The Existential Crisis and _Paradise Lost_

I never thought I would find myself saying this, but I've been getting really into Paradise Lost lately. I was afraid that the book would pretty much be too-complex plot full of allusions I was having to Google every page, but the past couple of books have really surprised me. I think what I've been enjoying most is the character development, especially of Satan. It's a pretty crazy idea really, writing an epic based on the Bible from Satan's perspective, and I have noticed myself thinking a lot about the moral dilemmas and arguments that have been posed as result of this. We talked a bit in class about the existentialist themes that come up in Paradise Lost, especially in Satan's speeches, so I decided to look into this more for my post this week.

Here's a depiction of a chaotic world if I ever saw one:
Brueghel, Pieter the Elder.
The Fall of the Rebel Angels. 1562.

Existentialism is an intellectual movement that was formalized in the aftermath of Word War II by writer Jean-Paul Sartre (though several writers and philosophers before him laid out the ideology behind the movement), and was further developed by writers such as Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus, and Samuel Beckett. The basic principle behind existentialism is the emphasis of the individual in an absurd and indifferent world. The slogan usually used to explain existentialism is "Existence Precedes Essence" - we have no control over the world around us, the only thing we can control is how we exercise free will. We must give our lives meaning, establish our own values, our own essence (Banach "Existentialism"). The idea of the individual having the power to control their moral codes and perception of the world around them appears often in Paradise Lost. In Satan's speech in Book 1 after the rebel angels fell to Hell, he describes himself as "One who brings a mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time./The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n" (Milton 1.253-55). I interpreted this as Satan asserting that no matter what situation God might put him in, he still has control over his mind.
This free will is portrayed as an intentional aspect of God's creations - God himself explains this in Book 3, speaking to his Son about how it is Satan's fault (and eventually man's fault) that they fell from Paradise: "I made him just and right,/Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall./Such I created all th'Ethereal Powers/And Spirits, both them who stood ad them who fail'd" (Milton 3.98-102). Throughout the following passage, God argues that if he hadn't given spirits the freedom to choose their values and actions, then he couldn't be sure that they were sincere in their allegiance to him. The idea that our fate is not predestined, that we are responsible for our own actions also appears in this passage: "They therefore as to right belong'd,/So were created, nor can justly accuse/Their maker, or their making, or their Fate;/As is Predestination over-rul'd/Their will, dispos'd by asbolute Decree/Or high knowledge; they themselves decreed/Their own revolt, not I" (Milton 1.111-117). Here God is saying that it isn't his fault the rebel angels fell from Heaven, they made the decision themselves to revolt. This argument appears again later on in Paradise Lost, after the creation of Adam and Eve. When the angel Raphael visit Adam, he tells him that if they are obedient they can one day come to Heaven. Adam is slightly aghast at the idea of "if" they are obedient, he wonders how he could not obey such a wonderful God. Raphael tells him that his happiness is his own decision: "That thou art happy, owe to God,/That thou continu'st such, owe to thyself/.../And good he made thee, but to persevere/He left in thy power, ordain'd thy will/By nature free, not overrul'd by Fate" (Milton 5.520-27).
This adds another element to the existentialist argument - we are responsible for determining our morals and living by them, but this also means that we are responsible for our actions. When Satan is first seeing Eden, he undergoes a complex inner reflection, and we see him experience some remorse about losing his place in Heaven. However, he acknowledges that he knows he is to blame for this because of how he exercised his free will:
 "Hadst thou the same free Will and Power to stand?/Thou hadst: whom hast thou them or what to accuse,/But Heav'n's free Love dealt equally to all?/Be then his Love accurst, since love or hate/To me alike, it deals eternal woe./Nay curs'd be thou; since against his thy will/Chose freely what it now so justly rues" (Milton 4.66-73).
Satan realizes he could have chose to stay and submit in Heaven, he tries to blame the nature of God's Love as forcing him into his situation, but then he sees that he still ultimately chose how he responded to his environment. This embodies the essence of existentialism - we can control the nature of the world around us, but we can determine the relationship we have with the world around us. Just as Adam and Eve are responsible for their happiness because of their decisions, Satan is unhappy because of his.
Most of the existentialist writings during the mid-1900's emphasized the idea of the alienated individual trying to find meaning in and make sense of a chaotic world. Much of this work was in a way protesting social and political systems that seemingly lacked moral logic, which makes sense given the historical context of the rise of Hitler and the brutality of World War II during this time (Crowell "Existentialism"). The existentialist themes that appear in Paradise Lost are considerably different from this - the free will of the individual or presented as an opportunity - you can have happiness and a beautiful world if you choose, that is, if you choose to obey God. Instead of protesting "the system", it is in a way encouraging conformity to God's laws. However, in my opinion existentialism is still technically prevalent throughout the work in the sense that God isn't responsible for our Fate - being omnipotent, God knows our Fate, but ultimately Adam, Eve, Satan, and all the other angels in the story are responsible for choosing their own fate. It will be interesting to see how (or if) this idea comes into play in future books of Paradise Lost, especially surrounding the fall of Adam and Eve.

