Analysis Of The Poem ' The Garden Of Eden '

The book of Genesis records the creation of the world and everything in it, as well the early relationship between God and humanity. God creates man, Adam, “from the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7) and places him in a paradise on Earth called the garden of Eden, where he also places the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From the man, God creates a woman and tells them that they “may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil [they] shall not eat, for in the day that [they] eat of it [they] shall die (Genesis 2:16). Despite this warning, the woman, Eve, is eventually tempted to eat the fruit of the treat and convinces Adam to do the same, causing them to be cast out of the garden. Although Adam and Eve do have free will to do what they

With this settled upon as the relationship between good and evil, God proceeded to create man with a will primed towards obedience. He “supplied [man] with an abundance of all things…and had not burdened him with a large number of oppressive and difficult precepts, but…had given him one very brief and easy commandment to keep him in wholesome obedience” (XIV, 15). Man is from the beginning not created to seek knowledge through reason, as philosophy is a “burden” to him in Paradise. Augustine does not take the modern view that the fall was caused by the fatal flaw of curiosity in man, but rather, it is through a the irrational passion of pride like the pride of Satan—“with an ambition like that of a tyrant, he wished rather to gloat over subjects than be a subject himself”—that Adam and Eve are compelled to eat the forbidden fruit (XIV, 11). Reason is thus given no role in the story of Eden—it is a battle between self-will and God’s will, with self-will aligning with vice as its cause in man, and God’s will on the side of nature as its cause.

Once the nature of Adam’s sin is understood to be his refusal to suffer out of love

This is clearly seen as the story begins with Satan being upset that he has been kicked out of heaven, so he is now on a mission to destroy any and everything. His goal is to deceive Adam and Eve so he waits for the perfect opportunity. This opportunity arises once Eve decides that she wants to split with Adam on that work day. She claims that the two will be able to get much more work done separately. Adam disagrees but doesn’t stop Eve, as she has free will. She goes out into the Garden of Eden on her own, only to be approached by Satan who is now a serpent. He exclaims that she should eat from the tree of knowledge and that such a kind God will not kill her. He flatters her with all the wisdom she’ll have and how she’ll become like God. She is overwhelmed by the temptation and gives in. After doing so, she returns to Adam to explain to him what has happened and he isn’t too

As the story continues, the snake was tempting Eve by telling her that the consequences of eating from the tree in the middle of the Garden will not cause death, but a gain of wisdom, knowing good and bad. In ancient world, snakes were known to symbolize wisdom, fertility, and

An omnibenevolent God created a man with the capacity to sin; as Augustine has addressed, the evil in man resides from his will. Augustine, however, does not address how evil stems also from the human nature of temptation that was a consequence of the original fall from Eden. Augustine touches on this theme when accounting for the origins of his sin, but he never fully declares it. “I loved to excuse my soul,” Augustine begins, “and to accuse something else inside me (I knew not what) but which was not I. But, assuredly, it was I, and it was my impiety that had divided me against myself” (62). Here, Augustine admits to denying his own human nature to sin, and blames it on something beyond his will, such as a result of creation. Bonner,

Paradise Lost, Milton’s epic poem narrating “things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme” builds on the subject matter of the Biblical story of the Genesis and sings of Satan’s temptation of “man” and his consequent fall. Having invested the first three books in revealing the rebellion in heaven and fall of Lucifer, and the divine plans concerning the fate of human kind, it is in the fourth book that Milton first takes the reader to the hallowed setting of the best part of the action, the Garden of Eden, and introduces two of his arguable protagonists, Adam and Eve, the general parents of mankind.

Both Adam and Eve were tricked into believing that the fruit will present them with a more fulfilling existence, but instead it proved lacking and disappointing. Furthermore, the narrator soon after says, “ Thousands of greedy individuals abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed upstairs and downstairs, spurred by their vain desire to find their Vindication.” (Borges 115) The “greedy individuals” the narrator speaks of are a symbol of humankind’s dissatisfaction with its existence, and its constant need to search for something more divine. Thus, the narrator describes Adam and Eve’s fall from Grace, which was “spurred by their vain desire to find their Vindication.”

