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From Law To Love: Young Adulthood in Milton's "Paradise Lost"
Author(s): RICHARD H. FULMER

Source: American Imago , Spring 2006, Vol. 63, No. 1, Analyzing Christianity (Spring
2006), pp. 25-56
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26305292
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RICHARD H. FULMER
From Law To Love:
Young Adulthood in Milton's Paradise Lost

"Families have always had problems. Adam and Eve dis
obeyed the landlord's rules and were evicted from their
lovely estate."
—Betty Carter and Monica McGoldrick, The Expanded
Family Life Cycle
Milton's Paradise Lost (1674) is usually read as a moral tale,

with the crisis turning on Adam and Eve's disobedience to God's
law. This reading is justified on its own terms, but the poem may
also be read as a story of the development of love in a family and
the shifting attachments between its characters. When the epic
is read solely as a story of disobedience, it is difficult to escape
the contradiction between Milton's avowed purpose to "justify
the ways of God to men" (1.26) and the impression that his God
seems tiresome and his Satan heroic.1 The same contradiction
appears in Milton's personal life. He was a devout Christian, but
also a proponent of regicide, someone who would never favor
in the literal world the hierarchy he imposes on Heaven in his
poem. When Paradise Lost is read as a story of development,
these contradictions can be understood as the consequences
of both Milton's authorial ambivalence and the interpersonal
conflicts among his characters as they experience the losses
and gains of maturation. What is more, the difference between
seeing disobedience as the single decisive event and seeing it
as one of several stages in a story of developing relationships
mirrors the divergence between an older classical and a more
contemporary relational psychoanalysis.
Peter Rudnytsky played an essential role in guiding my reading of Milton criticism

and clarifying the problems this essay would have to address. I am also very grateful
for the careful reading and very acute suggestions of several colleagues. My psycho
analytic readers were Neil Altman, Cassandra Cook, and Sabrina Wolfe. My literary
readers were Robert Ferguson and Walter Harp. It is to the memory of this last friend
that I dedicate this essay.
American Imago, Vol. 63, No. 1, 25-56. © 2006 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
25

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26 Young Adulthood in Milton's Paradise Lost
The prolonged dispute between those readers who have

felt that Milton favored God and those who felt he favored
Satan has been dubbed "the Milton Controversy" (Fish 1997,
x). Among those taking the view that Milton intended the epic
as an argument for traditional Christian belief are C. S. Lewis
(1942) and Douglas Bush (1949). Those who have seen Paradise
Lost as a subversive poem meant to dramatize the complexities
of the human condition and showing sympathies at variance
with Christian dogma include William Blake (1794) and Wil
liam Empson (1961). Stanley Fish (1997) tried to resolve the
difference between these two groups by arguing that Milton
first seduced his readers with Satanically beautiful poetry, then
corrected and instructed them with God's morality. He too ends
up on the angelic side, but he gets there without brushing off
Milton's sympathy for the devil.
Whether the critics are on the angelic side or the demonic,
they all agree that Milton makes God appear arbitrary and un
sympathetic at times, and Satan more interesting. Of course,
Milton must regard God as without internal conflict, omnipres
ent, omniscient, and omnipotent. But by developing him as a
character in the story (Empson 1961, 94), he also ascribes to
God the qualities of a human parent. Thus, God, even as One,
can be divided, ambivalent about his children's maturation and
their consequent wish (which is itself ambivalent) to separate
from Him. Peter Rudnytsky (1988) characterizes these two points
of view as the "theological" and the "narrative," asserting that
because Milton wrote from both angles, both are necessary in
understanding his work.
In this essay, I shall consider all the beings whom God
creates (Christ, angels, Adam and Eve) as part of his extended
family system. This premise again raises "theological vs. narra
tive" concerns. Because he is already present when God "begets"
Christ, Satan is seen here as an elder sibling. Theologically, of
course, Christ is part of the Trinity and shares God's omnipres
ence, thereby preceding Satan in existence.
The question of the Trinity, for Milton, leads to a further
dimension of complexity. For more than 150 years, Milton's
readers considered him to be faithful to Christian orthodoxy
in believing Christ to be equal to God as a member of the Trin
ity (Patrides 1966, 15). Only after the manuscript of Milton's

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Richard H. Fulmer 27
theological treatise, De doctrina Christiana (1643), was found in

the first quarter of the nineteenth century did scholars realize
that he espoused the heretical idea that Christ was subordinate
to God the Father. Milton wrote, for instance, that God "was
properly the Father of the Son made of his own substance. Yet it
does not follow from hence that the Son is co-essential with the
Father" (Hughes 1957,933). Critics reexamined Paradise Lost to
see if that heresy had been expressed in the poem. Emphasizing
that an epic poem has needs that may differ from the dogmatic
aims of a treatise, Patrides (1966, 25) contends that Paradise Lost
sometimes appears heretical but also respects Christ's existence
as God. He finds that in verbal exchanges between Christ and
God (VII.131ff.; X.21ff.) Christ is indeed subordinate, but that
when Christ appears separately from God (X.163) he acts as
and is referred to as God's equal, even as God himself. The
theological approach may be best at describing God's capacities,
and the narrative approach at describing his development as a
character, but it is difficult to separate them completely.
The developmental period through which the characters
of the poem are struggling is Young Adulthood. In the middle
class Western world, this is usually regarded as the period after
children have left their parents' home and before they have
formed a household of their own. It has been described within
a psychoanalytic framework by Erik Erikson (1963) and from a

