A Hero in Disguise

In order to believe in the greater good, our society often searches for moral role models who value humanity. Essentially, we look for heroes. A hero makes it his duty to fight for civilization and maintain loyalty to his authority. At the same time, a hero usually has a fatal flaw. In order to “justify the ways of God to men’’ (1.26), John Milton begins his epic poem Paradise Lost with Satan’s fall from Heaven. Therefore, some readers may consider Satan to be Milton’s hero because he is a warrior and a leader; however, the true hero is Adam. God provided his first creation Adam with the gift of reason, along with choice, so he is responsible for the fall of humankind because he reasoned and decided to disobey God’s authority. Consequently, Milton emphasizes Adam’s actions afforded humanity the opportunity to understand tragedy so that we could appreciate joy and the promise of eternal life. Milton stresses that immoral behavior and disobedience to authority will result in chaos and loss, but our hero Adam had to succumb to his weakness and fall before his God so he could lead humanity.

Because Paradise Lost is an epic poem, we naturally look for an epic hero. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia claims an epic hero is a person who “embodies national, cultural, or religious ideals and upon whose actions depends to some degree the fate of his people” (n.p). With this in mind, the natural epic hero in Milton’s poem could be the son of God. In his essay, “The Perfect Hero,” Christopher Bond agrees and suggests that Jesus is the ultimate hero because he is “the definition of heroism, rather than simply its representative” (pg. 188). Because he battles in the heavens and drives the rebels into hell, it is true that God’s son embodies the epic hero. Nevertheless, we can only consider the son of God as a secondary hero or rather the idea of a hero. In order for the son of God to be a hero to man, he would have to become a human being. It was only after Adam and Eve sinned that Jesus was born, thus while God’s son demonstrated heroic characteristics, Adam was a flawed yet reasonable body made of flesh and blood. Ultimately, Adam bore some traits of an epic hero in that he was born from an eminent being, and he is the leader in the Garden of Eden; however, it is our ability to identify with him that allows us to accept him as our hero. The son of God is a supreme being, so we are unable to match his perfection. On the other hand, and in spite of Bond’s suggestion, we do rely on our heroes to represent us. Essentially, we believe in heroes because they are the epitome of what we consider to be the best of humanity.

While Adam demonstrates some attributes of an epic hero, contemporary readers could classify Adam as a tragic hero because he chose to obey love instead of God, so, in this way, love was Adam’s flaw. Specifically, Adam’s weakness is his love for Eve. Adam says to Raphael that upon Eve’s creation “here passion first I felt / Commotion strange, in all enjoyments else / Superior and unmoved, here only weak / Against the charm of beauty’s powerful glance” (8.530-33). Specifically, it was Eve’s beauty that made him weak, and this suggests that Adam was only aware of what was on the outside. A hero possesses uncanny perception because he ultimately saves humanity from evil, but, at times, beauty disguises evil. Because it was Adam’s destiny to be a hero for humanity, he would have been an unbelievable hero had he not had a flaw. Therefore, although Adam’s flaw was the love for Eve, this weakness was necessary in order for him to fall from God’s graces.

Adam’s weakness for Eve consumes him physically and emotionally. After Eve’s confession, Adam tells her that he will be “certain to undergo like doom, if death/consort with thee, death is to me as life” (9.953-4) and he assures her that their “state cannot be severed, we are one, / one flesh, to lose thee were to lose my self (9. 958-9). In other words, Adam is unable to separate his flaw from his strengths. Adam regarded God as his authority, and had Adam resisted Eve, he would have actively made the decision to keep his promise to God; however, Adam understood that he would never forget the love of his first wife. Subsequently, he reasoned with his heart. This capacity to love resulted in a powerful emotion that overrode Adam’s ability to think rationally. Nonetheless, a hero does not necessarily have to battle mythological creatures or believe he is destined for greatness. Ultimately, in order to appreciate his gifts, a hero must overcome adversity.

Because he recognized his weakness, Adam actively chose to fall. In their essay “The Hero Cycle, Various Motifs in A,” Natalie Underberg, Jane Gerry, and Hasan El-Shamy explain that in the course of a hero’s life, he will experience abandonment and a series of tests, which require him to find greater meaning. The hero’s ultimate goal is to find himself and “unite the conscious with the unconscious” (Underberg et al., n.p.). In Paradise Lost, the Garden of Eden personified Adam’s unconscious self, while his fall represented his conscious self. It was Adam’s capability to make mistakes yet learn from them that allowed him to understand his existence. It takes a conscious hero to lead his people, so Adam’s evolution as a hero began as soon as he disobeyed God’s wishes.

It is worth mentioning that if God had given Eve the ability to reason, one may speculate she was a possible heroine. For example, in her dream, Eve was able to imagine the consequences of disobedience. Eve recalls “With him I flew, and underneath beheld / The Earth outstretched immense, a prospect wide / And various: wondering at my flight and change / To this high exaltation…” (5. 87-90). Eve’s dream was her intuition or subconscious speaking. She realized at that moment that the world was much larger than the Garden of Eden and it was a world full of possibilities. Furthermore, it seems that she was not satisfied with her paradise because as soon as she saw the world below, she was exhilarated. However, Adam suggests that the dream was only her imagination and that imagination was one of the “lesser faculties that serve / reason as chief” (5.101-2). Nevertheless, Eve did not hold the capacity to reason, so Adam’s logic was ineffective. Consequently, Eve’s inability to reason suggested any weakness she may have had would have had little depth. On the other hand, Adam’s weakness propels him to leave behind the God and world he knew because subconsciously he realized that his consequence was his destiny.

