Milton has a very unflattering portrayal of women in his description of Adam and Eves fall in Paradise Lost. Eve in the story seems little more than a ditz. She is easily won over by the flattery of the snake and by taking the apple to Adam the story makes it look like she realizes what the apple has done to her and wants to take Adam down with her. There are almost no redeeming qualities to the Eve portrayed by Milton.
I would like to propose that Milton is not portraying Eve in the Biblical sense as much as he is superimposing the problems he had with his wives on Eve. In some ways I believe he is even taking out his own resentment towards women in this story. We learned from class that the first women he married left him within a few weeks of the marriage. This shows a deeply indecisive women who is unwilling to commit and is very likely unable to communicate with the brilliant Milton. This experience likely solidified Milton’s view of women as ignorant and fickle. Milton also tries to portray women as something that will bring you down if you care for them to much. We see this evidently when Eve brings the apple to Adam and he decides to follow her because he doesn’t want to be without her. Obviously Milton does not have a very good opinion of women.
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