The Fidelity of the Fruit: a Psychology of Adam's Fall in Milton's
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Undergraduate Review Volume 5 Article 30 2009 The idelitF y of the Fruit: A Psychology of Adam’s Fall in Milton’s Paradise Lost Bradford Vezina Follow this and additional works at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Vezina, Bradford (2009). The ideF lity of the Fruit: A Psychology of Adam’s Fall in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Undergraduate Review, 5, 150-154. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev/vol5/iss1/30 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Copyright © 2009 Bradford Vezina The Fidelity of the Fruit: A Psychology of Adam’s Fall in Milton’s Paradise Lost. BRADFORD VEZINA From his slack hand the Garland wreath’d for Eve Down dropp’d, and all the faded Roses shed: Speechless he stood and pale. (9.892-94) Brad is a first year law student at Suffolk University Law School. He he passage above provides an apt image, with all its symbolic overtones, wrote this piece in Professor Chaplin’s of Adam’s reaction to Eve’s mortal transgression—that is, her eating Milton course in the spring of 2008. from the Forbidden Tree. The circular nature of the garland signifies perfection and permanence; the roses convey the delicacy, vitality, and Tbloom of life. The garland not only represents the perfection of a paradisal world, but the union between Adam and Eve. But Eve’s careless and wanton act shatters such a union. This leaves Adam with a choice: to eat the fruit thereby upholding his bond with and love for Eve (an act in defiance of God), or to walk away and shoulder the pangs of a broken heart and the prospect of a solitary future. He chooses the former. Many critics have argued—and will no doubt continue to argue—that slavish and blind passion prompted Adam to eat from the Tree. But this is not the case. Adam acts out of love. He sacrifices himself out of love, a sacrifice that parallels that of the Son (i.e. Jesus) in Book III of the epic. The charge against Adam is almost unanimous: he acts out of uxoriousness and idolatry. Such a charge invokes the medieval notion of lady worship shown in the romances of Chrétien. Take Erec and Enide as an example. After winning Enide’s hand in marriage, Erec grows complacent and neglects his duties as a knight. He relegates himself to his room and satisfies his desire for his lady. He worships her above all things, even God. In light of this medieval tradition, it is understandable—if not expected—that critics would rebuke Adam for falling into similar excessive fondness for Eve. C. S. Lewis bluntly states: “Adam fell by uxoriousness” (454). Another critic, Northrop Frye, in his essay “Children of God and Nature,” claims that “Milton places the supremacy of Eve over God at the central point of the fall itself” (63). While Lewis claims that Adam’s fault lies in his uxoriousness, Frye adds to this a charge of idolatry. The argument that Adam fell because of uxoriousness or idolatry, however, depends on a few assumptions: first, that Adam was motivated by lust and passion (in accordance with the medieval convention); and, second, that, in eating from the Forbidden Tree, Adam sought to supplant the image of God with that of Eve. Both assumptions prove tenuous. It is particularly important to consider the nature and dynamic of Adam and Eve’s relationship: it’s primarily contemplative, not appetitive. Here we turn to Book VIII. 150 • THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW • 2009 BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE Even though Adam is given dominion over the earth and all its emanated from Eve. On such graces, Adam describes: “Grace inhabiting animals, he is struck by a certain disparity. He notices was in all her eyes, Heav’n in her Eye / In every gesture dignity that each animal has its own corresponding partner. Sensing and love. / I overjoyed could not forbear aloud” (8.488-90). his solitary state, Adam questions God’s divine framework: Here Milton infuses Eve with similar kind of love found in Plato’s Symposium. According to this tradition, true love Among unequals what society is found through the contemplation of the Form of Beauty, Can sort, what harmony or true delight? which is conveyed by a lover. True love, accordingly, is the Which must be mutual, in proportion due transcendence of the physical via the contemplation of the Giv’n and received; but in disparity (8.383-86) Form of Beauty. When Adam gazes at Eve, he is struck by her transcendent beauty, a beauty that allows him to glimpse the Adam seeks a partner that compliments his own nature. divine. Purvis E. Boyette, tracing