The devils’ punishment to live as snakes forever tempted
by fruit on a glorious tree echoes Satan’s temptation of Eve. Now
they must forever suffer the pains of desire without ever having
hope of attaining their wishes, a punishment befitting their crime.
To have the devils frozen in a state of perpetual desire and unattainable
satisfaction is fit for a group of evildoers who continue to battle
God through their disobedience.
Milton uses the concept of typology—the Christian belief
that Old Testament characters symbolize and predict New Testament characters—to
demonstrate the intimate relationship between the fall of humankind
and the redemption of humankind. This relationship between the fall
and the resurrection forms the base of the Christian interpretation
of the Bible. Milton considers Mary, the mother of the Son (Jesus),
to be the “second Eve.” As Sin and Death came into the world through
Eve, the Son would conquer Sin and Death through Mary. Likewise,
Milton considers Jesus to be a “second Adam” who corrects Adam and
Eve’s disobedience through his resurrection. Through these comparisons
between Eve and Mary, and Adam and Jesus, the fall and the resurrection
become intertwined. The fall is the cause of human history; the
resurrection is the result of human history.
Although Adam and Eve are ailing at the end of Book IX,
they take action in Book X and separate their fate from Satan’s
fate. Satan, as Milton shows, cannot allow himself to repent. His
damnation is permanent since his disobedience comes from within
and without repentance. On the other hand, humankind’s disobedience comes
from the temptation of another. This idea helps to explain Adam
and Eve’s actions and subsequent punishment at the end of Book X.
Realizing the terrible consequences of their actions, they come
dangerously close to rationalizing suicide, but Adam decides to
beg God for forgiveness—the only right answer, in Milton’s opinion.
Though the coming of the Son and the salvation of humankind had
already been foretold, the couple’s decision to repent is crucial in
God’s willingness to forgive them. God will show mercy when asked,
but as we see with Satan, there can be no mercy without repentance.
In one of the most important quotations in Paradise Lost, Milton
poetically demonstrates the importance of Adam and Eve’s decision
in the last several lines of Book X. Adam explains how their repentance
and prayer will occur, and then as they pray, Milton duplicates
Adam’s explanation as the actual action of their prayer. As Adam
explains to Eve:
What better can we do, than to the place
Repairing where he judg’d us, prostrate fall
Before him reverent, and there confess
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg, with tears
Watering the ground. . .
(X.1087–1090)
This moment of prayer is crucial because now humankind
will not all go the way of Satan, because man produces what the
devil could not: true sorrow and regret.
Milton gives Eve the ability to argue persuasively to
Adam, showing her intelligence and talents after all. Eve displays
a new humility and grace when she repents after the fall. Her strength
lies in her ability to relate her feelings to Adam, feelings that
Adam shares. Eve’s contemplation of suicide is a sign of weakness,
but after Eve’s moving speech, Adam is able to help see—and to help
her see—why they should not commit suicide. As they lose hope of
Paradise, they witness the hope of their race: God’s Son, Jesus.
It is this hope that prevents the couple from taking their own lives
when they realize the extent of their punishment. They choose hope
over despair. Milton resolves their distinguished differences
through a display of unity: Eve’s loving and emotional arguments
to stay together and Adam’s rational argument to repent help them begin
to save humankind together. Their similarities and teamwork, not
their differences and occasional parity, allow them to obey reason
and survive.
