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Sama Alaa El Feky-
Monday, May 23, 2016
Professor Justin Kolb
Seventeenth Century Literature
Paper 3
Milton’s Paradise Lost & Lanyer’s Eve’s Apology: Who makes the better Eve argument?
Being the first to fall for the biggest sin and the sole representation of women, God’s Eve
has been distinctively portrayed countless times. Both John Milton and Aemilia Lanyer convey
two stimulating views of Eve. Milton in Paradise Lost captures Eve as a rebel who risks an
entire mankind to evil, while Lanyer in Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women completely defends
Eve’s innocence, insisting she is collateral damage out of Adam’s actions. They use Adam and
Eve as symbols of their sex to shape women’s nature and role. Although the poets’ arguments
are clearly different from each other, their perceptions of Eve as a woman are awfully similar.
Compared to Milton’s, Lanyer’s poem falls flat as she seems to support his belief, which is that
women are too weak and incapable. In her attempt to defend women, Lanyer misses the fact that
she is not only attacking men but also women, only strengthening Milton’s argument.
One one hand, John Milton argues against women ever being equal to men through Eve
in Paradise lost. God himself made men have a higher status than women, so they simply can
never be equal. Milton completely blames Eve for the fall, as naturally when she persistently
tries to escape the gender boundaries and seek equality or superiority over Adam, the result is
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disastrous. Perceiving her as superficial and selfish, Milton does not add any decent traits to
Eve’s character as he does with Adam. He seems to even consider her as one of the main villains
in the story. Eve develops into a presumptuous woman who schemes and manipulates, making
her an easy target for Satan. The poet seems to believe that the fall was not inevitable, as Eve
could have matured into a woman who humbly obeys and submits, preventing her from ever
committing a sin. Milton twists the story where readers could sympathies with both sides.
However, by constantly placing Eve lower than Adam, the poet clearly wants readers in the end
to understand that Adam is superior to Eve.
From the very beginning, Eve appears to be already distant from God because she
awakens in the shade and not God’s light like Adam. While Eve is shown with no sense of
reason or knowledge, Adam gets the chance to mature, develop, and discover God. Eve connects
and learns about God through only Adam. Therefore, Milton’s decision to portray Eve as
spiritually distant makes her inferior. Her existence in the first place is solely for Adam’s benefit
as at the beginning he feels lonely without companionship. God gives him a partner that literally
completes him, in which he would seek in her what he lacks. Eve’s envy over Adam having an
upper place at everything soon consumes her. “Not equal, as thir sex not equal seem’d,” (4.296)
While she is aware of her lack of knowledge, Eve seems to consider herself wiser than both
Adam and God. Milton indicates that Eve’s effort to even own knowledge and power is a direct
sin against God’s role for her.
Upon discovering herself, Eve finds a lake, which she has mistaken for a sky at first, and
absorbs her reflection through the water. She is initially startled by her mesmerizing appearance
but then soon becomes extremely pleased by it. Eve gets obsessed with looking at herself, even
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though God makes it clear that her beauty is only for Adam’s eyes, not hers. Milton captures her
attempt to be the owner of her physical beauty over Adam as a vital flaw. Eve refuses to embrace
a “veil” because she wants all beings to be charmed with her beauty. The poet chooses beauty to
be Eve’s strongest asset to her character instead of intelligence, morality, or even strength like
Adam. Milton describes Adam’s assets as superior over Eve’s. Eve knows that and even admits
it “How beauty is excelled by manly grace/And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.” (4.490)
Milton perceives Eve’s appearance as also her greatest weakness because she was easily flattered
by Satan’s compliments. Satan succeeds in swaying Eve to sin by complimenting her beauty and
claiming she is equal to Adam. Filled with narcissistic pleasure after eating the forbidden apple,
Eve gleefully feels free and independent without Adam.
Moreover, Milton shows Eve’s true colours when she convinces Adam to eat the
forbidden fruit as well so she doesn’t have to face the consequences alone. She also drags Adam
with her out of jealousy of him finding another lover. “But what if God have seen,/And death
ensue? Then I shall be no more,/And Adam wedded to another Eve…” (9. 826) Eve, however,
lies to Adam, telling him she wants him to eat the apple so they can be one united love. Milton’s
inconsistency for Eve’s character captures her as a manipulative liar, which only creates an
untrustworthy image of Eve and all women. “overcome with Female charm” (9.999) Adam’s
greatest weakness is his intense love for Eve herself and not moral flaws like her. Milton insists
that Eve maliciously uses her sexuality to empower herself over Adam. Once the spell fades,
Adam and Eve just blame each other back and forth instead of feeling regretful for crossing God.