Similarly, Adam’s inquisitiveness in books six, seven, and eight suggests he wants to attain awareness. While Eve is the first to eat from the Treeof Life and Knowledge, Adam is the one who actually wants to possess knowledge. For this reason, Raphael mildly chastises him for wanting to know more and tells him, “Meanwhile enjoy / Your feel what happiness this happy state / Can comprehend, / incapable of more (8.499-510). In other words, Adam is allowed to live in the Garden of Eden as long as he gives up his pursuit of knowledge. However, Raphael’s warning is vague and suggests that God did not want him to provide details because had he done so, Adam would not have been punished and thus never elevated to be humanity’s hero.

Subsequently, in her essay “Free Will and Obedience in the Separation Scene of Paradise Lost” Diane McColley emphasizes that “fundamental weakness is born of the greatest human needs, relief from solitude” (pg. 105). Tellingly, even though Adam lived in a paradise that never revealed negative or positive consequences, he was weak the moment God created Eve. Therefore, God realized that in order to provide a hero for humanity, the man had to hold a deep flaw. Essentially, it is God’s gift of free will that Adam uses to make his decision. One could argue that Adam was the necessary hero in order to provide salvation. In other words, Jesus was born as a man because of Adam’s and Eve’s sin. Nevertheless, Adam embodies a hero because he encountered negative consequences, yet he overcame his sorrows in order to survive in the new world that he did not understand, but that he committed himself to lead.

In essence, had Adam been born without his flaw, he would have continued to live in paradise, yet he never would have found himself. Levon Abrahamian, author of “The Chained Hero: The Cave and the Labyrinth” reveals that the chained hero is an ambivalent hero because he has not had a chance to experience the world. The Garden of Eden is a paradise, yet Adam is subconsciously unsatisfied. God calls upon Raphael to warn Adam of impeding danger; however, Adam uses this meeting as an opportunity to understand other worlds. As Raphael drew near a “sudden mind arose / In Adam, not to let the occasion pass / Given to him by this great conference to know / Of things above his world” (5. 452-55). In other words, Adam realized that he held a greater role than to merely romp about paradise. Moreover, although he may have had a reason, Adam was never given the opportunity to explore it. Therefore, it was the dire consequences from the fall that provided Adam with clarity.

Incidentally, Barbara Lewalski notes in her article “Paradise Lost and the Contest Over the Modern Heroic Poem” that when Milton was asked to defend his hero, he replied that “man’s disobedience and its tragic consequences—is ‘Not less but more Heroic’ than the wrath of Achilles or Turnus, and of itself merits the name heroic” (pg. 156). Perhaps if Raphael would have specifically revealed that Adam’s disobedience would result in his fall, Adam may have allowed Eve to face God’s wrath alone, but Milton’s words are telling in that it is the consequence that created the hero. Because tragic circumstances are able to defeat us, it takes a strong person to overcome the negative and persevere.

While some critics have argued that the fall is a combination of Adam’s and Eve’s weaknesses, “in particular Eve’s vanity and Adam’s intemperance,” Milton emphasized that free will was one’s choice to either obey or to disobey (McColley, pg. 104). Perhaps it is human weaknesses that contribute to noncompliance or submission. Nevertheless, Adam’s love for Eve was his catalyst and ultimately his reason to disobey God. On the other hand, God was aware that Adam would fall, so in a sense, God may have realized that human weaknesses are what drive us to succeed as much as they can make us fail. In addition, after his fall is the moment that Adam realizes his destiny as he says “Idleness had been worse; / My labour will sustain me; and lest cold / Or heat should injure us, his timely care / Hath unbesought provided…” (10. 1055-58). In other words, Adam held himself accountable for his actions and accepted his destiny. In this sense, Adam overcame his weakness, yet he realized that his weakness was what made him human. Ultimately, it is this behavior that separates a hero from a mere man.

Paradise Lost is an epic poem, but it also reveals the future necessity of the tragic hero. While mythological gods, angels, and demons possess supernatural strengths, humanity relies on natural beings to inspire us. Initially, Adam was the perfect man, but it was only after his fall that one realized that he was a hero in disguise. While our contemporary society respects our authorities, our society is also aware that actions result in negative or positive consequences, so we are able to make what are reasonable choices to us. Adam may not have had the awareness of consequences until he ate from the Tree of Knowledge, but it was only after that moment that he realized his true cause. Milton appropriately made Adam the hero because he demonstrated that an ordinary man full of flaws and weaknesses has the potential for greatness. Thus, Adam’s flaw was tragic, but it emphasized that our life held many possibilities and we all can be heroic.

Works Cited

Abrahamian, Levon. "The Chained Hero: The Cave and the Labyrinth." Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography 11 (2007): 89-99. EBSCO. Web. 24 July 2013.

Bond, Christopher. "Most Perfect Hero." Spenser, Milton, and the Redemption of the Epic Hero. Newark: University of Delaware, 2011. N. pag. Google Books. Web.

"Epic." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2013. Literary Resource Center. Web. 24 July 2013.

Lewalski, Barbara K. "Paradise Lost and the Contest over the Modern Heroic Poem." Milton Quarterly 43.3 (2009): 153-65. EBSCO. Web. 24 July 2013.

McColley, Diane K. “Free Will and Obedience in the Separation Scene of Paradise Lost.” Studies in English Literature. The English Renaissance 12.1 (1972): 103-120. JSTOR. Web. 24 July 2013.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Underberg, Natalie, Jane Garry, and Hasan El-Shamy. "The Hero Cycle, Various Motifs in A." Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook (2005): 10-16. Literary Reference Center. Web. 24 July 2013.