The second part will analyse other features of duality in Satan, namely, appearance and reality and the interior split within him. It will then move to an application of Aristotle’s Poetics, to justify the term “tragic” given to him in the introduction. The first part will analyse Satan’s duality in terms of heroism classical versus epic heroism, and whether he is more of a hero than a fool. It will analyse Satan’s duality in three parts. The second chapter is the core of the dissertation. The first part of this chapter will focus on the Apollonian-Dionysian duality as proposed by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, the second part will debate whether or not Satan and God’s parts in the heavenly war could be justified using the Just War Theory, and the final part will analyse doubling in Freudian terms, referring to The Uncanny and The Ego and the Id. The first chapter will analyse theories of doubling from different disciplines: philosophy, ethics, and psychology, and will apply the theories to the poem using illustrations from different parts of Milton’s epic. The Introduction will first establish the standpoint of the dissertation, which views Satan as the tragic hero-villain of the epic, and it will then move to an analysis of an inherent duality evident in parts of the epic that involve features other than Satan’s character. This dissertation seeks to analyse the dual nature of Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Many readers have argued that Milton deliberately makes Satan seem heroic and appealing early in the poem to draw the readers into sympathizing with him against their will, so that one might see how seductive evil is and learn to be more vigilant in resisting its appeal. Satan, moreover, strikes a grand and majestic figure, apparently unafraid of being damned eternally, and uncowed by such terrifying figures as Chaos or Death. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for Milton to make perfect, infallible characters such as God the Father, God the Son, and the angels as interesting to read about as the flawed characters, such as Satan, Adam, and Eve. Miltons Satan is presented as a novelistic character par excellence, preceding memorable literary characters of novelistic provenance like Dostoyevskys. One source of Satan’s fascination is that he is an extremely complex and subtle character. Yet there are many compelling qualities to his character that make him intriguing to readers.
Nor does it make sense to celebrate or emulate him, as one might with a true hero. Satan is far from being the story’s object of admiration, as most heroes are. This goal, however, is evil, and Adam and Eve are the moral heroes at the end of the story, as they help to begin humankind’s slow process of redemption and salvation. Some consider Satan to be the hero, or protagonist, of the story, because he struggles to overcome his own doubts and weaknesses and accomplishes his goal of corrupting humankind. To justify the ways of God to Man” was Milton’s grand purpose. Paradise Lost is the only epic of magnifiscence in English Literature.
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