Gender Roles And Hierarchy Flashcards
Introduction
-in Paradise Lost Book 9, John Milton presents a highly intricate portrayal of Eve that both reinforces and interrogates the traditional hierarchies of gender rooted in his Augustinian-Puritan theology.
-within Eden, the cosmic chain of being assigns woman to man just as man is subject to God: ”He for God only, she for God in him” (book 4). Yet in the critical events if book 9- Eve’s separation from Adam, her seduction by Satan and the subsequent Fall- Milton explores how these divine structures are tested, stretched and ultimately broken.
-far from being a passive and naive subordinate, Eve is depicted as intellectually capable, rhetorically adept and morally autonomous. Her choices, her language and her internal dilemmas all contribute to a complex representation of femininity, where sin is not the product of feminine weakness but of misapplied reason and misdirected autonomy.
-Milton does not present hierarchy as inherently oppressive, but he shows how its misapprehension-by either gender- can unravel the harmony it was meant to preserve. Eve’s fall is both an individual and a relational catastrophe: the result of rational disobedience, rhetorical seduction and the disintegration of mutual vigilance within the hierarchal bonds. Through Eve, Milton dramatises not only the fragility of divine order, but the moral tension between submission, love and freedom.
-the aftermath of her fall especially her repentance, shows that restoration of hierarchy depends not on imposed authority but on voluntary humility and mutual reconciliation.
1: gendered hierarchy and Eve’s desire for autonomy
Quotes and analysis
-Milton establishes a divinely sanctioned hierarchy in Eden in which Adam is reason and authority and Eve is beauty and obedience and supportive love. Yet in Book 9, this ideal begins to unravel as Eve challenges the gendered structure of Paradise- not through explicit rebellion, but through subtle, reasoned independence. Her proposal ”let us divide our labours; thou where choice/ leads thee, or where most needs”
This appears practical and even respectful. However her justification, ”grows luxurious by restraint”- casts obedience as indulgent and hierarchy as an unnecessary limitation. She reframes divine order not as harmonious design but as an obstacle to productivity and growth, echoing Satan’s earlier logic that servitude is slavery (“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” book 1). The irony is that Eve reimagines God’s protection as imprisonment, not through malice, but through sincere autonomous reasoning.
-Adam’s hesitant concession **”Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more”- reaffirms free will, but also reflects his inability to assert the hierarchal authority Milton earlier attributes to him. This act, though well-intentioned, symbolically dissolves Eden’s spiritual chain of command.
-at this moment of spatial and ideological separation, Satan watches eagerly ”wished his hap might find/ Eve separate”, exposing her vulnerability not as a female, but as ungoverned will. Milton here dramatises the failures not of femininity, but of the relational hierarchy between genders, when reason and obedience no longer exist
1: gendered hierarchy and Eve’s desire for autonomy
CRITICS
CRITIC: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar argue that Milton casts Eve as the “patriarchal ideal” whose fall stems not from weakness, but from an “intellectual rebellion” against subordination.
Yet Milton complicates this reading- Eve is not framed as villainous or vain, but as morally and spiritually complex. Her error lies in misapplying freedom, not in possessing it.
2: Rhetoric, reason and the collapse of hierarchy in Eve’s Fall
Quotes and analysis
-as Satan begins his seduction, milton shows Eve not as a passive victim but as a participant in her own rhetorical downfall. Satan, disguised as the serpent, approaches with flattery. ”And gaze and worship thee of right declared/ Sovereign of creatures universal dame”.
This direct inversion of Edenic hierarchy- where man is to rule woman- entices Eve to imagine herself as the apex of creation. She listens because she is already predisposed to elevate herself, having initiated her independence earlier. Milton frames this moment as an internal echo of Satan’s ambition, where Eve, like Lucifer, begins to desire a new identity beyond her created place.
-Satan’s seduction is constructed with deliberate sensuality: **”curled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve, to lure her eye”. Eroticising the serpent’s movements to appeal to her aesthetic sensibility, which Milton has previously shown in her care for Edenic beauty. He weaponises her attentiveness to nature and order against her.
-his words are delivered with ”with serpent tongue/ organic, or impulse of vocal air” suggesting his voice is unnatural- a distortion of God’s truth, mirroring his spiritual nature.
