Paradise Lost explores the natural longing to be alone and distinguish oneself from the multitudes. Adam, Eve, Satan, and even God himself strive to assert their superiority and piety by attempting to exercise the most visible proof of their divine power: the ability to create. However, they all fail (including God) to some extent because they are driven by their narcissistic intentions to selfishly create imitations that only seek to reinforce their superiority. They may simply create copies that are inferior to the originals, due to their inability to realize that only God can create inherent value. The only way to progress toward any semblance of godliness is not to proudly make external, boastful imitations of oneself, but rather to humbly make one's mind a spiritual and intangible imitation of God. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Throughout Paradise Lost, Satan and God attempt to distinguish themselves by distinguishing themselves from the multitudes around them. Among all the multitude of demons, only Satan offers to take the “solitary flight” through Chaos. Then, after “alone thus wandering” (3.667) and “walking up and down alone, bending over his prey/alone” (3.441-2), he imagines himself “alone,” although he is watched. by Uriel (4.129). Likewise, “God alone” sits alone, hidden behind a cloud (4.202). This seclusion reinforces the feeling of having untouchable power, of being "with transcendent glory elevated/above one's fellows" (2.427-8). A state of solitude avoids the oppressive ordinariness associated with being one among the masses. The angels of God are “innumerable” (5.585), a “multitude” (3.345) of “ten thousand thousand” (5.588); Satan’s demons are also “innumerable” (1.699). These hordes of creatures are perpetually "invaded" or "overrun", compared to bees so equal as to be indistinguishable and incapable of acting except in groups (1.761-9). Like the “raw” bee created by God, multitudes are often bestial and without the “sanctity of reason.” compressed into a single unit that seems to serve only for mindless clapping and singing of praise (7.507-8). In contrast, Gods Can Think Independently does not value the brute force of numbers, but rather subtlety. tricks and tricks that only individuals can perform. For example, while the devil's multitude sits obediently in Pandemonium, his strength and weapons are useless, Satan alone manages to destroy the innocence of humanity only with the persuasive force of his tongue with a power equal to the collective power. of the entire group, these individuals, “those rare and solitary, [not like] those in herds” are elevated above the fallen and are therefore visible, autonomous, and exclusively powerful (7.461). “God alone” and Satan are constantly surrounded by multitudes and, therefore, their loneliness is even more apparent, which highlights the inequality of their power disproportionate to that of the masses, in turn suggesting their piety. Milton twice states that it is absurd to "give equals free rein over equals", and that a monarch must be superior to those he governs (5.820). Having established themselves above the omnipresent equality of the “multitudes,” Milton’s characters seek to be equal to a higher entity. Thinking that their solitude makes them supreme, their inflated egos lead them to aim “at achieving full equality with God” (5.763). In order to assert their preeminence over the bestial multitudes, and thus prove their piety, Adam, Eve, Satan and God attempt to exercise the most visible form of powerdivine: the role of Creator. They think they must be superior to the beings they themselves create. God declares that the “creatures that [he] has created” are “lower than [him] or similar, much lower” (8.407-9). They are “inferior” to God in their inequality and in their debt to him as their creator. However, the power of these figures is uncertain, including that of God himself. For each aspirant, piety is achieved only if others recognize him as gods, if he has a group of encouraging devotees. Satan's confidence as leader of the demons of Hell rests on the fact that he "expects their universal cries and their loud applause" (10. 504-5). They have the uncertainty of believing that piety is only legitimized by adulation; it is not enough for them to convince themselves that they can become divine; only external expression can convince them of their success as creators. Milton surrounds each of God's and Satan's great speeches with jubilees, "loud hosannas," "terrible reverence," and "solemn adoration" (2.478), emphasizing the importance of acclamation as a "precondition" to divinity (3.347). It is ironic that the characters attempt to replicate this external approval by creating it themselves through offspring who praise them incessantly, almost impassively, as in the vein of professional mourners. God caused that man "was created in his image, [on Earth] to inhabit it/and adore it... and to multiply a race of worshippers", not to benefit from the grace of God, but to fill the empty ranks of his admirers (7.626-9). ). Eve is advised to create “multitudes like [her]self” so that her offspring can revere her as the “Mother of the human race” (4.474-5). Neither Eve nor God seems to create to have something to love, but rather to have something to love them. This