A Touch of Cancer

Thus far into A Brave New World, major themes are as yet still building, and for the most part the key to the novel has remained elusive. However, the novel seems to be highly interested in the negativity of individuality and personal identity. Social continuity and homogeneity maintain themselves as society’s stability, and individuality threatens the entity which is this World State.

The first instance which begins to explore the instrumentality of stripping society of individuality comes in the very beginning of the novel, when the students tour the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. The new process for fertilizing eggs and then making embryos results in, for all castes other than Alphas and Betas, results in “Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress” (Huxley 17). Syntactically, these statements represent much of the philosophy of the society. It (the society) does not need to be made up of “complete” individuals, ones with independent mindsets, goals, and outlooks on life. Like these near-sentences, the people of the society can carry out their function without having a full consciousness. This encourages the retraction of individuality, and substitution with hive-minded people, for the sake of a more efficient system. Much like the way Huxley uses only fragments to describe the lack of genetic individuality within the World State, the geneticists and breeders strip the people down to only the necessary elements for their castes. Intelligence, psychological preferences and predispositions, and social mindset are precisely engineered to ensure the human contains only what is exactly necessary to give meaning to the situation, but not enough for any extraneous meanings or opinions to form from the information planted in that person.

Because the society actively puts down individuality, any appearance of difference is heavily ridiculed. Even the individual who appears or thinks differently than the rest of the society notices the difference, and extreme self-consciousness of the difference results. Bernard Marx, while intellectually equal to anyone else of the Alpha-Plus caste, is slightly shorter than the rest of his caste, and as such feels out of place. Because of this difference, “feeling an outsider he behaved like one,” directly characterizing Marx as someone in direct conflict with the goal of the World State society (69). In the case of the type of characterization Huxley employs to expose Marx, the use of direct as opposed to indirect characterization supersedes the importance of the explicit word choice of the statement. Though the others of his caste and his general society have an awareness of the difference between Marx and others conditionately equal to him, Marx has the greatest awareness of this difference. Marx internalizes his difference from others, and even works to make it larger. He consciously separates himself from the rigorous hypnopædia propaganda he was exposed to as a child. He wants to get to know the women he sees, as opposed to having lots of one night stands. His interests directly conflict with the society, and when people see this, they look down on him, more so than they do simply because of his physical “defect,” as it were. Any form of individuality maintains itself as alien to this society.

Furthermore, this individuality greatly threatens the society as a whole, whether Marx knows it or not. The society as a whole cannot function properly if a member becomes different enough to challenge the norms, although, as the Director states, “the social body persists although the component cells may change” (95). Marx’s mentality and challenging of the norms and hypnopædia represents something far more dangerous than simply a component cell dying and being exchanged in the metaphorical body of the World State. Newness of thought, innovation of opinion and tradition have the potential to spread like a cancer through this society, destroying it from the inside. Truly, the most dangerous occurrence for this society lies in the possibility that hypnopædia could be overcome, and the past freedom of thought come back. Especially dangerous, because the only people physically capable of this kind of thought are in the upper castes, and as a result, the differences in thought would manifest in the most important parts of the proverbial body, the reproductive system, the brain, the vital organs. A cancer of the support system of the body, the lower castes that keep the infrastructure going, a bone or skin cancer that is slow growing and not quick to metastasize, that can be cut out, cut off, and the body can keep going. But, when a cell in the brain, in the heart, in the major systems of the body becomes cancerous and begins to spread and grow, to overtake the mother organ and then move to others, it takes down the whole body, cannot be removed because as surely as the cancer will kill the body, so would the surgery necessary to remove it. This cancer is fatal. Huxley points out that even when highly conditioned, individuality, social cancerousness exists; to a society completely reliant on uniformity and the stripping of individual identity, the danger this cancer poses is real, and could spread to Stage IV before the body even realizes it’s there. (859 words)

Mr. Ramsay as Seen Through His Children

I am a firm believer that, more often than not, children give the most honest and comprehensive description of people they know. Thus, I find that the best way to truly delve into the fabric of a character lies in dissecting how the children surrounding the character in question indirectly characterize him or her. However, I have found that in looking for his true character through his children and through Lilly, Mr. Ramsay becomes not clearer as a character, but more muddled and confused, such are the contradictory statements which his children give about him.

