laiming vanity as the root of all evil, Milton stimulates a sense of corruption in Eve with this comparison. Likewise, Satan is able to captivate Eve’s imagination while she sleeps, “him there they found squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve; assaying by his devilish art to reach the organs of her fancy, and with them forge illusions as he list, phantasms and dreams, or if, inspiring venom, he might taint”(PL: BK IV, L799-804). This foreshadows how Eve’s submission to vanity initiates the fall in Book IX. The fact that Eve’s mind is the one that Satan plants the seed of evil in exemplifies Milton’s view of the woman’s subordinate intellect and her vulnerability.Eve’s rank in the created world is again enforced when a voice removes her from the reflection and leads her to “he whose image thou art” (PL: BK IV, L472). Eve is to dismiss her own image and adore “him who thou art, his flesh, his bone” (PL: BK IV, L483-484). This is one indication of how Milton disbands any ideal that a woman is higher up in the course of the natural order or intellectually superior to a man. Eve, herself realizes this, “Part of my soul I seek thee, and thee claim my other half: with that thy gentle hand seized mine, I yielded, and from that time see How beauty is excelled by manly grace and wisdom, which alone is truly fair” (PL: BK IV, L487-490). Milton indicates Eve’s acceptance of her lack of mindful authority in these lines and her willingness to accept herself as exclusively outwardly beautiful. She worships Adam for his intellectual beauty and states that his wisdom is her ultimate authority. She accepts her role kindly and states, “ My author and disposer, what thou bid’st unargued I obey; so God ordains, God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more is woman’s happiest knowledge and her praise”(PL: BK IV, L635-638). This statem...
