BL10S sample essay
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Name: Huang YanSchool number: 2011------**** (Name of your teacher)***** (subject)Date: Oct. 2006Number of words: 880Admirable SatanMost Christian people would condemn Satan as “evil”. However, in Paradise Lost(Book 1: Extract 1 and 2), the image of Satan shaped by John Milton would probably make people easier to sympathize with Satan and understand men’s disobedience than God’s order to obey. If we take Satan's speeches as reflections of his character, then Satan even deserves admiration for his dignity, optimism and resolute determination.Dignity is an important sign of self-respect, and highly advocated in most societies. In Satan’s arguments against God and in his words of encouragement to his comrades in downfall, we can recognize his dignity and self-respect. For example, from the lines:To bow and sue for graceWith suppliant knee, and deify his power…that were low indeed;That were an ignominy and shame beneathThis downfall.We can see that Satan highly regards surrender as a big humiliation and firmly denies to glorify God whom he looks down upon. It is his unbending soul that endows him with self-respect which is just worth praising. Furthermore, the phrases like “courage never to submit or yield” and “irreconcilable to our grand Foe” would possibly cast an image in our mind that a warrior dies with straight and proud stance in the dread of his enemies, with his blood flowing as his pride shining. Thirdly, the forceful lines “To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: / Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” help us compr ehend his revolt because it is not only generated by ambition,but also stimulated by dignity---he rather retains his self-pride even if to rule in chaos Hell than bear his subservience to stay in joyful Heaven.In regard to optimism, Winston Churchill once said that an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty while a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. Satan can be regarded as an optimist since he obviously sees opportunity in face of terrible difficulties: being thrown into hell. When Satan says, “All is not lost” and “In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced, / We may with more successful hope resolve / To wage by force or guile eternal war”, we can feel the optimistic spirit of Satan, and understand that Satan can learn from his fatal defeat and regain hope to perpetually fight with God, instead of drowning himself in despair. Moreover, such lines as “Here at least / We shall be free” and “Here we may reign secure” suggest that Satan could find satisfaction in the desperate condition and fill himself with gratitude. Out of the dark depression brought by the thorough failure, his optimism rises from his heart as he realizes freedom, which he longs for so long, has already come to him as compensation.As to determination, Satan shares with many political leaders the characteristics of resolute determination supported by unflinching will. First, from the noun phrases such as “the unconquerable will”, “immortal hate” and “a mind not to be changed by place or time”, we can tell tha t it is deep and abiding resentment towards God that makes Satan show great determination to wage an unremitting struggle. Though hatred is not what we should encourage, it is the indefatigable willpower that inspires us. For another, the following profound statement is really worth careful analysis: “The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” After carefully digesting every word, we would probably find it surprising that the effect of this statement is far more than Milton could have expected. It puts up a very special or even weird image to us that God is basically an authoritarian bully while Satan is kind of a libertarian who fought nobly but lost. In Satan’s mind, though condemned to permanently stay in Hell, he displays his strong resolution that he could endow Hell with some sense of “Heaven” by opposing dictatorial God’s tyranny. In contrast, Heaven is enveloped in an atmosphere of “Hell” due to God’smind of autarchy. In other words, it is the steady purpose towards adventurous righteousness that represents the heroic aspect of the fallen Archangel.The above analysis shows that Satan can be seen as an admirable character because he retains his dignity and remains optimistic even in defeat, and he is driven by resolute determination to fight against his enemy. Maybe Milton did not intentionally create an admirable character in Satan, but in fact the best part of Satan is already revealed through Milton’s descriptions. To reiterate the words of Lewis, "The Satan in Milton enables him to draw the character well just as the Satan in us enables us to receive it" (52). I believe that as long as we can see and humbly learn from the admirable characters of Satan —dignity, optimism and resolute determination, “the Satan in us” could be less evil and make us admirable.Work CitedLewis, C. S. "Satan". Milton: Modern Essays in Criticism. Ed. Arthur E. Barker. New York: Oxford, 1965. 50-55.。