These contradictory opinions and views become especially clear in the end of the novel, when Mrs. Ramsay is no longer the focus of attention, and isn’t there to buffer the children’s opinions. In the boat on the way to the lighthouse, James thinks that he “kept dreading the moment when he [Mr. Ramsay] would look up and speak sharply to him about something or other” (Woolf 187). The dialectic use of the word “sharp” reinforces the stern nature of Mr. Ramsay; “sharp” in this context could mean that Mr. Ramsay either reproaches James intelligently, with a measure of intellect and high achievement mentally, or with a mean tone, in a way designed to make James feel badly for whatever infraction he made. However, an interesting point about James’s outlook on the possibility of Mr. Ramsay saying something on James’s conduct is that James doesn’t actually do anything to warrant a negative comment. Mr. Ramsay constantly seems to blame James for the slow going of the boat, but, in reality, the wind is to blame for that issue. It seems, that from James’s point of view, Mr. Ramsay is unreasonable and overly critical of situations often outside human control.

On a completely different side of the spectrum, we find Cam’s opinion of Mr. Ramsay. In fact, “she thought... he was not vain, nor a tyrant, and did not wish to make you pity him” (193). This idea directly contradicts most of the opinions of the rest of the novel concerning Mr. Ramsay, and indeed makes a bold statement. Cam, as one of Mr. Ramsay’s youngest children, has only known him as a parent; Mrs. Ramsay died when Cam was not yet seven, so she knew her mother very little. Cam’s statement suggests that Mr. Ramsay, contrary to the stern and military-esque persona James perceives, is rather intellectual and soft as a human. That Mr. Ramsay acts this way to two of his children – both within a year of age – indicates that he must have some secondary feelings towards each of them which would cause him to act differently to each of them.

One very plausible explanation for the distinct disconnect in characterization between James’s and Cam’s ideas of Mr. Ramsay could be explained in their actions towards him, and his reciprocations in action. When James was a young boy, Mr. Ramsay famously said no, they cannot go to the Lighthouse today. In keeping with the norm of the human mind, it became James to only remember the negative of Mr. Ramsay’s actions. Mr. Ramsay didn’t like it when Mrs. Ramsay spoke her mind, Mr. Ramsay didn’t like it when something was done in a fashion he didn’t agree with, and Mr. Ramsay dashed James’s hopes and wouldn’t take them to the Lighthouse. James has a predisposition to only remember the negatives, because so many of his experiences with his father have been rather negative. On the other hand, Cam only remembers good things of her childhood with Mr. Ramsay. She talks extensively about her experiences sitting in the reading room with Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Carmichael, while Mr Carmichael would read The Times and Mr. Ramsay would write in his journal, or read a book. She fondly remembers the sound of the paper turning its page, and when one would make a comment to the other and would start some sort of discussion. Her positive remembrances directly influence the positivity in which she sheds Mr. Ramsay.

In conclusion, it would be wise to say that Mr. Ramsay never actually has his character really fleshed out and discovered, because none of the accounts of his character are from people who can separate their personal interactions with Mr. Ramsay from the man himself. His character is extremely subjective, dependent upon how the other characters feel about certain moments in time, where he happened to factor in. His children’s opinions, then, are of the most importance, because in each child’s different opinion, we see not necessarily how Mr. Ramsay acts as a character, but who the child is as a character.

