To begin, I think it’s important to allocate a definition to a moral. Morals are what ones conscience suggests is right or wrong, good or bad; independent of rules or what the law says should be done.
Milton presents two moral paths that one can take after disobedience; the downward spiral of sustained sin, represented in paradise lost by Satan, and the road to redemption which is followed by Adam and Eve. While Adam and Eve are the first humans to disobey God, Satan is the first of all God’s creations to disobey. However his decision to not to obey comes only from himself as he was not tempted or provoked by others like Adam and Eve were. All this deception and evil is entwined with intense literary description of Milton’s Garden of Eden that entices the reader’s sensory imagination repeatedly. The descriptions are visually intense, ‘the humid flowers’ that ‘breathed/Their morning incense’ or the ‘thick-woven arborets and flowers/ imbordered on each bank’. However in terms of Satan the description is very interesting, as Satan approaches Eve the language is full of sexual innuendo and imagery. To begin with, the imagery is in many ways appealing as he is described to have ‘rising folds’, ‘surging maze’ or ‘verdant gold’ as his shape is described to be ‘pleasing’. This positive description is tainted to a certain revulsion when described as ‘fawning and licked the ground where she trod’ as Satan’s true intentions are uncovered, and in a way I think a greater sense of contrast is created here as the reader is pulled into feelings of appeal to Satan. A strange position seeing as he is the chief spirit of evil bringing the depth of description to a new level as it shapes a positive opinion of the epitome of all evil.
Book IX of paradise lost shows not only the most well known and important of moral lessons that is basically if you sin you will go to hell and if your good you will go to heaven, but within are lesser examples of moral code.
At the centre of the...