Milton, John - Satan by Paradise Lost

Satan by Milton (Chracter)

Satan is the most important character and the icon of ''Paradise Lost'' by John Milton, a protestant epic poem about the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel, and their next expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

At the beginning of the history, Satan, still called Lucifer (the angel of light), was God's favourite angel;
he was beautiful, intelligent, and strong, much more than the others, and he truly loved God.

He had a good nature but, at the same time, he was very proud:
in fact, when his pride became arrogance, he lost everything he had, and he fell into damnation.
In his opinion, God committed an unforgivable mistake which led him to rebel:
when He had to choose His successor in power, despite Lucifer was His favourite, God preferred His Son to him.
Lucifer, now called Satan, disappointed and angry, decided to rebel.
He became the leader of a group of angels who also rebelled to God, and he moved a war against Him.
From that moment, Satan changed is nature and joined to evil;
his pride and his ambition became arrogance and thirst of revenge, and he committed the worst sin of all, the ''sin of ubris'':
he wanted to be equal to God, or better, he felt equal to God!
In Satan's opinion, God's intelligent was not superior to his and God was stronger than him only for His weapons.

When Satan was driven out of Heaven with his army, and he fell into Hell, he lost his paradise, he lost God's grace, but he never lost his pride and his brave!
He was still powerful and strong-willed, and he was never willing to surrender, repent, or change!
Somehow we can define him like a sort of ''hero'' which fight against any type of tyranny. He is a very modern character, and he is the emblem of freedom — ''Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven'' he said!

Satan should be considered like ''the emblem of evil'', but he doesn't seem more evil than other ones.
He joined the evil to make evil, but that was not his real nature.
He wanted to change all the good in evil just to hurt God, but only because God had hurt him before!

Intelligence, brave, pride, anger, disappointment and much more... are all feelings which make
Satan a real human protagonist!

It's told that Satan was the representation of Milton himself, but everyone of us can relate to him, because of his humanity!