James is the sad and lonely boy who lost his loving mother, and was left with a bitter, mean man to care for him in her place. Cam is loving, girlish, probably the utmost stereotype of the man-pleasing woman. She remembers her father’s intelligence, how he used to make her feel at peace, and so even when she wants to see something bad, see Mr. Ramsay form James’s point of view, she can’t because the positivity of her own life makes the negativity in James’s viewpoint alien to her. The children’s judgments of Mr. Ramsay are of more use in telling who the child is than who the man behind the judgments is. 

Mrs. Ramsay - A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma, Squeezed Into a Book That's Just a Little Too... Tight.

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse holds a myriad of characters, the most interesting and enigmatic of whom would probably be Mrs. Ramsay. The mother of eight and wife to a rather dry intellectual, Mrs. Ramsay consistently contradicts herself. She finds ways to belittle herself next to her husband, and in the same chapter raise herself up as a beautiful, almost goddess-like woman. She both feels powerful and powerless, in an interesting mix of feelings which, if anything, makes her more difficult to understand, rather than shedding light on her personality.

When she reads to her child, James, Mrs. Ramsay contemplates her relationship with her husband, and concludes that “she did not like, even for a second, to feel finer than her husband” (Woolf 42). Interestingly, she even feels that she can’t trust the truth of her thoughts around her husband, as if having true thoughts would make her better than her husband, who prides himself on his intellectualism. That she doesn’t like to feel as if she’s better than her husband points to a classic ideal of the nineteenth century (and even into the twentieth and sometimes today) that the woman was less than the man in a relationship – property for the man to do with as he pleases. It would appear that Mrs. Ramsay conforms to this ideal, that she must always be lesser than her husband – the greater of the two parts of the marriage. However, this represents only one side of Mrs. Ramsay’s proverbial coin. When she isn’t in close proximity to her husband (in either body or mind), she has a very different view of herself. When Mr. Carmichael is over, she admits that, “She bore about with her, she could not help knowing it, the torch of her beauty,” and goes on to describe her own beauty in a very positive sense (44). This first person description, coming again directly from Mrs. Ramsay, depicts the startling foil within Mrs. Ramsay herself. On one side, she adamantly wishes to be lesser than her husband, on the other she clearly knows she’s a very fine, beautiful woman. That she feels two extremes of the spectrum indicates that she really doesn’t know how to feel about herself, and as allows others to define her self-image.

Once more, when Mrs. Ramsay plays with James and thinks about his later life, she thinks how he won’t ever be as happy later as he was when he was a child, but , she “stopped herself, remembering how it angered her husband that she should say that” (62). Even in thought, Mrs. Ramsay has a sense of apprehension towards doing something which might make her husband upset – in this moment, she’s fully incapable of having an independent thought. Society and a very, very long marriage have indoctrinated her to completely accept her husband’s values, even when they are completely different from her own. This Mrs. Ramsay has a completely different outlook from the one who flaunted and openly acknowledged the bright torch that is her beauty. And yet, when Mr. Ramsay leaves her mind, she asserts, “No happiness lasted; she knew that” (67). It would seem that her only encumbrance to being able to form her own thoughts and ideas is her cynical, dry, and even childish husband. As Mrs. Ramsay features prominently in the novel (one could even say her character is the most important), clearly her relationship with Mr. Ramsay is also pivotal. Mr. Ramsay drives her character to be so enigmatic, and quite paradoxical, even. Mrs. Ramsay’s twistedness of character provides an un-grounding point for the rest of the characters. Where everyone else has a set of characteristics that do not seem to change, Mrs. Ramsay finds herself in a constant state of flux depending upon whom she surrounds herself with. As the main character, how, then, can she become dynamic if she already changes her state of mind and being just because of the people she surrounds herself with??

I’d propose (and I’m going out on a limb here, because I’ve never read Woolf before), that she may find a state of steadiness – she can no longer change her mind every so often, but comes to a point where she must choose something and stay with it, thus making a reverse in the world of dynamic characters, and coming to rest in one place rather than finding many new ideas to change her perspective. But, that last bit we’ll have to leave to the novel and each one’s own imagination!

