In the present text I’m going to analyse an extract of Paradise Lost by John Milton, that is about Satan’s rebellion against God.

The present extract is a Satan’s speech addressed to his followers. The poem consists of the divine drama of the fall of the Angels and the human drama of the fall of Adam and Eve. Milton wants to warn against the sin of pride. According to the poet pride is the ambition to become equal to God, and both Satan and Adam and Eve had it. Indeed, they challenged God and were defeated. The whole meaning of the divine drama is summoned up in the figure of Satan, who believed God was a tyrant. Because of pride Lucifer, who was the bravest among angels, ascended the throne into the Hell. From that moment Lucifer was called Satan.

Satan is surveying his new home trying to become aware of the new situation after his downfall. He compares the Hell to Paradise and feels lost because everything is different here: “the region, the soil, the clime”, there is only “a mournful gloom” (line 3) all over the place instead of the “celestial light” (line 4) of the Paradise. He isn't glad at first to be there, but he soon accepts the new situation (lines 8-10 “Be it so... Farewell happy fields where joy for ever dwells! Hail horrors! Hail infernal word!”). He realises that now he is the “new possessor” (line 11) of a place where “farthest from him" (line 6), "at least we shall be free" (line 18) and "may reign secure” (line 20). His ambition is to have a reign somewhere, no matter if that place is horrible and gloomy.

Satan has got “a mind not to be changed by place or time” (line12), a mind that “can make a Heaven of Hell, and a Hell of Heaven” (line 14). Then hell and heaven are only states of mind. The Hell that Milton describes is in the mind because the mind can change the external world. Indeed, intellect is the tool that helps you to live better.

In the present text Satan shows all the characteristics that a hero should have, like courage, pride, self-confidence and ambition. He is very proud, and this makes him believe that it “is better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven" (line 22). Even if Satan is the central figure in the extract, there is always the presence of God. He feels to be equal to God in reason, but he is inferior to him only in power because God has the strength: "what reason has equalled, thunder hath made greater” (line 17). He considers himself to be only “less than he” (line 16), indeed he refers to him with the name “the Almighty” (line 18) because he is aware of God’s superiority.