Paradise Lost

While reading Paradise Lost, I was interested in Eve's thought process after she ate the apple before returning to Adam on pages 1990 and 1991. She debates in sharing what she thinks is full happiness with him (line 819) or to keep the knowledge to herself. While reading the next line when she said to add what lacks in female sex, the more to draw his love (lines 821, 822). The wording used insinuates that women are below men in terms of knowledge and that by her eating the apple allowed women to be intellectually equal with men; something I had never considered prior to this poem. On another note, I was rather irked when Lanyer asked why poor women are blamed (line 77, pg. 1315), when all I could think of is because she ate the apple. But when talking about placing the blame, Eve doesn't take the blame in Paradise Lost (pg. 1997) but instead she blames the serpent and she blames Adam. I can understand why Eve would blame the serpent, in line 1152 Eve asked why he should mean ill or seek harm, she is innocent or naive, but either way blaming the serpent is expected. But to blame Adam, really?!? In line 1155 she said that you're the head and you should have commanded me not to go and none of this would have happened. At an earlier time in my collegiate study, I argued that Adam ate the apple after Eve in that he knew it was wrong but he did it because his wife told him to; never had I ever read that Adam bit the apple in fear of being separated from Eve, which I found a particularly interesting perspective to read.