Misery in Marriage

Today in class, a certain question was raised about a certain someone being happy in her marriage to Mr. Collins. I intend to answer the question with the utmost clarity and decisiveness.

I’m going to make this perfectly clear: the word “happiness” does not apply in any way, shape, or form, at any point in time, to Charlotte after she marries Mr. Collins. In fact, a better word to describe the Collins’ marriage would fall more under the scope of absolute misery.

Let’s begin with the object of Charlotte’s eternal misery, Mr. Collins. From the very outset of the engagement (not the marriage, the engagement), Charlotte demonstrates that she clearly understands the horrific entity that is Mr. Collins. In a rather colorful demonstration of indirect characterization on Austen’s part, Charlotte describes Collins as “neither sensible nor agreeable, his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary” (Austen 83). As almost all negative commentary on Collins’s personality comes from indirect characterization, everyone but Collins knows that he’s basically the single person that no one wants to be around (with the exception of Lady Catherine). Charlotte’s certainly not a fan, and she knows that part of Collins’s interest in her is due to the fact that he wants to get back at Lizzy. Charlotte doesn’t even care. All she wants is to be secure in life, happiness was never part of the equation. She willingly sacrifices her happiness to be a part of Collins’s game with Lizzy.

With the event of her marriage, Charlotte’s potential happiness takes a downward turn, as Elizabeth observes during her visit to Rosings Park. When Collins talks about working in his garden, “Charlotte talked of the healthfulness of the exercise, and owned she encouraged it as much as possible” (104). So, basically, Charlotte does everything she can to kick Collins out of the house so she can have time to herself. She desperately needs an escape. Charlotte and Collins have been married less than six months at this point in the novel, and already Charlotte does everything she can to escape the union (barring actual divorce. This is the late 18^th century, divorce is still a no-no, and only possible under certain very explicit situations. See this link if you wish to learn more). Though she thought she was prepared for a loveless marriage, one that might potentially grow love in the future, Charlotte clearly underestimated the supreme awfulness of the situation at hand. Society never taught her how to handle something of this nature, so she runs away from it.

Moreover, she has to deal with Lady Catherine, arguably one of the most intolerable women of any fictional era, and, coincidentally, a historical allusion to Catherine the Great of Russia. Catherine the Great, though very powerful and well-known, was not often well-liked. In fact, she had a small circle of people who liked her very much, and a large conglomeration of people who didn’t like her at all. Lady Catherine de Bourgh intentionally mirrors her historical predecessor to the very last, to emphasize the utter misery in which Charlotte must spend the rest of her life. One night when playing cards after dinner, “Lady Catherine was generally speaking – stating the mistakes of the three others or relating some anecdote of herself” (111). This represents Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s general action and attitude. She’s self-important and haughty, and the only person who likes her is Collins (that’s her “small circle” which parallels that of Catherine the Great). Pretty much everyone else can’t stand her, but they’re nice to her because she has money. Charlotte has to deal with this woman at least once weekly, sometimes more if Lady Catherine is feeling condescending and ambivalent enough. That alone in and of itself would be enough to make any person with half a rational brain – which Charlotte most certainly has – miserable for all of eternity. Out of propriety, society requires Charlotte to interact with the woman and seem as if she likes Lady Catherine, but, in reality, the woman is completely intolerable.

In conclusion, security and happiness are very different concepts. While Charlotte has the money and stability she wanted, she doesn’t have anything to facilitate a feeling of happiness or felicity. Her husband, from the very beginning, isn’t described as an agreeable person. Charlotte has to actively work to get almost-happy time to herself, and is constantly confronted with a nasty woman who adamantly feels the need to criticize everything everyone else round her does and says. These are not the elements of a happy marriage, or even a happy life situation. Charlotte is secure, not happy. These are two completely different ideas, of which only one can apply to the new Mrs. Collins. 

Society - The Monster or the Master?