selfish, self-aggrandizing impulse leads future gods to abuse the power to create. Their narcissism corrupts their divine ambitions, leading them to create copies of themselves, instead of a responsible hierarchy of creatures that supports all life, as a truly well-intentioned god would. Adam and Eve were pleasing and “worthy” of God, not because they cared for Eden, but because “in [their] naked majesty / shone the image of their glorious Creator” (4.291-2 ). Furthermore, God did not create these copies to love as separate beings, but rather so that He could have even more ways to admire Himself. Likewise, when Adam “exceedingly admires/that which seemed in [Eve] so perfect” (9.1178), he is in fact amused, “whose image [Eve] is” (4.472). This is externalized praise in its most extreme form. This allows these narcissistic creators to extend their power indefinitely, to express absolute domination over their creation. In this way, they ensure their superiority by creating beings that are fundamentally inferior and unequal to them while simultaneously reproducing beloved reflections of themselves. However, because these would-be gods abuse the power of creation using incestuous methods, many of their creations turn out to be perverted. Narcissistic Adam and Satan, both in love with their own likeness, create daughters from their bodies, the “flesh of [their] flesh” (4.441). However, these creations are perverted when the two creators, seeing in their offspring their “perfect image,” desire their daughters (2.764). As a result, the birth of Eve and Sin does not benefit them as individuals, but rather to satisfy the ungodly lusts of their creators through the distorted roles of "daughter and darling/endless" (2.870). Likewise, Sin is raped by her own offspring, Death, and the cycle ofThe ensuing unnatural creation results in even more depraved offspring, here, “screaming monsters” (2.795). In a final irony, Satan "brings out" his evil followers, only to find that the multitudes of his "offspring" are now deformed, "a crowd/of vile serpents." It's fitting that he, the ultimate narcissist, is then transformed into a "huge Python" to match his evil offspring. Even though he "always seemed above the rest" (10.51-2), his narcissistic need to see his offspring "all transformed in the same way" eventually equalizes him, making him a mere suffering serpent among the swarm he created (10.519). natural creations are intended to maintain a balance, a homeostasis between all the different components of all its creations united in a single world. Satan, Adam, and Eve are denied these creative powers due to their selfish and narrow motives for wanting to create and their subsequent abuse of this ability. Not only are these characters too weak to be as alone as God, but their inability to instill inherent value in their creations and their inability to understand the sublimity of the creative process leads them to create only inferior imitations of God's originals. acting on their divine illusions, the characters reveal themselves to be poor imitations of God, the sole “Author of this universe” (8.359). Satan, the aspiring “author and chief architect,” attempts to imitate the language of God as if he could achieve the divine ability to create simply by imitating the words of the true Creator (10.356). After God proclaims that "the earth now / seemed like heaven, a seat where the gods might dwell," Satan declares "O earth, like heaven... a seat fit for the gods" (9.99-100). Like God, he addresses his multitudes “as from a cloud” (10.449). However, Satan is only able to copy the most visible, obvious, and insignificant traits of God, because his motivation to be godly is too limited. He cannot create anything of value on his own because his mind is not independent; on the contrary, he is inexorably linked to God, always wanting to surpass God, ruin God, copy God. Yet although he imitates every aspect of God, he finds that his competitiveness makes him too weak to be divinely singular, because everything he does is done in response to God's action. Likewise, Adam and Eve discover that they cannot handle the pressure of being distant and lonely. When alone, Eve is vulnerable to the wiles of Satan's tongue and Adam is susceptible to loneliness. He reflects "in solitude/what happiness, who can enjoy alone", recognizing that humans cannot resist isolation as God can, nor bear the idea of ​​being able to create, but being unable to participate to their creations (8.364-5). .Second, the characters' "creations" are imperfect imitations of God's creations because they have no inherent value. These copies are all created from images, using tangible and visual objects, evoking the “luminous image” of false goddesses and “their own work in wood and stone” (1.440, 12.119). By allowing themselves to be “seduced by beautiful idolaters” and falling “before filthy idols,” these so-called creators abandon the active and living nature of creation in favor of static, one-dimensional representations of nothingness (1.445-6). Furthermore, these “brutal forms” can easily be degraded and destroyed (1.481), “the image of the brute” can be “mutilated…head and hands cut off” (1.459). Adam, Eve and Satan are not capable of creating invulnerable creations because they only have the bestial skill to understand" (12.648-9).