cultural perspective byj. J. Arnett (2001; 2002), while I (1999)
have discussed Young Adulthood in the context of the family
life cycle. The Fall is the first story in the Bible about humans
interacting with each other and their Creator. The vicissitudes
of how young adults separate from parental guidance and de
velop their own identities generate one of the most important
narrative structures in Western culture.
The moral sense is an essential component of the human

personality to blossom during this stage of life. But another
major developmental task is the accomplishing of separation
while maintaining continuity. This entails the ability to transfer
intense affections from parents to outsiders and to move from
being economically dependent to supporting oneself, while the
internalization of parental characteristics provides cohesion to
identity.

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A larger shift in the fields of psychoanalysis and family

therapy is also at stake. In its description of the oedipal stage,
classical psychoanalysis has focused on the resistance to the in
cest taboo by descendants and its enforcement by ascendants.
It sees the conflict between a child's wish to disobey the taboo
and a consequent fear of punishment as the central mechanism
by which psychic structure, especially the superego, develops.
Family therapy focuses to a much greater extent on literal re
lationships, but its founders also underscored (as did classical
analysts) the dangers of inappropriate cross-generational ties.
They sought to promote development by strengthening pa
rental authority and setting limits (Stierlin 1977; Haley 1980).
More recently, under the influence of feminist thinking, family
therapy has concentrated on the importance of nurturance as
well as discipline throughout the family life cycle (Mackey 1996;
Silverstein and Rashbaum 1995). Relational psychoanalysis does
not ignore the classical view of the oedipal stage, but it differs
from it in at least two ways. First, it sees the creation of psychic
structure as turning on the vicissitudes of attachment and
object-seeking throughout childhood. Second, it emphasizes
the degree to which intrapsychic conflict bears the imprint of
internalized object relationships. Accordingly, it shifts its focus
from boundaries to bonds.
The Fall:
Moral Catastrophe or Normal Experience?
From the theological point of view, the Fall refers to man's

moral degradation following his first disobedience of God. From
the developmental point of view, it can be equated with the
young adult's experience of freedom after leaving the family,
which is perilous even when it takes place with parental sup
port. Bion (1957) described all groups (including families) as
functioning at various times under one of three basic assump
tions: "dependency," or deciding on membership; "fight/flight,"
or working out a power hierarchy; and "pairing," or becoming
productive. Philip Slater (1966) added the idea that these
assumptions describe the concerns of a group sequentially
through its history; I shall argue that they can be applied to

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the arc of Young Adulthood and to the stories of the characters

in Paradise Lost.
As a high-status angel in Heaven, Satan begins by being

very close to God. Stung by God's favoritism toward Christ, he
rebels both personally and politically, and is expelled with his
followers from Heaven, the home over which God has domin
ion. "Confounded though immortal" (1.53), he recovers enough
from his own fall to represent transgression as a way of being,
an alternative to obedience to God. He makes no strong bonds
with other individuals, however, and accepts loneliness and
misery as the price of freedom. With Satan, God moves from
closeness through harsh rejection to vigilant coexistence. With
Adam, he begins as a somewhat overindulgent father. As Adam
matures and yearns for a human companion, God emphasizes
limit-setting over nurturance. After Adam breaks God's only rule,
God enforces a new distance but still shows behind-the-scenes
support and benign aloofness. When Eve disobeys God's rule,
Adam chooses to ally with her and separates from God. Eve,
in turn, moves from a deferential worship of Adam to a wish
for solitude. She finds a mentor, Satan, who—with chemical
assistance from the fruit—helps her toward these goals. Sub
sequently remorseful, she considers suicide and proposes to
Adam that they cheat death by not having children. But her
bond with Adam proves too strong for these negative solutions,
so she reestablishes it, replacing worship with respect, love, and
diminished expectations.
Considered as the story of a family in transition, the Fall
dramatizes closeness, separation, and the transfer of affections.
It shows youth seeking independence, internalizing attachments,
developing identity, and gaining self-sufficiency. Some adoles
cents find central meaning in living for a cause or a principle
(Satan), others in love for a peer (Adam and Eve). The story still
has a moral dimension, but now Adam and Eve's passage appears
less as a moral failing than as a tale of moral development, of
how childish fear of parental disapproval is transformed into
a new willingness to deal with life's vicissitudes and a mature
sense of right and wrong.