The late and great Jane Austen penned many an insightful, witty novel, perhaps none more insightful and witty than the classic Pride and Prejudice. While some might deign to say that it’s just another trashy romance, in reality it combines humour, high society, and relationships into a tightly-packed, socially relevant novel about the trials and tribulations of growing up as a woman during the transition from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries.

Perhaps one of the most important and relevant messages in Pride and Prejudice – even for today’s audience – lies in that a person (particularly a woman) must choose to be active in her life, and not allow the constraints of society and money to shape her expectations of life and herself. This especially comes through in the very evident juxtaposition between Charlotte and Elizabeth. Both of these women want to be secure in later life, but each takes a surprisingly different approach to gaining this security. In fact, both women have very different definitions of what security means.

Austen’s message most prominently comes to light in the two girls’ reactions to Mr. Collins. Charlotte very clearly states that, “Marriage had always been her object, it was the only honourable provision for well-educated women of small fortune” (Austen 83). At twenty seven years old, Charlotte literally does not care. She simply requires a reasonably well-matched marriage; the feelings, specific situation, and other details are of absolutely no consequence to her. Charlotte absolutely conforms to society. Elizabeth, on the other hand, refuses to allow society’s design to shape her life. Upon Collins proposing to her, Elizabeth exclaims, “You could not make me happy,” clearly articulating that, contrary to Charlotte’s idea of security, Elizabeth believes security to lie in happiness rather than monetary value and comfort (73). More than juxtaposing only Charlotte, Elizabeth juxtaposes all of English society. Austen essentially employs Elizabeth as one huge slap in the face for English society, stating that a woman should have (and does have) the power to choose a partner for love over money, in the same way that a man can. Austen uses this juxtaposition to articulate that although the everywoman (Charlotte) will consistently follow society, there is another way (Elizabeth).

Clearly, both of these women want the same result out of life – some form of security. However, the word “security” emanates different meanings for each. Charlotte rides with the generally accepted, socially farmed-out meaning: a comfortable income and husband who can provide said income = security. Elizabeth, the rebel child, takes a completely different road. For her, security begins with love, none of this “the love will grow from the relationship” crap that people who arrange marriages have been spouting since the beginning of time. The money, for Elizabeth, grows (hopefully) secondary to picking the right man to love. She refuses to be unhappy in a societally secure relationship over being happy in a possibly less wealthy situation.

Moreover, even each woman’s situation seems to grow into a juxtaposition of the other’s, after Charlotte’s marriage to Collins. When Elizabeth observes Charlotte’s air when Mr. Collins is not present in their home she notices that, “When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really a great air of comfort throughout” (105). Clearly, Charlotte does not find any happiness in her current situation. Had she felt any positive feelings at all for her marriage (above convenience and relief), Charlotte might endeavor to be slightly closer to her new husband, as a newlywed and all. However, she actually does her best to get him out of the house, forget about him, and go about her own work! Following society’s guidelines becomes one of the least emotionally rewarding decisions Charlotte makes, and she has no choice but to live in this discomfort for the rest of her life. Elizabeth, however, finds herself enjoying life after she rejects Collins. She finds herself often fraternizing with Mr. Wickham, and openly admits “Mr. Wickham’s society was of material service in dispelling the gloom,” which arose from the departure of Bingley and his family from Netherfield, in addition to recent events with Collins (93). Lizzy quickly moves on with her life, and her decision to flaunt authority and go against society has, thus far, worked very well for her. Austen demonstrates that sometimes, though it may seem wrong to go against society, defying society comes out with the best individual results.

And, to conclude, isn’t the individual result more important than the conglomerate result which society desires? The fact is, not all the women in a society can hope to marry up and have comfortable livings in nice parishes where stuck up rich women tell those young ladies how to properly arrange their living room furniture. There simply aren’t enough good, rich men for that. So, instead, Austen proposes that a better way to gain happiness and security in life is to do something that makes you happy, rather than trying something which society dictates you should try, in the minute hope that maybe everything turns out okay. 

