Satan's greatest weakness is his arrogance. He is the initiator of the crime. He was the first person who didn't appreciate the blessings of God and the Father. He thinks he is an innocent victim because he was ignored in an important promotion. But in a paradise where all angels are equal, loved and happy, his ability to think so selfishly is amazing.
He was confident that he could overthrow God and showed great vanity and arrogance. Satan is committed to evil. Everything he said was a lie. Every story he tells is a lie. Satan's unrepentant evil nature is unshakable. Even when he was defeated and thrown out of heaven, he didn't consider changing.
By letting Beelzebub show his own action plan, he tried his best to deceive his accomplices in hell. He insisted to his fellow demons that their happiness lay in doing evil rather than doing good. In particular, as he explained to Beelzebub, he hoped to mislead the will of God and find a way to make good produce evil.
Generally speaking, the image of Satan is complex and contradictory. He is not a single hero or demon. Readers should treat Satan as a whole with dialectical thinking.
Extended data
The interpretation of Satan's image in Paradise Lost has formed a wrong hermeneutic pedigree. John dryden (163 1- 1700), an English poet, first thought that Satan was the main character in the poem and a real hero. On the other hand, william blake put forward a famous conclusion, that is, Milton became the devil's accomplice in the1790s without knowing it.
In the19th century, the mainstream tendency basically regarded Milton's epic as the most firm example of advocating against tyranny. Shelley (1792- 1822) admired Satan, thinking that his moral image was much higher than that of God, and even compared Satan to Prometheus who resisted the tyranny of Zeus. Kazri (1778- 1830) also appreciates Satan's rebellious will and personality charm.
Other celebrities who belong to this thread are Wordsworth (1770- 1850), Byron (1788- 1824) and Keats (1795-182/). Conservative Christians like Woodhouse also mistakenly think that he is an epic hero, breaking idols and resisting power.
In particular, the interpretation thought represented by belinsky, from the standpoint of historical materialism, directly corresponds the image of Satan to Puritan revolutionaries and praises his resistance to authority.
This politicized misreading has a far-reaching impact. Up to now, many people in domestic academic circles still regard Satan as Milton's self-portrait, and take it for granted that Milton's defense of regicide is reflected in Satan's actions towards God, and the worries after Satan's failure also reveal "the frustration and depression of the British people and poets".
However, in fact, if there is a projection of Milton's self-image in Paradise Lost, it can't be Satan, but Abid, who is not in cahoots with Satan, and Noah, the son of light in the dark ages (see my article The Power of Milton). Abid, for example, returned to God with his head held high after reprimanding the devil.
God praised you like this: "In order to defend the cause of truth, you fought against a group of thieves who refused to obey orders alone, and the power of words was stronger than their weapons;" In order to prove the truth, you have suffered endless humiliation and enrichment, which is far more unbearable than violence. " (220 pages)
As long as we know a little about Milton's life slandered by his political opponents, we can deeply understand his self-portrayal here. Since Milton takes Abid's spirit of "despite thousands of people" as an example, he is obviously ashamed to associate with Satan.
Fortunately, there are still more and more people who are radical and correct Satan's cognitive bias based on the text. "The greatest Oxford man" C.S. Louis (1898- 1963) confirmed that Satan, the fallen archangel, is an irrefutable negative image. Blaesing found that Satan was eloquent, but lacked real fighting power. Steedman, on the other hand, thinks that Satan's own cruelty is totally inconsistent with the moral standards of epic heroes.
In China, scholars such as Qi Hongwei and Shen Hong also criticized Satan's subjective beautification. These theorists have noticed to varying degrees that the praise of Satan lacks sufficient textual basis (for example, in the fourth volume, Satan's terrible monologue and ferocious face were first written by Milton), and it is also seriously contrary to Milton's belief as a devout Christian.
No matter how you interpret Satan, don't forget that Paradise Lost is first and foremost a literary epic. Milton's creation certainly bears the imprint of his own special experience, but those political, social, epochal and author's personality factors are, after all, the background from the perspective of political fables or theological propositions.
It is dogmatic and inappropriate to label Satan as an epic hero or evil incarnation, a Puritan revolutionary or an autocratic tyrant. The fundamental attribute of literature and poetry is to express the richness of human nature and life itself. As for Satan, it is precisely because Milton grasped the complexity of his temperament that he became a very successful figure in Paradise Lost.
However, in any case, we should correctly uphold the gist and focus of the analysis, and we should not blur the standards of justice, kindness and kindness because of this complexity, so as not to fall into the chaotic logic of taking evil as good, ugliness as beautiful, meanness as lofty and cruelty as hero, just like Satan.
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