Satan’s Fractured Identity
Instructions: you’ll write a 1-page, single-spaced thesis on Milton, PL, book 4. The assignment should follow standard organization, with a heading on the top left corner, paragraphs, topic sentences, transitions, and quotations from the text. you need to make an original argument and reinforce that argument with close readings from the text. your assignment needs to have the essentials of a thesis-driven argument, solid organization, concise and lucid writing, and zero plot summary. Make sure the thesis statement is in the first paragraph in the beginning.
Satan’s Fractured Identity
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What original argument can be made about Paradise Lost Book 4?,
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How does Milton use literary devices to support this argument?,
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What evidence from Satan’s dialogue supports your thesis? ,
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How does the organization of the essay reinforce the thesis?,
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How can the analysis avoid plot summary while offering deep interpretation?
Satan’s Fractured Identity
Comprehensive General Response (1-Page Thesis Essay, Single-Spaced, MLA Style):
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Course: English British Renaissance Literature
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Satan’s Fractured Identity in Book 4 of Paradise Lost
In Book 4 of Paradise Lost, John Milton crafts Satan not simply as a symbol of evil, but as a fractured being, torn between self-awareness and defiance. Milton uses Satan’s internal soliloquies, disrupted logic, and conflicted language to portray the fallen angel’s identity as fundamentally divided—marked by a simultaneous yearning for lost grace and an entrenched refusal to repent. This duality reveals that Satan’s rebellion is not rooted in strength, but in deep psychological fragmentation, making him a tragic figure rather than a purely villainous one.
Satan’s monologue upon entering Eden sets the tone for this internal rupture. Though he arrives with intent to corrupt, he is momentarily overcome by Eden’s peace, which awakens in him an unbearable contrast to his own torment. He laments, “Me miserable! which way shall I fly / Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?” (4.73–74). This outcry suggests that Satan is not comfortably defiant but trapped between awareness of God’s justice and his inability to submit. His use of rhetorical questions and abrupt emotional shifts reveals a self torn by contradiction.
Milton further deepens this sense of division through Satan’s acknowledgment of his own role in his fall: “Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell” (4.75). This admission is profound—Satan is no longer merely in Hell; he carries it within. His identity is inseparable from his punishment, showing that the true consequence of his rebellion is internalized damnation. Milton does not present evil as powerful autonomy, but as self-inflicted exile.
Even Satan’s attempt to justify his continued rebellion lacks conviction: “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven” (1.263), echoed subtly in Book 4 as a mantra to reinforce his pride. Yet the very need to restate such declarations suggests insecurity. Milton shows that Satan’s bravado masks a deeper vulnerability, one that betrays a being caught between the memory of who he was and the horror of who he has become.
In crafting Satan’s inner conflict, Milton complicates the morality of rebellion. Book 4 does not present a clear opposition between good and evil, but rather a portrait of a mind unraveling under the weight of its
Satan’s Fractured Identity