Blog #10: Close Reading

 Eve exhibits a heightened awareness of love in her prelapsarian state that parallels her to the Son of God. Thus, Milton’s depiction of Eve can actually serve to empower women instead of demean them. In Book 3, Milton refers to the Son of God, “in whom the fullness dwells of love divine”, as someone who serves man positively. In this passage, Eve exhibits an inherent “sympathy and love” for her own reflection, which is also really a reflection of mankind. The comparison of Eve to Narcissus can be read as a testament to vanity and a self-enamored personality, but a higher voice allows her access to someone besides herself. Her acceptance of this knowledge separates her from the vapid Narcissus. 

The rhetorical question Eve subsequently asks (“What could I do/ But follow straight, invisibly thus led?”) may not reflect a lack of control or internal weakness, but rather an intrinsic desire to act selflessly. Though Eve recognizes Adam’s image as “less fair,/Less winning soft, less amiably mild,” she returns to him after he tells her what he has given to her—an act that could be interpreted as compassionate. In fact, Eve’s recognition of Adam’s image as less fair than hers serves as a representation of superiority. Why would God facilitate such recognition in Eve during her creation?  The fact that Eve was created in order to help Adam could actually make him subjective to her instead of vice versa. Perhaps Milton must paint Eve in an ambiguous way that allows for readings that find both superiority and inferiority in her character in order to heighten the same ambiguities in her creator.