ent would not go over well in the twenty-first century, however, the modern reader can surrender to the idea that Eve is powerless and unequal as permissible for this poem. Again, this is indicative of the power of poetry.Book IX is the setting for the fated tragedy – the fall of mankind. This is a powerful book where Milton explains how ultimate dependency is more powerful than independence. When approaching Book IX, the reader has a sense that Eve is delighted by her role in Eden. However, Milton invokes a discord in that harmony with the persistence of Eve to convince Adam that she is not as submissive as he thinks. There is a feeling that maybe Eve is proceeding with reason and the innate ability to overcome temptation because of who she is and where she came from. However, knowing from the beginning, that Eve ultimately causes the fall of man, this idea is expelled when the inevitable does happen. According to the reader, Adam clearly states the obvious, “Lest harm befall thee severed from me…what malicious foe…watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find his wish and best advantage…leave not the faithful side that gave thee being, still shades thee and protects the wife…safest and seemliest by her husband stays”(PL: BK IX, L250-270). Milton, in Adam’s words, claims that the woman is unable to relinquish the idea of temptation without the man to protect her. Eve overwrites her position of authority and argues, “His violence thou fear’st not, being such, as we, not capable of death or pain, can either not receive, or can repel his fraud is then thy fear, which plain infers thy equal fear that my firm faith and love can by his fraud be shaken of seduced; thoughts, which how found they harbour in thy breast Adam, misthought of her to thee so dear”(PL: BK IX, L280-290). This statement is ironic because, it is exactly what happens. Also it is a complete contradi...
