Satan’s speech is an extract taken from Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost is the second epic poem of Milton. Paradise Lost tells the biblical story of Adam and Eve with God and Satan who is thrown out of Heaven and leter tries to corrupt humankind. In this poem, the typical character of the epic hero is altered by Milton to suit the changing spirit of the age. There is a philosophical hero who must learn to control himself before he is judged fit to found an empire. Milton with this epic poem wants to celebrate a hero or a culture . (Puritan culture)

Satan is a hero. He has many characteristics of the epic hero: leadership, the courage which refuse to accept defeat and a willingness to udertake the desperate enterprise  to esscape from Hell. Satan rappresents the figure of the rebel against authority.

Satan’s speech is about satan’s rebellion against God.

Reading the title, we can udestand that the speaking voice is Satan.

The extract starts with a retorical question created by Satan: “is this the region, this the soil, the clime”.  It is about the place where he is sent: Paradise. This lines makes us understand that Satan, after his downfall in the hell,  fells lost because everything is different ( region, soil, clime). In the following lines there is a comparison between Paradise and Hell. Satan, to speak about Hell, uses the words “ mournful gloom”. These words makes us understand that Satan doesn’t like the place and are compared to darkness and sadness of hell. In order, the word “mourful”, says that hell is a dark and plaintive place.  Instead, to speak about Paradise, Satan uses the words: “ celestian light” that are compared to the happyness and the light.

In the next lines, Satan says that the ones there are far from him are in a better situation because he has made himself supreme above his equals. Satan isn’t glad to be in the Hell but then he accepts the situation. He prepers himself to say “goodbye” to Heaven and to say “Hi” to the Hell. In this lines, there are others phrases that rappresented the different worlds. To speak about Heaven, he uses the phrase: “ happy fields where joy for ever dwells”. And to speak about Hell he uses the words: “horrors”, Infernal world”, “profoundest hell”.

In the following lines, Satan underlines the power of his mind. His mind can’t be change by place or time, which means that his way of thinking remind the same. He thinks that his mind is so strong that it can make heaven seem hell and hell seem heaven. For him, it doesn’t matter where he is because he is always the same. This verses, highlight the capacity of the human mind.

In the successive lines, Satan speaks about God. To refer about him, he uses: “ Almightly” and “ whom thunder bath made greater”. Satan understands that he is equal to God in reason but diffrent in power because God has more strength. For Satan, in hell they can be free because God hasn’t created that place for his envy, so he doesn’t send away.

Satan in the text is rappresented  as a Lost Arch Angel,  a sovran,  a possesor. This graduation rappresents his ambitius: to became a king somewhere. First he is rappresented as a Lost Arch Angel because he is sent in the hell and he has lost a beautiful place (paradise). Then he is rappresented as a sovran because when he arrived in the Hell, he took power. In the end he is rappresented as a possesor because he knows that God will not  be able to rule the Hell and he is the new king. The use of “we” symbolize other Arch Angels.

At the end of the poem, the speaking voice explains all his ambitius and his proud. “ better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven”: for Satan, the most important thing is to be in power and it doesn’t metter where.

Concluding, Satan is someone who uses his mind to create an alternative place to Paradise. He immagines a place where he can rule and he has the same power of Hell.