Right from the title, the intelligent reader understands that the extract (taken from the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton) is about Satan’s speech.

After reading the poem, the reader understands that in the present extract is about Satan’s arrival in Hell.

Moreover, the word “archangel” and the verb “said”, juxtaposed after the direct speech, confirm the thesis according to which Satan is the one who is talking.

In addition to that, hell is connoted by the juxtaposition of the adjective “mournful” and the name “gloom” and is opposed to Heaven, connoted by “celestial light” and “happy fields”. The contrast between heaven’s “celestial light” and hell’s “mournful gloom” recalls the opposition between the colors white and black, and so recalls also the contrast between purity and sin.

At first Satan cannot believe his eyes and is not glad to be in hell, but he soon accepts the new situation and shows all his ambition: “Be it so, since he who now is sovran can dispose and bid what shall be right: furthest from him is best whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme above his equals. Farewell happy fields where joy for ever dwells: hail horrors, hail Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell receive thy new possessor”.

The sentence “Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven” underlines Satan’s ambition is to have a reign somewhere, no matter if that place is hell.

In conclusion, we understand the reason why Milton chose Satan as the hero of his poem: the “lost archangel” is great in evil and has got “a mind not to be changed by place or time”, a mind that “ can make a Heaven of Hell, and a Hell of Heaven”. Satan also commits sins and so is the perfect metaphor of human being’s behavior.