Out of his good nature, Adam declines Eve’s sinful offer of challenging God and taking their
own lives to avoid humiliation and submission. Even though Eve externally seems to resemble
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the perfect woman with her golden hair and slender waist, Milton’s perception of her appears to
be quite the opposite. Eve possesses an incredibly ugly picture in the poem. She is not only
spiritually distant from God but she is also the main one that has seen and spoken with Satan.
On the other hand, Aemilia Lanyer strongly insists that Eve’s mistake should not count
for an entire sex in Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women. Her approach to defend her gender
though is simply ineffective, as the piece indeed harms women more than it serves them. The
Pilate's wife tries to convince her husband through the story of Adam and Eve not only to refrain
from convicting an innocent man, Jesus, but also to treat her as an equal. “Let no us woman
glory in men’s fall,” (15) Lanyer repeatedly hands power to men over women. Rather than give
reasonable explanations of Eve’s fall to temptation, which eventually led to the dreadful fall,
Lanyer makes multiple excuses using Eve’s mental vulnerability as a defence. Although this
devious effort succeeds in clearing women of blame, it is only by pointing out their ignorance
and weakness. This should simply not be considered a victory for Eve’s ancestors.
The poet claims that God creates Eve “simply good” with no knowledge in any way.
Therefore, she is easily misled by the snake because of her quest for knowledge and not out of
vengeance. Lanyer stresses that Eve is so weak that she has no will whatsoever against Satan.
“weakness did the serpent’s words obey” (71) Admitting that Eve has done wrong, Lanyer
believes her intentions are pure, as she commits sin out of selfless love. Lanyer is convinced that
Adam’s mistake is greater than Eve’s because God directly commands him not to touch the
tempting apple. Lanyer victimizes Eve in a way that she supposedly has been deceived by not
only Satan but also Adam because he is the one that received the order from God yet done
nothing while they both dazedly sinned. She negatively insists that Adam is the core of the
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problem, as Eve is made of him. “king of all earth,” (39) Lanyer believes that while Eve rebelled
out of curiosity, Adam ate the forbidden apple solely for pleasure, officially disobeying God out
of selfishness.
The Pilate's wife warns her husband that executing the saviour, Jesus, would be a bigger
mistake than Eve’s betrayal. Refusing to spare the opposite-sex any excuses, Lanyer points out
that men should be punished for committing much greater sins than women. She believes men,
including Adam, should have known better, especially because God has graced them with
superior knowledge and power. Although this is taken as an attack on men, it is still a slap in the
face to women. Lanyer wonders why men could be so cruel and judgemental when women are
the ones who tolerate painful months to conceive them into the world in the first place. For her,
men should take responsibility for everything they do, including denying power to women. They
instead control all the power and then hold women accountable for their mistakes anyway. After
taking a poor strategy by attacking men and perceiving women as virtuous and sinless warriors,
Lanyer finally asks for quality and balance. “Then let us have our liberty again,” (81)
Even when the Pilate’s wife has the prophetic dream that warns her of Jesus’s murder,
women are still devalued by Lanyer. “Witness, thy wife, O Pilate, speaks for all, Who did but
dream” (90-91) The “but” in this line is the same as “only”, meaning the dream should not even
be taken seriously all together. If a man had such a dream, however, it would have been
considered a bigger deal. Lanyer’s intent to help women only backfires, as she clearly fails at
defending her gender. She succeeds in proving what most men, including Milton, think of
women which is that they are too weak and irrational to truly atone for their sins. Pleading for
equality is simply unrealistic at this point, as Lanyer herself points out multiple times how men
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are naturally made superior over women by God. “This sin of yours surmounts them all as far/As
doth the sun another little star.” (79) Lanyer compares men to the sun while women to stars. The
sun is not only bigger than the stars but it’s also the centre of the galaxy, meaning women are
inferior to men.
Finally, both John Milton and Aemilia Lanyer use Eve in their own way to capture
completely different yet compelling stories. Both poets seem to agree that men are physically
and mentally stronger than women. However, Milton in Paradise Lost just has a stronger
argument than Lanyer's in Eve’s Apology in Defense of Woman. His image of a rebellious Eve
who endangers the humankind after she tries to break out of her destined role is more realistic
than Lanyer’s constant excuses for Eve and aggressive attack against all men. The two poets’
distinctive perspectives show how the function of sex roles contribute in the stability of any
society. Both poems managed to show readers glimpses of how life was like during their century.
That right there is the beauty of Renaissance literature. Perceptions of women have clearly
changed since the period of Milton and Lanyer. The poems though remind readers how women
have greatly developed through the centuries.