Works Cited:
Banach, David. "Existentialism". Department of Philosophy. St. Alsem College. 2006. 27 Sep 2013. <http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/sartreol.htm>.

Crowell, Steven. "Existentialism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. 11 Oct 2010. 27 Sep 2013. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/>.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. New York, Ny: Penguin Books, 1968. Print.

Birth and Death in _Paradise Lost_

To be honest, I was struggling with Book II of Paradise Lost pretty hard for a while - I had just got out of a Physics exam, was on the crashing end of a hyper-caffeinated day, and was going cross-eyed trying to follow the arguments for Peace and War being made by the fallen angels. But then Satan's daughter Sin shows up at the gates of Hell? Along with her son Death, the product of Satan raping her in Heaven? Now we're talking. Apart from adding a much-welcomed twist to the plot, this Sin character really got me thinking about how birth and death are portrayed in Paradise Lost.
 It's interesting to be dealing with birth and death with immortal spirits in a universe made up of still mostly Chaos. In this version of the universe, birth often has a purpose - it is the creation of a being or spirit that is being brought into the world as a consequence of someone's actions. This is seen especially in the relationship between Satan, Sin, and Death. Sin, the daughter of Satan, was born out of the left side of Satan's head when he was conspiring against God in Heaven:
"...in sight/Of all the Seraphim with thee combined/In bold conspiracy against Heaven's King,/All on a  sudden miserable pain/In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast//Threw forth, till on the left side op'ning wide,/Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,/The shining heavenly fair, a Goddess arm'd/ Out of thy head I sprung" (Milton 2.751-758).

Blake, William. Satan, Sin, and Death. 1808. 

In short, because Satan began plotting against God, Sin was born into Heaven. This bears an interesting parallel to Greek mythology - Athena, the goddess of wisdom, was "born" out of Zeus' forehead. It is also noteworthy that Sin was born out of the left side of Satan's head - the word "sinister" Latin word sinistra literally means "left" - the "left side" came to be associated with evil and bad omens ("Sinister"). As we soon find out in Paradise Lost, Satan raped his daughter Sin in Heaven, which resulted in her giving birth to Death after falling from Heaven herself. This birth, Sin claims, distorted her body (she is a serpent from the waist down), and her son Death continues to rape her, leading to the birth of hell-hounds that are constantly breeding in and out of her womb: "These yelling Monsters that with ceaseless cry/Surround me, and as thou saw'st, hourly conveiv'd/And hourly born, with sorrow infinite/To me, for when they list into the womb/That bred them they return" (Milton 2.795-99). Though this "un-holy Trinity" of Satan, Sin, and Death is rather gruesome, it marks a transition in Paradise Lost from Satan being portrayed as a hero of sorts to getting closer to Milton's original purpose to "justify the ways of God to men" (Milton 1.26). It makes sense in a way that Sin would be the offspring of evil, and would provide a temptation in Heaven that ultimately results in rape and the creation of Death. This bears another parallel to Eve's punishment in Genesis - after Eve disobeys God and eats the Forbidden Fruit, God punishes Eve by making childbirth painful and subjecting her to Adam's will: "Then he said to the woman, 'I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pin you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you" (Genesis 3:16). Here birth is again a punishment of sorts, and just as Adam controls Eve, Death has power over Sin.
Along with being portrayed as a means of punishment and an explanation for creation, the idea of birth is also portrayed frequently alongside death  as almost synonymous with death. Hell is described in terms of life and death: "A Universe of death, which God by curse/Created evil, for evil only good,/Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds" (Milton 2.622-24). Milton's description of the Abyss outside the gates of Heaven and Hell perhaps best illustrates how closely related birth and death are related, "...Into this wild Abyss,/The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,/Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,/But all these in their pregnant causes mist/Confus'dly" (Milton 2.910-14).
There are several dichotomies present in Paradise Lost - Heaven and Hell, good and evil, light and dark - birth and death is a more subtle dichotomy, one that is harder to notice. And instead of being portrayed as opposites, birth and death are seen as interrelated. Birth results in the creation of Death and eternal punishment, and conversely, in Hell, Death (both the character and the concept) feed uncontrollably on life. The idea of the Abyss as a sort of uncharted Chaos best symbolizes this, being the source of material from which life is created and where life is destroyed. It will be interesting to see how birth and death and their role in creation will be conveyed as the epic continues, especially in the creation of man.

Words: 788

Works Cited
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1968. Print.
"Sinister." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2013. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sinister>.