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God Elevates Christ as a Leader
The Family Life Cycle is marked by entrances (birth,

adoption, marriage) and exits (death, leaving home, divorce)
(Carter and McGoldrick 1999a). Each change of membership
requires a reorganization of the family, a recycling of Bion's
stages in Slater's order, and a new set of developmental tasks. In
Milton's epic, the entrance that sets the plot in motion is God's
elevating Christ to the position of divine leader. The abrupt and
unempathic way in which God announces Christ's ascendance
over the other angels is theologically correct—Christ is God,
after all—but it focuses not on what the angels will gain from
Christ, but on how they will be punished if they do not obey
him. Because Christ appears in Milton's heaven as an adult,
he does not elicit care from the "older" angels as a baby does
when born into a family of parents and older children. Christ
does, of course, elicit such care in the birth narratives of the
New Testament. The sibling rivalry that Christ's addition to the
family creates is more like the result of adopting a charismatic
rock star. In putting Christ under God, Milton revises the Trinity
to fit his theology. When God implacably announces that he has
"begot" Christ as his "only Son" and appoints him the "Head"
of the angels, the others gain a new leader, but that added layer
of management removes them further from God:
him who disobeys

Me disobeys, breaks union, and that day
Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
Into utter darkness. (V.611-14)
As an example of parenting, this behavior is remarkably

thoughtless, perhaps because of God's own lack of experience
as a child. God either does not bother or is not yet able to
imagine his way into the minds of the angels, to recognize his
prior mutual attachments to them and that they have had no
time to develop their own relationships with Christ. Nor does
he imagine the hatred that will be displaced from himself onto
Christ. He defines the relationship between Christ and the angels
entirely in terms of obedience and punishment—very severe and
lasting punishment. In short, God does not treat the angels as

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members of a loving family based on emotional connections,

and he pays dearly for his naïveté. One of his formerly favorite
sons becomes a vengeful political opponent and an incestuous
rapist, leading a third of God's "relatives" against him in violent
revolution and opening a rift that will never be healed. God's
early responses to these rebellious acts are predictable: punish
ment and more punishment.
Satan's rebellion against God is stimulated by sibling rivalry,
but is usually understood by psychoanalytic workers as having an
oedipal motivation. God's relentless focus at this point on obedi
ence and punishment parallels the way some analysts, including
Freud, have viewed the Oedipus complex as a psychic conflict
between the son's wish for patricide and his fear of castration.
Significantly, however, God matures during the poem, becoming
a more discerning and effective parent. Analytic writers who see
the Oedipus complex in terms of attachment as well as rebellion
and retaliation illuminate his development.
For example, Hans Loewald (1980) agrees with the clas
sical Freudian view that the Oedipus struggle involves psychic
"parricide" in which "parental authority is destroyed" (389),
causing guilt in the descendant, but he contends that "when
Freud equates the sense of guilt with a need for punishment, he
takes too superficial a view on the matter" (390). By implication,
Loewald describes the consequences of God's initial punishment
of Satan: "It is hoped [by the descendant] that punishment will
extinguish guilt, but it does not work for any length of time
and more punishment is needed" (391). When Satan receives
only punishment for his attempts at parricide, he becomes a
recidivist, despairing of reconciliation. God plays the part of
the punitive parent, rebuking Satan without trying to teach or
shape him. Loewald explains the psychic price of this style of
parenting: "A harsh, unyielding superego is unresponsive and
in that sense irresponsible" (393). Satan's incipient conscience
is of this harsh type, tending toward depression, self-blame,
and self-hate. On Mount Niphates, he reflects on his break
from God, "he deserv'd no such return from me" (IV.42), and
laments: "myself am Hell" (IV.75).
Loewald defines a benign superego as one that feels guilt,
has the ability to bear that affect without taking immediate ac
tion, and then attempts reconciliation with the moral standard.

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Such a conscience is not available to Satan, as it will be later

to Adam in his interactions with God. But in Book IV of Para
dise Lost, Satan's narcissism and God's harsh treatment of him
combust to create a permanent estrangement: "For never can
true reconcilement grow / Where wounds of deadly hate have
pierc'd so deep" (IV.98-99).
Although God never softens toward Satan, he does permit
him to perform additional rebellious acts without further pun
ishment until after the falls of Adam and Eve. God remains at
a distance from Satan, using the latter's rebellion to reach his

own goals in his larger "family system."
The Mentor as a Transitional Figure
A central conflict of young adulthood is between the ac

ceptance of parental care and authority and the wish to be free.
For the human characters in Paradise Lost, God represents the
first pole of this conflict and Satan embodies the latter. A com
mon figure who helps facilitate the transition from dependent
child to independent adult is the mentor. As one whose status
is below God's but above Adam and Eve's, Satan is well situated
to play this role. Indeed, he has other characteristics that make
him an appealing mentor. Satan has suffered the wrath of au
thority and survived, however compromised. He is a charismatic
rebel, respected and honored (see the debate in Pandemonium
in Book II) in his own world. He argues on behalf of freedom,
the value of increased insight, and the ability to make decisions
and judgments for oneself. Among other things, he will offer
Eve a way to become more equal to Adam.
Satan represents darkness, chaos, and creativity. As such, he
offers the possibility of forming a new order based on personal
ability rather than established hierarchy. This darker side of
the world is fascinating to young adults and horrifying to their
parents—and will in all likelihood be horrifying to these same
young adults when they become parents.

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Not Your Parents' Religion
Young adulthood is a time of intense religious seeking.

