the day

Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear,

Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then

Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as gods (9.703-708).

• Trying to prove that Eve wasn't motivated by pride, or a dull intellect when eating the fruit. Instead, she's trying to break out of an assigned subjugation. So she eats the fruit because she wants to move up in the hierarchy and be on par with Adam  

To do aught good never will be our task, 

But ever to do ill our sole delight, (1.159-160)

• Again, back to Satan. I used this to show that he does set out to do evil things, as he says here, but I his motivations for doing those things are purely to get back at God. So there's a reason for his crummy behavior, and I don't think pure evil reasons, it just does for the sake of causing misery.

[…] the more I see 

Pleasures about me, so much more I feel

Torment within me, as from the hateful siege

Of contraries (9. 119-121)

• The fact that he's feeling a sense of inner torment with the beauty he sees, and knowing that he has to spoil that beauty lends to the idea that he's not evil. He's motivated by something other than just wanting to destroy. If he way purely evil, and if that was his motivator, that he would be relishing in the idea of having to corrupt Eden. 

Article. 

I used Jarod Anderson's paper The Decentralization of Morality in Paradise Lost as my critical anaylisis. Anderson argues that, among other things, God dictates whats good and whats not, thus evil acts can be anything because their subject to God's whim.