Milton's Evolution

Well, I know this post is technically 2 days late, but, as they say, better late than never!!

Today, I thought I’d talk about the radically different tones between Paradise Lost and Milton’s poem “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent.” Quite frankly, I’m surprised at how different the two are. As I discussed in one of my earlier posts, Milton basically holds nothing back in his massive preaching of God in Paradise Lost, but in this poem, Milton takes a much different tone. Rather than the high and mighty path we see in the epic, this short poem is much more solemn, and Milton uses it to reflect upon his purpose in life, and discover whether he was meant to work harder that he did, or if he was meant to do something less.

The very first clue that Milton is using this poem to reflect on his life comes in the very first line, when he says, “When I consider how my light is spent,” indicating clear and knowing contemplation of life and his part in it (Milton, 1). More importantly than showing a fleeting, momentary event of contemplation, Milton here demonstrates that he often thinks about his place in the world, in the use of the word “when.” Milton appears to genuinely care what his purpose in life is, and he wants to go on a journey to find out. As a good, Christian man, this actually follows quite well along the Cristian faith, falling in with the idea of using life to learn what God’s purpose for you is. Through this poem, Milton demonstrates his good Christian character. However, the tone put forth in this poem is very different from the tone in Paradise Lost, even from the very beginning. In the beginning of Book 1, Milton states that he will “justify the ways of God to men,” essentially setting himself up as a priest, someone with utmost authority (1.26). Milton also says this in a way to assert that he knows his purpose – to tell man why God does what He does. Historically, this makes sense, because “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” dates at around 1655, while Paradise Lost was published in 1667. It can then be assumed that, sometime between 1655 and 1667, Milton discovered his purpose, and began to fulfill it through writing and publishing Paradise Lost.

One could even say that Milton began his spiritual journey through the poem “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent.” Milton asks whether he should be expected to do hard labour for God, without his sight or a physical light to guide him, and he receives this response: “Who best bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best” (Milton, 10-11). Evidently, Milton begins to see that, though he cannot do hard labour, or work in the way that he used to, when he could see, he can still serve God in his own way. Milton begins to find himself again, and regains the purpose that he lost when his sight failed. Now, Milton can be a part of humankind again, not hindered by his blindness. Milton can belong. Belonging is, often, the most important part of life. A person can have all the food, shelter, and warmth in the world, but a life without belonging, purpose, and human contact can literally cause a person to die. Studies have shown that people – especially children and infants – actually require a sense of purpose and belonging to live, otherwise the person in question (especially babies) can actually give up on life and simply die. The poem “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” is Milton’s attempt at continuing his search for a sense of belonging and purpose. As a continuation, Paradise Lost would be the ultimate culmination of Milton’s journey.

So, in a sense, Paradise Lost is not Milton’s journey to self-knowledge, but rather a demonstration of what he now knows because of his journey. The tone of the poem “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” is unknowing, unsure, and searching. Milton doesn’t yet know what he is supposed to do to serve God, and he wants to find out, and begins to. Conversely, Paradise Lost oozes sureness, confidence, and trust. Milton knows exactly who he is and what he wants, and he doesn’t fear what people might say about his high and mighty personality. The God Complex, so evident in even just Book 1, isn’t an accident or fluke of how Milton was writing, but actually is purposeful and meaningful. Milton meant for his epic poem to come off in the way it does, because Milton truly believes that he has learned his one true purpose, and that purpose is to define God and His ways for the likes of man. 

Milton and the God Complex

Milton’s Paradise Lost includes many aspects of the epic poem, and while there are those who would argue otherwise, I propose that the most evident aspect of his epic that seems to follow in the steps of others which I’ve read (especially Dante’s Inferno) is the overwhelming God Complex the author demonstrates in his message. As does Inferno, Paradise Lost has a highly predominant and religious message, in which the text (Book 1, especially) attempts to persuade that power trumps righteousness.

