Textuality » 4A Interacting
Analysis of: ‘Better to Reign in Hell, Than Serve in Heav'n''
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Reading the title the reader creates some expectations because of the contrast in it; the contrast is between the words Hell and Heaven. The title underlines the religious code promulgated by Milton.
The text opens with some questions said by the lost Arch Angel, the word order isn't correct, there is a frequent use of ‘this' and of ‘that', It's an anaphorical structure. The repetition of ‘this' recalls also the beauty of Paradise. The Archangel is connoted as a lost angel, because he has lost Heaven, he has been plunged to Paradise.
Is also used the metaphor of the celestial light, intended as the Paradise. All the speech is based on the rhetorical contrast:
Hell VS Heaven
Bad VS Good
White VS Black
Light VS Darkness
It's a medieval versus, the code of innocence and purity contra the code of sin and damnation.
The Satan's personality that comes out is about an ambitious man that wants to make the most of his power whenever he needs.
Satan paves his leaving, so he says farewell to Paradise: the ‘happy fields, where joy for ever dwells', and praises the infernal world: ‘hail horrors!'. The extract terminates with a personal consideration of the lost Arch Angel: ‘a mind not be changed by place or time', it means that in spite of Satan had lived in Heaven, his mind couldn't change, it would be always the same and wouldn't be influenced.