Using this flattery to compliment her beauty, and allowing her to recognize the fact that all of Eden's animals adore her, he slyly inserts the proposition that will allow her to become greater in power and being, "A Goddess among Gods," rivaling the omnipotent power possessed by God. Satan came in the form of a snake, the only reptile and animal that could have the ability to pluck the forbidden fruit from the tree. When questioned how he attained the ability to talk and interact, he simply answered that he ate the fruit of the tree, and received the knowledge equal to that of a human.

Eve’s hunger to become independent from Adam and all she is commanded to do is similar to Satan’s situation in that their yearn for power and singular identity lead them to revolt against their creator. Her desire to separate from Adam is first seen when she is introduced to the audience in her state of narcissism. She sees a reflection of herself in a pond and is in awe of her beauty “of sympathy and love,” (IV, 465) which shows the parallelism to Satan’s own arrogant vanity. He catches on to this similarity they share and decides she will be an easy target of persuasion. He quickly takes charge and plans how he will lead her to eat the apple from the “Tree of Knowledge,” which is the only tree that God prohibited to pick fruit from. Satan first catches her attention by being a serpent who speaks; something she had never encountered before. He smooth talks her into really listening to him by focusing his words around her and how much better life could be if she just took a bite

In the beginning God made all of creation and looked around and saw that it was good, and this includes us, humanity. We were good in the beginning, created perfect, holy, and righteous, made in the image of God’s own self. God also gave us the freedom of choice, the free will to decide to follow our selfish desires or to follow the will of God. Back in the beginning Adam made that choice, biting into the forbidden fruit and bringing sin into the world. Humanity fallen from holiness was cast out of the garden and so we find ourselves broken and blinded to God by our own sin. Since that time humanity has been torn between the righteousness we were created for and the desires of our own flesh, each day confronted with the same choice as Adam.

Milton in Paradise Lost illustrates God as the main creator of life. Milton also expresses that God’s real desire is power. God here used his own power of free will to make the decision to create life. From this, the reader can already see the ability of free will being practiced. He mentions that he gave all angels and man the power of free will so they can express their own individuality in

Have you ever seen a big red button that says do not push and then pushed it? We have all been there; it was just too tempting to not push it, right? In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, mankind presses that big red button. Through Adam and Eve’s free will to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, they fall from Paradise. It is not like God did not warn the pair; he made it abundantly clear that their one rule was to not eat from the tree. God, being omniscient, knows that they will fall, but makes their choice of disobedience an easy decision. Although God foresees the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden, they have free will and fall on their own; however, God makes it too easy for Satan to succeed.

     In Paradise Lost, the consequences of the fall and the change in relations between man and nature can best be discussed when we look at Milton's pre-fall descriptions of Eden and its inhabitants. Believing that fallen humans could never fully understand what life was like in Eden and the relationships purely innocent beings shared, Milton begins his depiction of Paradise and Adam and Eve through the fallen eyes of Satan:

In the story Adam and Eve were let to be living in the Garden of Eden, where God had created one of everything. He created many fruits and vegetables, animals, plants, and trees. It was first Adam’s job to take care and live in the Garden of Eden, till one day God saw that Adam was lonely so he took matters into his own hands. God created Eve out of Adam’s rib, that’s how Eve began to live in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was Adam and Eve’s home and it was beautiful. Till one day God and Jesus had come over to the garden to talk to Adam and Eve and what he was expecting for them to do while they lived there. There were many trees in the Garden of Eden that Adam and Eve could eat from and take care of. God had told Adam and Eve that they could eat fruit from all the trees but one. It was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it was the center tree of the garden. God had said if they ate fruit from that tree that they would die and have to leave the Garden of Eden. If they didn’t eat fruit from that tree they would be able to live in the Garden of Eden forever.