these Neo-Platonic graces Animals cannot assume such a role because they lack that which in Milton’s work, points out that “the Graces [of Eve] were for is essential to human beings: a rational faculty. Adam seeks the Neoplatonists the inclusive symbol of love” (“Milton’s Eve a partner who can actualize his fullest potential as a rational and the Neoplatonic Graces” 342). This allows for a couple being. Here Milton situates Adam and Eve’s relationship on an of inferences to be made: first, that Milton wishes to posture intellectual basis, where both can share in each other’s thoughts Adam and Eve’s marriage as being contemplative and divine and empirical discoveries. Milton stresses that Adam and Eve in essence; and second, that their love is a vehicle of the divine share a contemplative bond, not a hedonistic one. essence (i.e. an emanation of the divine). This emphasis on a contemplative union is consistent with Therefore, in light of these considerations, the critic who argues Milton’s Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Throughout the that Adam acted under uxoriousness or idolatry (or both) must work, Milton attacks various biblical interpretations that shoulder the burden of proof. Frye buttresses his argument by condemn divorce as a sin against God. Milton takes a radical pointing to one particular passage spoken by Adam: “All higher position on the issue, arguing that divorce is necessary to knowledge in [Eve’s] presence falls / Degraded, Wisdom in maintain the integrity of marriage itself. He was keenly aware discourse with her / Loses discount’nanc’t, and like folly shows” that many marriages, once a symbol of happiness and spiritual (8.551-53). This passage captures Adam’s first brush with unification, are likely to turn into self-induced and inescapable passion. He tells of the debasing power of lust. Afterwards, tyrannies. In the process of building his argument, Milton Raphael rebuffs Adam’s folly and tells him to direct his gaze explains the purpose and goals of a good marriage: towards the heavens away from the physical realm. While this passage may hint at the fact that Adam’s relationship with Eve God in the first ordaining of marriage taught us to is not impervious to passionate impulses, it certainly does not what end he did it, in words expressly implying that warrant the conclusion that Adam acted out of passion and apt and cheerful conversation of man with woman, weakness when eating from the Forbidden Tree. Such a claim to comfort and refresh him against the evil of solitary is a gross non-sequitur. Even so, the passage still forces a closer life, not mentioning the purpose of generation till reading of the text. afterwards, as being but a secondary end in dignity, though not in necessity. (703) When Adam stumbles upon Eve in the garden, he finds her standing before the Forbidden Tree, a partially eaten fruit Given this marital sketch, the parallels of Adam and Eve’s in her hand and a squirm of guilt in her eyes. Adam drops relationship are quite obvious. Adam seeks the creation of Eve the garland. He realizes that life can no longer continue as to remedy his state of solitude and to provide that “cheerful it did. He questions: “How art thou lost, how on a sudden conversation of man with woman.” Milton goes so far as to lost, / Defac’t, deflow’r’d, and now to Death devote?” (9.900- minimize the importance of sexuality and physical desire as 01) Adam seems to not only question divine justice, in light that which is necessary for procreation, but on a baser level than of Eve’s inexplicable act, but also realizes that he too is lost: the intellect. Even though Adam and Eve do partake in sexual “And mee with thee hath ruined” (9.906). The critics—such desire (which is considered pure and innocent in a prelapsarian as Lewis and Frye—maintain that Adam is overcome by his world), Milton claims that their relationship is primarily based blind and passion for Eve. But such a position is not supported on the intellect. by the text itself. When Adam resolves to incur the same plight as Eve, he makes no appeal to pity or passion: “How can I Indeed, Adam and Eve’s relationship often assumes a Neo- live without thee, how forgo / Thy sweet Converse and Love Platonic element. Milton often makes reference to the graces so dearly join’d, / To live again in these wild Woods forlorn?” (9.908-10) BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE 2009 • THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW • 151 These lines underscore the unemotional resolve of Adam. her divinity—she still maintains that physical “Link of Nature” Passion or lust does not cloud his judgment. Instead, Adam with Adam (9.914).