-Eve, however, responds with internal deliberation that mirrors Satan’s logic ”Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine/ Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste/ of virtue to make wise”. The alliteration of “fruit” “fair” “taste” draws on Genesis 3:6, but repackages temptation as wisdom, not defiance. Eve is no longer listening- she is now seducing herself. Her words. Like Satan’s, distort truth, dressing pride as enlightenment.
-her rationalisation climaxes with ”in such abundance lies our choice” asserting that abundance necessitates autonomy. Yet Milton critiques this logic: Eve’s self-elevation is not true agency but the imitation of rebellion.
2: Rhetoric, reason and the collapse of hierarchy in Eve’s Fall
CRITICS
CRITIC: Stanley Fish claims that “Milton means for us to be seduced by Satan”- Eve’s rhetorical fall is designed to implicate the reader, who, like her, might admire Satan’s reasoning before recognising its flaws
But Milton embeds markers of deceit throughout- “fraudulent”, “delusive”, “meditated guile”- so that the reader, if attentive, must resist rhetorical seduction. Eve’s fall is thus a test of interpretative virtue as much as spiritual obedience.
3: PostLapsarian Gender, repentance and Milton’s complex woman
Quotes and analysis
-after the fall, Milton depicts a reordering of gender relations not based on mutual love but on blame, guilt and wounded pride. Adam reacts not with understanding but with fury- ”out of my sight, thou serpent”. Here Milton dramatises how sin corrupts edenic love into misogynistic accusation. Adam equates Eve with Satan, refusing to acknowledge his own autonomous decision to ”freely taste”
-his earlier declaration- ”how can i live without thee” is replaced by bitter rejection, revealing how love becomes poisoned by blame. This breakdown echoes Eve’s earlier language of division- ”to more equal love”= but now it is framed as relational collapse rather than empowerment
-Eve however undergoes a profound moral transformation. She is the first to repent with clarity ”both have sinned but thou/ against God only, i against god and thee”. This admission of double guilt reflects her spiritual growth- a movement from self-justification to sincere humility.
-her desire to submit ”to thy will/ submissive in all creatures” marks a return to hierarchy, but not in blind obedience. Milton frames this as voluntary repentance, not re-subjugation. Eve now chooses submission with understanding, completing a moral arc from innocence, through ambition, to humility. Her fall becomes the means of her development
-this moral clarity is prefigured in eve’s speech in Book 9, where she first confronts the weight of her actions. Her self-reproach emerges as she contemplates whether to keep the fruit from Adam. ”Shall i to him make known/ As yet my change, and give him to partake/ Full happiness with me?”. The fact here she is considering to withhold knowledge reveals nothing the depth of her fall and the stirrings of guilt. But her final choice to share the fruit comes not from malice but from a distorted sense of love. ”with thee/ certain my resolution is to die”
-this echoes Adam’s earlier sentiments ”to lose thee were to lose myself” reinforcing that their bond, though corrupted, remains a site of human erosion and pathos.
-these lines show how they contrast Eve’s earlier rationalisations with ”Virtue to make wise”- with now her speech reflecting emotional insight and spiritual clarity. She no longer speaks in the language of hierarchy or superiority, but of shared suffering and reconciliation.
3: PostLapsarian Gender, repentance and Milton’s complex woman
CRITICS
CRITIC: Diane McColley argues that Eve becomes a model of “regenerate reason”, showing moral strength after sin. She is not ruined, but redeemed through choice.
While Milton affirms Eve’s repentance, the narrative still reinstates ,male headship, suggesting her virtue is only recognised when it aligns with restored submission. The hierarchy is not undone- its is re-legitimised through penitence.
Conclusion
-Book 9 of Paradise Lost offers a profound exploration of gender, hierarchy and moral agency. Eve is not a mere allegory of female weakness, but a rich character who reasons, desires and errs. Her fall reveals the danger of reason being severed from obedience, and her repentance shows the possibility of grace after knowledge.
-milton neither wholly condemns nor exonerates her- he uses Eve to dramatise the human condition, where hierarchy may guide, but never guarantee, virtue.
-her fall is not the failure of womanhood, but of mutual vigilance and misused freedom.
-through Eve, Milton exposes both the tensions of patriarchy and the possibilities of redemption within it making her on of the most intellectually and theologically significant characters in the epic.