It may not appear to be so because young adults tend to drift
away from the observances they have received through their
parents (Arnett 2001, 114). They also tend to do things that
are inveighed against by some organized religions—having sex,
drinking, doing drugs, and sometimes even dancing. Religious
observance, however, often includes seeking contact with the di
vine through these very practices. Use of consciousness-altering
substances or ecstatic dance is widespread in religion. Fasting,
including anorexia (usually having its onset in adolescence or
young adulthood), was seen in Christianity as a "path to holi
ness" for many female saints (Vandereycken and Van Deth 1994,
14-32). Garry Wills (2004) notes that most religious conversions
take place in adolescence and early adulthood. The young adult
is trying hard to erect a psychic structure to take the place of
the parents he or she is leaving. Access to an in-dwelling, ever
present guide may temper grief and anxiety about literal and
psychic separation. Philip Slater (1966, 7-23) has called this
response to loss "deification as an antidote to deprivation."
Transgression as a Way of Life
Satan's existence as a figure who expresses themes of young

adulthood begins with the abrupt and traumatic collapse of
parental support when he loses the war in Heaven and God
casts him out of his home (1.51). His long fall has its psychic
equivalent in Donald Winnicott's idea (1962) of an infant's "un
thinkable anxiety" (57-58) in the absence of reliable parental
"holding" (61). One form of this distress may be "(the sense
of) falling for ever" (58). God, of course, intentionally treats
Satan this way as a form of punishment.
Satan eventually lands in hell on a burning lake surrounded
by monsters and other cast-out angels. He is obviously miser
able, but is it because of the loss of heavenly comforts? Or is
the real problem something he cannot admit, that he mourns
over being separated from and disapproved of by God? Rebel

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lion and consequent independence have brought loneliness,

now disguised as rage at the parent he misses and knows he
cannot return to. Surely this is a characteristic experience of
young adults, who wish to leave their parents but regret it in
spite of themselves.
Although lonely, Satan is not alone. He is "the leader of the
pack," the adolescent gang—like Peter Pan's "Lost Boys" (Bar
rie 1904)—that often serves as a transitional substitute for lost
parents (Taffel and Blau 2001, 16-18). They are the original
outsiders, a fate that Adam and Eve will soon share.
Satan represents one possible outcome of the epigenetic
crisis of young adulthood. His rebellion becomes a way of
life, his central source of meaning. He never compromises
his dedication to his political activity by investing an intimate
relationship with equal importance. C. S. Lewis (1942) notes
that he can only "be himself' (100). As a "bad boy," he is the
male equivalent of the prostitute that Freud (1910) says some
rescue-oriented men are compelled to choose as a love object.
When Satan does develop a relationship, as when he mentors
Eve, it is only to serve his political agenda.
By the time he engineers his plan to bring about the
downfall of mankind, Satan realizes that his state of mind is not
mere bad luck or the temporary product of a bad environment.
Expostulating, "Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell" (IV.75),
he confronts a series of unpalatable alternatives: "is there no
place / Left for Repentance, none for Pardon left? / None left
but by submission" (79-81), and he concludes by resolving to
make the best of his bad lot, "Evil be thou my Good" (110). At
least partially, Satan recognizes that he has authored his own
misfortunes and takes responsibility for his fate. The fact that
he can imagine no alternative to reconciliation but "submission"
is the result of his unexamined narcissism, but also of God's
unyielding position.
Satan's ensuing loneliness reflects a frequent experience of
young adults, who struggle to be independent. When they gain
their freedom, however, they are sobered by the fact that they
are alone and must work for everything they get, a realization
that leads to self-reliance. Whereas his fall is an experience of
helplessness in response to the withdrawal of support, Satan's
flight through the universe (11.927-1035) from Hell to Earth

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is his individual initiative, a brave deed that brings him (albeit

in misery) to the edge of Paradise.
Renunciates and Householders
The young adult must negotiate a path between polar op

posites of life practice. The first is a focus on a highly valued
profession. Intense work is the anchor of such a life and rela
tionships with others are subordinated in its favor. The second
path finds primary meaning in relationships rather than work,
eventually resulting in the building of a new family. Most young
adults in the Western middle and upper-middle classes begin
by working or studying hard to develop their careers. In later
young adulthood, this one way divides into two. Some continue
with their primary focus on work, but many begin to find at
least equal and sometimes more meaning in their relation
ships. Both roles are essential to society. Religious, political,
and military leaders, as well as artists, scientists, and cultural
innovators, all tend to be "renunciates." Those who reproduce
society physically can be called "householders." I am present
ing these styles as two different types of people, but they are
really complementary motivations within any person, coexisting
to different degrees. They have been described by Emmanuel
Ghent (1989) as the two main needs that operate dialectically
as part of being human: "the need for autonomy and the need
for connectedness to others" (206-7).
In Milton's poem, Satan is the quintessential renunciate.
He exemplifies the choice of autonomy over connectedness.
Adam's original solitary existence with God, by contrast, is a very
brief "renunciate" stage that feels too much like being alone.
He is clearly not cut out for it and begs for human company.
Therefore, although he recognizes the danger posed by Eve's
transgression, Adam soon compromises his ideals to be with
her and share her fate.
In Eve we see the dialectic of renunciate and householder
most clearly. Eve at first idealizes Adam (communion), but
then renounces the relationship to gain solitude (autonomy)
and to pursue the work of gardening more efficiently. Alone
by choice, she encounters Satan and accepts his offer of the

