her position in Eden and is overcome by evil.In Book IV of Paradise Lost, Milton expresses Eve’s perception of herself when she sees her image as well as the reader’s insight to Eve’s role through Satan’s initial description of her. At the beginning of this narration Adam and Eve are identified, very briefly, as alike, “Two of far nobler shape erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native honour clad in naked majesty seemed lords of all”(PL: BK IV, L287-290). This narration then immediately turns to a characterization of Eve as the secondary being, “Whence true authority in men; though both not equal, as their sex not equal seemed…He for God only, she for God in him” (PL: BK IV, L295-300). Here, then, is a grand example of Eve’s submission to her “absolute ruler” (PL: BK IV, L300) who is man and her place in the natural order of creation is beneath him. Milton immodestly states in these lines that the male authority figure in this story is the most divine of all created beings and the female is only there to enhance his being. They are both made in the likeness of God, but Eve is divine-like only through Adam. Milton, in Paradise Lost, as in all epic structures, uses many classical allusions to help the reader gain insight to a woman’s standpoint through the power of poetry. To enforce Eve’s position and to introduce Eve’s flaw, Milton alludes to Ovid’s character, Narcissis. Narcissis vainly yearns for his own image reflected in a pool. In Book IV, Eve’s vanity is explained, “A shape within the watery gleam appeared bending to look on me…pleased it returned as soon with answering looks of sympathy and love; there I had fixed mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire” (PL: BK IV, L460-466). The importance of this parallel is the forefront of Eve’s weakness to be overcome in Book IX. In addition to exc...
