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Home CCSU Theses & Dissertations Milton's "Accomplished Eve" (4.660) : feminism in Paradise Lost / Jenifer Cerritelli

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Milton's "Accomplished Eve" (4.660) : feminism in Paradise Lost / Jenifer Cerritelli

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Identifier	Thesis 1483
Author	Cerritelli, Jennifer
Title	Milton's "Accomplished Eve" (4.660) : feminism in Paradise Lost / Jenifer Cerritelli
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	1998
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	In Paradise Lost, John Milton dramatically changes Eve's character from the well established Renaissance stereotype to an intelligent, humble, and majestic woman. Traditionally, Eve has been condemned for causing mankind's sinful state. Yet Milton rejects such damning views and praises Eve as a heroic individual who defines the Christian doctrines of grace and redemption. In doing so, Milton puts Eve in direct opposition to the only other female in the epic poem, Sin. In this thesis, I propose that Eve and Sin have a distinct relationship: Sin represents the stale stereotypes of the prelapsarian Eve that Milton has rejected. Thus, Paradise Lost contains a surprisingly modern and feminist view of the Fall, its consequences, and the formation of salvation. Leading in the discussion of Milton's feminism are Joseph Wittreich and Diane Kelsey McColley. In Feminist Milton, Joseph Wittreich credits Milton with being an early sponsor of feminism. He refutes many critics who claim that Milton is a misogynist and asserts that any ideas of misogyny in Eden go against Milton's prelapsarian vision. Wittreich supports his theories by calling on instances in Paradise Lost where Milton gives credence to women's rationality, maturity, and the presence of these characteristics in Eve. McColley follows Wittreich's path and extols Milton as a feminist author who has endowed Eve with a sense of reason and responsibility. In particular, her book Milton's Eve explains how Milton diverged from and surpassed his predecessors' depictions of Eve. According to McColley, Milton presents an Eve as God would have made her: not only sufficient to stand, but to grow. Other critics too, such as Philip Gallagher and Barbara Lewalski, have followed with judgments of Milton as an early feminist writer. These scholars successfully denounce critics such as E.M.W. Tillyard and Stanley Fish who insist that Adam and Eve are prefallen and imperfect creatures, even before the Fall. Milton's feminist attitude takes root in the presentation of Eve as a heroic character. Although Eve falls and promotes Adam to fall, her upward and outward progression deserves much notice. After the Fall, she engages in Christ-like self-sacrifice for Adam and brings him to the notion that it is best to humble oneself before God and ask forgiveness. Eve's heroism is further pronounced at the end of Paradise Lost when she finds comfort in the fact that she will people the world and produce Mary and the Son of god, who eventually will bring about the Second Coming to gloriously destroy all evil. Through this felix culpa, Eve has assisted in the production of Christ's redemption and the new definition of Christianity. Milton alludes to this turning point in history in Eve's final heroic speech in which Eve proclaims: "By me the Promised Seed shall all restore." Perhaps Milton's Eve is best seen through her relationship to Sin, the only female character in the epic. I propose that Eve and Sin have a distinct relationship: Sin represents the stale stereotypes of the prelapsarian Eve that Milton has rejected. These seven stereotypes are as follows: Eve is prefallen, Eve is a seductive temptress, Eve is idle and lazy, Eve is vain and susceptible to flattery, Eve's downfalls are her curiosity and propensity to wander, Eve is prone to secrecy and dissembling, and Eve's fall proves that women deserve nothing but condemnation. I suggest that these harsh stereotypes reveal a feminist side of Milton, since they were expelled from his Eve and placed in Sin. Just as Satan is the perverted form of God, so is Sin the perverted form of Eve, since Sin carries all qualities of the "traditional Eve" that Milton has rejected. Through these foils, Milton denounces biased views of Eve and praises her as an intelligent, virtuous, and heroic woman. It is this bold defense of Eve that earns Milton praise as an early feminist advocate. The study of Eve and Sin's inverted relationship yields insight to their character development as well as Milton's disposition. After closely examining Paradise Lost, one can see that Milton is an advanced feminist writer in a dominantly patriarchal society. He deliberately rejects the unjust, traditional accounts of Eve. From these stereotypes, he molds Eve's foil, Sin. by means of authorial inversion, Milton has actually taken on a God-like quality: out of the evil views concerning Eve, he creates good. This goodness prevails when the integrity, maturity, intelligence, and majesty of the first woman is restored, both in her pre- and post-lapsarian states.
Subject	Milton, John, 1608-1674. Paradise lost -- Criticism, Textual Eve (Biblical figure) Milton, John, 1608-1674 -- Characters -- Eve
Department	Department of English
Advisor	Nunn, Mary Anne
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	40169583
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Home CCSU Theses & Dissertations Milton's "Accomplished Eve" (4.660) : feminism in Paradise Lost / Jenifer Cerritelli

Milton's "Accomplished Eve" (4.660) : feminism in Paradise Lost / Jenifer Cerritelli

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