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forbidden fruit. She quickly realizes, however, not that she has
done something wrong, but that this act will separate her from
Adam, and so she decides to encourage him to eat the same
fruit to reestablish their bond (communion again).
Even God can be seen as subject to these antithetical pulls.
He willingly renounces his relationship with one third of his
angels to enforce his principle of obedience, but then seeks
company by creating Adam. Although he further affirms the
value of connectedness by creating Eve to satisfy Adam's request
for a relationship, he qualifies once again as a renunciate when
he sacrifices his relationship with Adam and Eve for his prin
ciple. Even so, he retains a benevolent interest in them and
their descendants, and is quite close to his other child, Christ,
throughout the story. Perhaps not surprisingly, God exemplifies
both roles, as creator and social builder.
Parents' Dilemma: To Protect or Allow Freedom?
Watching Satan wing his way toward Earth, God engages in

a conversation with Christ. He is reminiscing about the events
leading up to some of his angelic children's leaving home and
begins by voicing a prophetic complaint about Adam and his
progeny, surrogate offspring with whom he is now vexed: "In
grate, he had of mee / All he could have; I made him just and
right" (111.97-98). When he gets over this feeling of injury, God
does see the need for Adam to be separate and independent as
a necessary condition for being truly loving. God wants love and
attachment, not slavish obedience: "Not free, what proof could
they have giv'n sincere / Of true allegiance?" (III. 103-4).
Adam, an only child, is initially very close to his Creator.
He sees God, speaks with him face to face, and even argues
with him (VIII.364-451). His jobs, however, are the things a
youngster might do (naming the animals) or make-work ("tend
ing" a lush garden where everything grows without cultivation).
In Slater's sequence of Bion's "basic assumptions," Adam is in
"dependency," during which stage his main concerns are to get
what he thinks he needs from his leader. But he yearns for a
relationship different from the one he has with God, and he
solicits God's help in solving this problem: "In solitude / What

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happiness, who can enjoy alone, / Or all enjoying, what content

ment find?" (VIII.364-66). At first, God is hurt, and protests:
What call'st thou solitude? is not the Earth
With various living creatures, and the Air

Replenisht, and all these at thy command
To come and play before thee? (VIII.369-72)
One can almost hear him saying, "I fixed up the basement
for you! With paneling! You have your own TV!" (and unsaid,
but implied, "You have me!"). But again God catches himself
and yields, accepting that although Adam is still Unfällen and
therefore in perfect communion with God, he is "alone": "I,
ere thou spak'st, / Knew it not good for Man to be alone"
(VIII.444-45).
Enacting the fantasy of many parents of young adults, God
not only finds Adam a girlfriend, he actually makes him one.
But even though God creates her, she represents such a parent's
greatest fear. She turns out to be closer to Adam than to God
and begins to draw Adam toward her: "Hee for God only, shee
for God in him" (IV.299). Later, Eve shows her awareness by
summarizing the situation for Adam: "God is thy Law, thou
mine" (IV.636).
Perfect Love
Eve begins by worshiping Adam. Her feelings exemplify a

"perfect love" that is common in young adults. It can be seen
as a manifestation of the religious quest central to this stage.
Both men and women at this age are looking for a love partner
whom they can value or be valued by so intensely that all their
conflicts, uncertainty, and self-doubts are swept away. They seek
someone other than their parents to affirm the experimental
part of their identities. This search is not for true relatedness,
but for an intense, exalted state in which the self is completely
fulfilled in the other. The loved one is experienced as a unique,
irreplaceable, once-in-a-lifetime partner who enables and en
courages the new self and as such is referred to with words
usually reserved for deities, such as "divine" and "adorable."

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In later life, middle-aged men and women often yearn for the
return of this developmentally specific state, even if they are
still married to their former god or goddess.
Adam thanks God for Eve and then unconsciously proph
esies what will be the central transition of his young adulthood.
It is notable that Adam sees what is to come not in terms of
disobedience, but in benign and biblical terms of separation
from his parents and attachment to his wife:
Giver of all things fair, but fairest this

Of all thy gifts, nor enviest. I now see
Bone of my Bone, Flesh of my Flesh, my Self
Before me; Woman is her Name, of Man
Extracted; for this cause he shall forgo
Father and Mother, and to his Wife adhere;
And they shall be one Flesh, one Heart, one Soul.
(VIII.493-99)
Adam begins by seeing Eve as a reflection of himself. He then

predicts that sons will transfer their most intense affections from
parents to spouse. The passage ends with a renunciation and
expression of the self in the marriage relationship.
Eve, for her part, by seeing her moral standard not in
God's abstract rules but in her relationship to Adam, exempli
fies Carol Gilligan's idea (1982) of a care-based morality. Such a
quintessential^ relationship-oriented outlook is unacceptable to
theological critics. In faulting Adam for choosing to be with Eve
rather than obeying God's prohibition, Lewis says, "If conjugal
love were the highest value in Adam's world, then of course
his resolve would have been the correct one. But if there are
things that have an even higher claim on a man . . . then the
case is altered" (1942, 123). A morality based on categorical
imperatives is appropriate for the renunciate but not for the
householder who does value familial relationships most highly.
Although she presents herself as deferential to Adam, Eve is
the partner who leads the couple into novel experiences. She
finds it hard to concentrate on gardening as long as she is so
close to Adam and thinks it would be more efficient to work
separately: "Let us divide our labors" (IX.214). Adam has been
warned of an enemy, so he resists splitting up, even for a short