Ariel vs. Caliban in _The Tempest_

Fuseli, Henry. Ariel. c. 1800-10.

 So as I going over (and over, and over) The Tempest these past couple of weeks, one of the things that really struck me was Prospero's relationships with Caliban and Ariel. Both were creatures of some form that inhabited the island and were both taken in as slaves, essentially, to Prospero, yet they were treated and were treated by Prospero so differently. Caliban's character is this deformed brute, the spawn of the moon-witch Sycorax and devil, while Ariel is an air-spirit who can command the spirits of other elements. Prospero sees himself as the rescuer of sorts of both Caliban and Ariel - he gave Caliban shelter and taught him to speak his language, and freed Ariel from a tree where he was imprisoned, and in return for these "favors" he binds Caliban to fetching his wood and Ariel to performing various trickeries of the Naples crew. Yet while Prospero praises Ariel one moment ("Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel, hark in thine ear" [Shakespeare 1.2.317-18]) he turns around and barks at Caliban, "Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself upon thy wicked dam, come forth!" (Shakespeare 1.2.319-20). It was pretty funny actually to see how completely different treatment Caliban and Ariel received from Prospero, so I decided to look into what these two characters might be supposed to represent, what Shakespeare's intention may have been in creating this contrast.
As this is a play that is roughly four centuries old, of course it was pretty difficult to find any concrete, factual information about what Shakespeare himself was trying to convey with these two characters, but I did find a few articles by scholars giving their interpretations of the contrast between Caliban and Ariel. There were a lot that argued the The Tempest was in a sense Shakespeare's commentary on colonization of native civilizations in the New World, that Caliban and Ariel embodied the different way natives were viewed and treated based on their level of cooperation with their colonizer (Caliban being the ungrateful rebel and Ariel the glorious example of what can happen if you do all you can to please the power that freed you from your previous entrapment) - here's a link to an article on Columbia's website that I found particularly interesting: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/lithum/gallo/tempest.html

However (and who knows why, maybe it has something to do with being raised by a mother who majored in Psych), the interpretations that struck me the most were the ones that looked at Ariel and Caliban as conflicting aspects of Prospero's internal character. Here's a link to an article I found on a strange website called "Personality and Consciousness" and gives a "Jungian interpretation" of The Tempest: http://pandc.ca/?cat=carl_jung&page=the_tempest. It's a little out there, but I thought the underlying point was an interesting way of viewing Ariel and Caliban that I hadn't really thought of before. The article's author, Barry Beck, argues that Ariel embodies Prospero's conscious mind - that over which he has control over, the civilized part, that

Buchel, Charles.
Herbert Beerbohm Tree As Caliban. 1904.

which he can rely on as a means to achieving an end. Caliban on the other hand embodies Prospero's more animalistic subconscious mind - that which he can punish but not entirely control, the ugly monster who is nonetheless an part of the island that Prospero can't get rid of (Beck). I do agree with this perspective - Ariel is a charming spirit who speaks in nicely flowing rhymes and carries out Prospero's every order to perfection, while Caliban is, well, the son of the devil, who says vulgar things, resents being given orders (for the reason that he is part of the nature of the island and feels the island thus belongs to him), and wanted to populate the island with Prospero's daughter (Shakespeare 1.2.349-51). By utilizing Ariel, Prospero consciously controls nearly all of the characters and events occurring around him almost exactly to his will, yet Caliban still crashes the finale, drunk and wearing stolen clothes.
While I was interested in thinking about the political and psychological interpretations of these two characters, my personal interpretation that I came to find was more a combination of both perspectives. I think the discovery of the New World and the interactions with the people and environment there permanently shook up the Old World's psyche, which was reflected in its politics, scientific ideologies, and art - and this includes The Tempest. Without intending to, Western civilization was in a sense sucked into a storm of mysterious creatures and environments, and they had the technological means to take power over it all, but struggled with how exactly to use this power - to free or not to free if you will. To me, Ariel and Caliban embody different parts of mankind's reaction to encountering a purely wild world. As Gonzalo put it, "All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement inhabits here" (Shakespeare 5.1.104-5) - some parts were ugly and wicked, some parts were beautiful and liberating, but both were necessary advancing the shipwrecked group to the next phase in their lives on a personal level and as a greater society.

Works Cited

Beck, Barry. "Shakespeare's The Tempest: A Jungian Interpretation". Personality and Consciousness. eLearners.com. 1993. 08 Sep 2013. <http://pandc.ca/?cat=carl_jung&page=the_tempest>.

O'Toole, Michael. "Shakespeare's Natives: Ariel and Caliban in The Tempest". Quixotic: An Electronic Journal of Experimental LitHum Texts. Columbia University. 08 Sep 2013. <http://www.columbia.edu/itc/lithum/gallo/tempest.html>.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books, 1960. Print.