The Destructiveness of Pride in Paradise Lost Language Essay (Essay Sample)

The destructiveness of Pride in Paradise Lost
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The destructiveness of Pride in Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is a poem written by John Milton documenting the fall of the devil to hell and the subsequent fall of man from God’s grace, as signified by the movement from the Garden of Eden to earth (Milton, 1792). Throughout the poem, the author tries to show the characters of different parties and how the behavior of each shapes their identity and eternal role. Through the nature of the characters, different themes are developed throughout the books, one of the major ones being the destructiveness of pride. Many characters in the poem exhibit, to varying degrees, levels of pride that ultimately affect their identities. Although Satan is the embodiment of pride in Paradise Lost, other characters such as God, Adam, and Eve also exhibit appearances of destructive pride in different sections of the story. Four types of pride are exercised by various players in the poem, including originative, meritorious, boastful, and exclusive pride, and in each case, they lead to destruction.
Compton (2015) indicates that Milton depicts a God who requires total submission, true allegiance, and constant faith and love from his subjects. The fact that God is projected as the author and creator of everything in existence shows that the creation is expected to live in the unending debt of gratitude towards him. Milton shows the rebellious nature of Satan from the start of the poem by indicating how he (Satan) questioned God’s power and originality as well as the creation story. In this case, Satan exhibits originative pride by indicating that he is not part of God’s creation. He further continues to exercise this attribute even after the fall from heaven by saying that the mind has the power to make hell out of heaven and heaven out of hell (Compton, 2015). Through such arguments, Satan indicates that he has the power of creating himself and everything around him to his desires.