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time. Eve is unafraid, however, and argues for differentiation,

whatever the risk, rather than living in fear.
Gender differences in the experience of young adulthood
figure here (Fulmer 1999). Young men tend to suffer from too
few relationships during this stage and are often prematurely
ejected from their families of origin in conformity with cultural
expectations of autonomy (Silverstein and Rashbaum 1995).
Women, conversely, suffer from too many relationships, from the
expectation that they will be caregivers in their families of origin
until they acquire a new set of domestic responsibilities through
marriage. These differences notwithstanding, both young adult
women and men benefit from a period of solitude, a "walkabout"
in which they can focus on developing their selves. An impulse
in this direction, a desire for some independence and room for
thought outside of adoration, motivates Eve's suggestion that
she and Adam labor separately. Eve's argument is condemned
by theological critics as selfish (Lewis 1942, 145; Ricks 1963,
144), but a developmental approach avoids this judgmental
attitude. Her "narcissism" in wanting to work separately is a
normal behavioral reaction for her age. Indeed, the Fall itself
is not a bad thing when seen as a part of development. Here
is Eve's argument:
If this be our condition, thus to dwell

In narrow circuit straitened by a Foe . . .
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
(IX.322-23, 326)
In upholding the principle of separation, Eve most re

sembles God when he is talking about free will as an essential
precondition for authentic loyalty or love. Here is God again:
"Not free, what proof could they have giv'n sincere / Of true
allegiance, constant Faith or Love?" (III.103—4). In this way, Eve
supports one side of the central ambivalence about obedience
and love in Adam's family, thereby providing him with continuity
even as she provides him with an opportunity for separation.
Adam gives in, wisely, from the interpersonal standpoint,
acknowledging that if Eve were to accede to his request, feeling
as she does, she would become more distant from him: "Go; for
thy stay, not free, absents thee more" (IX.372). Led by Eve, he

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moves toward valuing freedom and the relationship with her

over following the rules established by his family of origin.
The Denial of Createdness
Both Satan and Adam feel daunted when they think of

what God, their mutual parent, has given them. Each must
acknowledge, in Satan's words, "The debt immense of endless
gratitude / So burdensome, still paying, still to owe" (IV.52-53).
For both angel and human, to honor their "debt" to God seems
onerous and never-ending, and it impedes their ability to move
forward with their lives. One strategy they both use to cope with
this conflict is what Rudnytsky calls "the denial of createdness, a
rejection of the existence of a higher power that has preceded
them and laid down conditions to which they must adhere"
(1988, 168). In his reading, these denials take the form of an
oedipal protest, in which Adam and Satan put themselves in
the place of their own father. This is a common psychological
experience in young adults of both sexes. Feeling incapable of
offering full recompense to their parents, young adults have
been known to echo Adam's complaint, "Did I request thee,
Maker, from my Clay / To Mould me Man?" (X.743-44).
An antipathy to paying a debt to one's parents can have a
more tender expression than the overthrow of the father. Freud
himself highlighted this facet of the problem in his discussion
of the "rescue motif': "When a child hears that he owes his life
to his parents, or that his mother gave him life, his feelings of
tenderness unite with impulses which strive at power and in
dependence" (1910,172; italics in original). Love relationships
for young adults are sometimes motivated by a wish to rescue
a lover from a lower social or moral status. Songs popular with
past generations such as "Society's Child" byjanis Ian and "He's
a Rebel" by the Crystals illustrate this dynamic. Freud sees this
object choice as an attempt to repay the parents for the gift of
life by presenting them with a rescued baby in the person of the
lover, a gesture that parents invariably resist as a rejection of their
values. This is surely part of Adam's motive when he proclaims
that he has "fixt my Lot" (IX.952) with the fallen Eve.

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God's Unsuccessful Warning
God has attempted to warn Adam that Satan will tempt

him and that the consequences of disobedience are dire. He
may be trying to explain unfamiliar concepts in terms that can
be understood by the human mind, but his lesson seems to go
over Adam's head. God has the Archangel Raphael recite to
Adam how Satan led a host of rebel angels in war against God
in Heaven (Books V and VI). This story exemplifies the theme
of Bion's second stage in group development, "fight-flight,"
during which the power of the leader is challenged (Slater
1966, 131-33).
Raphael possesses impressive pedagogical skills, but Adam
cannot think himself to be the equal of angels (and certainly
not the equal of Christ, as Satan thinks of himself), so he can
not identify with Satan's motives for disobedience: envy and a
feeling of being passed over unfairly. Raphael's presentation
of the several days of battle is like a spectacular action movie,
with several reversals based on mutual escalation of amazing
weaponry. Cinematically, God is overwhelmingly powerful and
disobedience is severely punished. But Adam might well sup
pose that sins of the magnitude of Satan's (defiant speeches,
marshalling other angels to rebel, facing Christ Himself in
physical battle) are easy to avoid. Adam is actually a very good
boy and was never tempted to try any of that to begin with.
He acknowledges the lesson dutifully, but he doesn't seem to
understand it. It hardly equips him to resist Eve's mild hint at
disobedience in her request to work separately. Only when he
is more mature will Adam hear and be receptive to a lesson
from an archangel that will matter to him.
Satan as Mentor
Eve goes off to work on her own and so is exposed to Satan's

offer to eat the forbidden fruit. Without knowing quite why it
is forbidden, she at first resists. Satan appeals to the existential
aspirations of a young adult. From Eve's point of view, he is the
mentor helping her with a conflict between loyalty to her par
ent (as interpreted by Adam) and her wish for her own moral