Let’s begin with Book 1, where Milton clearly sets up his entire thematic message, and (rather inadvertently) demonstrates that he has a huge God complex that he’s incapable of writing around or omitting from anything he puts on paper. In fact, within the first thirty lines of the epic, Milton states, “… to the heighth of this great argument/ I may assert Eternal Providence/ and justify the ways of God to men” (1.24-26). Essentially, in this very brief section of Milton’s opening aside, he declares his all-knowingness of God’s work. Additionally, the fact that he did this in an aside makes this even more potent. Milton sets the stage for the entire epic in this one sentence. He writes not about Adam and Eve, not about Satan, not about good and evil, or even the bible. All of these concepts are present, yes, but in reality, Milton writes this epic for the sake of showing off his knowledge of God, and to persuade everyone who reads Paradise Lost that Milton’s opinions and positions on God, creation, paradise, and anything and everything else biblical are to be taken as of the highest regard. And, Milton declares this directly to his audience, without the mask of dialogue, distraction of setting, or confusion of characters. Milton clearly thinks himself greater than man. While Milton may be righteous in his actions, his intent is to demonstrate his – as opposed to His – power.

Milton’s persuasion that power overrides morality goes even further when, through Satan, Milton states, “To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: / Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven!” (1.263-64). Satan, and through him Milton, admits that though Hell is indeed a terrible place, the power allowed for the fallen angels in Hell poses a better option than any form of servitude in Heaven. Now, for most Christian people, this statement would make absolutely zero sense. In the Christian faith, one’s purpose in life is to serve God and be saved after death, resulting in an eternity serving God in Heaven. Milton completely discounts one of the founding ideals of the Christian faith, instead substituting that servitude, no matter how righteous, is lesser compared to any form of power. The idea of serving in heaven, regardless of the glory and grandeur and other generally positive perks, is so repulsive to Satan, that Milton would go so far as to raise Hell above Heaven in an effort to push home that power is the ultimate goal, even when power involves denouncing God and righteousness, and turning to sin.

Interestingly enough, the concept of power overriding a person’s sense of morality and righteousness aligns well with the Italian philosopher Machiavelli’s ideas on power and the corruptness of so-called “Divine Right.” Niccolo Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, during 1469, and today people consider him to be the father of modern political theory. In essence, his book The Prince, written in 1532, outlined the flaws in the justification of the monarchy’s actions. He said that monarchs (and leaders in general) can and will resort to any means for the establishment and preservation of their authority, using the end to justify the means. He also stated that most often, a ruler often justifies his worst acts by citing wickedness and treachery of his subjects. In essence, Machiavelli stated that “Divine Right” was often used as a means to gain power, a ruler could say that God put him in place to fix the corruptness of the people, then that selfsame ruler would be corrupt in himself. The only real goal is power. The same idea comes into play with Satan, Milton, and the relationship that each of them has with God (because Satan’s relationship with heaven runs parallel to, but is different from, Milton’s own relationship to God and Heaven). Satan purposefully steps away from the designated path of righteousness to gain a measure of power which he wanted but couldn’t have as a slave of Heaven; Milton professes his power through Satan, claiming that he (Milton) really is an all-knowing authority on God. In a way, Satan is the personification of Milton: both step away from Heaven to demonstrate their power, with a disregard for the fact that this action takes them away from the coveted righteousness and into a place of power and greed for more, acting not unlike Machiavelli’s concepts of the ruler with a false concept of “Divine Right.”

So, the question to ask is, does Milton really believe he is the foremost authority on God, even equal to one in knowledge, and close in power, or is he portraying himself and Satan in a light that would cause others to exercise caution in the realm of self-promotion and power-grabbing? Does he do this to call a change in human nature, or is he simply an arrogant person with a God complex, writing an epic in the same way that countless other men suffering from the infamous God complex have? Your choice. Choose wisely.

Kreis, Steven. "Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527." The History Guide. N.p., 13 Apr. 2012. Web. 27 Sept. 2013. <http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/machiavelli.html>.