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and intellectual development. From Satan's point of view, he is

pushing the cause of freedom against God's tyranny. Rhetori
cally, he can make the fruit sound like an especially powerful
religious hallucinogen:
in the day
Ye Eat thereof, your Eyes that seem so clear,
Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then
Op'n'd and clear'd, and ye shall be as Gods,
Knowing both Good and Evil as they know.
(IX.705-9)
Like most young adults, Eve feels she is invincible, even

immortal. God's threat may seem to her and Adam like many
parental warnings, a strategic exaggeration of danger designed
to frighten children into compliance. When God wants to
demonstrate his authority, he asserts his command without
explanation. When his goals are more educational, as in the
later tutorial by Archangel Michael, he explains himself more
fully, educating and arming a more receptive Adam with argu
ments. At this point, however, the unexplained rule is easier
for Satan to subvert.
Eve so blithely accepts death that she acts as though it were

only a concept to her, not already an experience. At first she
plans to not tell Adam she has eaten the fruit. Understandably,
she wants to exercise her new insight to make herself more
nearly equal to him, even superior. In advancing an argument
for the benefits of female superiority, she wonders whether she
should tell him:
... or rather not.
But keep the odds of Knowledge in my power

Without Copartner? so to add what wants
In Female Sex, the more to draw his Love,
And render me more equal, and perhaps,
A thing not undesirable, sometime
Superior; for inferior who is free? (IX.819-25)
Eve worries that her transgression may not have gone und
tected: "but what if God have seen, / And Death ensue? then

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shall be no more" (IX.826-27). Again, as an immature young

adult, she perceives parental detection, not her own actions, as
the source of her problems.
Once she takes this line of thought to its conclusion, Eve's
jealousy is aroused, and she resolves to share death with Adam
in order to prevent his finding a new girlfriend:
And Adam wedded to another Eve,

Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct;
A death to think. Confirm'd then I resolve,
Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe:
So dear I love him, that with him all deaths
I could endure, without him live no life.
(IX.828-33)
Lewis is blunt in calling this choice "murder" (1942, 121). He

is partly right, but a systemic view requires us to consider who
else is involved. The fruit wouldn't kill either Adam or Eve
if God hadn't decreed that it would. So Lewis's assessment is
incomplete in that it does not mention God as an accomplice.
In addition, what Eve is contemplating is not simply murder,
but a murder/suicide. It has the same heinous result, but is
different psychologically. Murder/suicide is not predicated on
the murderer's expectation of survival; it almost always occurs
between intimates and seeks pathologically to preserve a rela
tionship, not to end one. Lewis emphasizes Eve's immorality
and is not interested in her wish, however selfish, to stay with
Adam.
By the time she approaches Adam with the fruit, her jeal
ous self-interest changes conveniently into something more
idealistic. She offers it, saying that eating it has made her feel
more insightful, generous, and closer to God. Only part of this
statement is true. She is more insightful, but hardly closer to
God. Eve is in terrible conflict here. She knows she has violated
her powerful in-law's commandment. She does love Adam but
is now motivated more by fear of losing him than by love. She
feels she must persuade him to join her but knows that getting
him to defy his father will alienate him from her as well as cause
his death. Eve is acting in part out of her fear of separation,
not out of unselfish love.

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Adam's Choice: Sin or Growth?
Adam is absolutely appalled by Eve's actions and speech

but quickly agrees that breaking God's rule in order to be with
her is his only choice. Here again, a reading grounded in de
velopmental theory differs from a theological interpretation.
Adam is in the process of changing his moral standard from
obedience to attachment. Theological critics see Eve as narcis
sistic, and thus breaking God's first commandment (yet to come,
of course) against idolatry (Lewis 1942, 121). Adam, in being
"seduced" by Eve, partakes of the same sin, according to this
view. At this moment, however, he doesn't want just a beauti
ful woman. He has become attached to Eve, and desires her
and no one else. Without admitting it, God takes advantage of
Adam's disobedience to accomplish something God both wants
and doesn't want, the maturation and necessary separation of
his children from him. He also knows that freedom cannot be
given, but only taken.

To apply attachment-based motivational theory seriously,
we need an interpretation of the oedipal situation different
from the one based solely on the son's wish to overthrow the
father, with a consequent fear of castration. The late Donald
Kaplan (personal communication) felt that although the same
characters (mother, father, and son) were involved, the oedipal
drama was one of competing attachments. The son loves both
his mother and his father and understands that to enact his
desire for the former would be at the expense of the latter.

Thus, the struggle is not between love of mother and fear of
father's punishment, but between desire for the one and loyalty
to the other. Adam, in this situation, loves both God and Eve
and realizes he is unable to be close to both simultaneously.
The key issue is not disobedience but Adam's separation from
God and his desire to remain close to Eve, whom he is now
acutely afraid of losing.
From the theological point of view, everything Adam says
that causes him to fall must be condemned as weakness, even by
himself, so his joining of Eve means that he has been seduced
by her or driven by his own sexual impulses. Understanding
oedipal dynamics in terms of competing attachments permits
us to see Adam's choice of Eve as at once an overthrow of

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parental authority and as an exercise of conscience based on

an interpersonal standard. From the developmental point of
view, Adam has shown courage in siding with her rather than
remaining permanently attached to his father.
Eve doesn't trick Adam. He is always attracted to her, but
not seduced sexually at this moment. Deeply in love, he makes
an affirmative decision to preserve his most important human
attachment:
for with thee
Certain my resolution is to Die;

How can I live without thee, how forgo
Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly join'd,
To live again in these wild Woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no, no. (IX.906-913)
Adam has made a phase-appropriate transition from fam

ily of origin to spouse, from a life based on abstract religious
ideals (the renunciate) to one based on a relationship with a
particular person (the householder). This reading resolves the
inconsistency between Milton's apparent emphasis on hierarchy
in the poem and his known position on the purpose of mar
riage. In his treatise The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643),
Milton was one of the first to articulate that marriage should
be governed by affection rather than by religious law. In that
essay, he argues very strongly against the "canonical tyranny" by
which "laws are imposed even against the venerable and secret
power of nature's impression, to love" (703). The relationship
finally attained here by Adam and Eve should not be viewed as
the sinful product of her pride and his uxoriousness; it is the
model for our current ideal of companionate marriage.
Adam's decision to eat the fruit can also be read in terms
of Ghent's distinction (1990) between "submission" and "sur
render." From this relational standpoint, had Adam obeyed
God, this would have been to "submit," and hence defensively
to acquire a false self. It would have meant, in Ghent's words,
to "lose oneself in the power of the other" (115). Conversely,
to remain loyal to Eve is to "surrender" to the wish to maintain

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attachment to another person, to know and be known, where

surrender is defined as "transcendence, liberation . . . with the
ultimate direction being the discovery of one's own identity"
(HI).2
As soon as they both have eaten, Adam and Eve go from
being in an arranged marriage overseen by God as Patriarch to
a companionate marriage based on love between the spouses.
To seal this new type of relationship, they are consumed with
lust. They've had sex before, a lot of it, so much that Eve felt it
was keeping them from their gardening. That sex, however, was
tender and took place in a bower God had especially prepared
for them (IV.691). It occurred only after they had offered God
prayers of thanksgiving (IV.735). This new sex is different. It is
hot, just between them, and deeply pleasurable. With their father
the sponsor of sex, the generational boundaries were blurred.
He was figuratively in their bed with them. Now, however, Adam
and Eve do not thank God. They are interested only in each
other. Having sex in this manner enacts the break with the
older generation and seals the bond within the younger one.
In effect, lust may be inherently transgressive because it is so
separate from God (and parents).
After sex, Adam and Eve fall asleep and then awaken as
if with bad hangovers. They share another young adult experi
ence—realizing that even lust cannot permanently erase intense
feelings of loss, guilt, and alienation. Each wakes up facing
last night's partner without the intoxicating benefit of intense
desire. In their ashamed state they can't get their clothes on
fast enough. They are slowed by the fact that they first have to
invent the concept of clothes and then sew them themselves
(IX.1120). They gain each other, but maturation has its price.
Adam has lost his close relationship with God and Eve with
God in Adam.
Although getting new clothes to make one feel better is a

strategy used by many young (and not so young) adults, it isn't
enough on this occasion. Pained by this loss, they begin an off
target quarrel. Adam blames Eve for not heeding his warnings,
"I know not whence possessed thee" (IX. 1137). Trying to shift
responsibility to Adam, the authority whom she resisted just the
day before, Eve replies that if Adam had really wanted her to
stay—if he had been a "real man"—he should have insisted on

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it: "why didst not thou, the Head,/ Command me absolutely not
to go?" (IX. 1155-56). Adam becomes angry and casts himself
as a victim to escalate the argument with a bitter generalization
about the need for men to dominate women:
Thus it shall befall
Him who to worth in Woman overtrusting

Lets her Will rule. (IX. 1182-84)
The lovers have spiraled out of control, and Milton's time

less relevance is apparent when the narrator ends Book IX by
describing the rest of an interaction that is all too familiar to
any marital therapist:
Thus they in mutual accusation spent

The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning,
And of their vain contést appeared no end.
(IX. 1187-89)
God's Collusion
Family systems theory (Minuchin and Nichols 1998) would

not see the separation between Adam and God as caused uni
laterally, that is, by only one member of the family. If there is
evidence that God omitted actions that would have helped to
prevent the Fall, or committed some that ensured it, a family
therapist would infer that the ensuing separation and conflict
were events involving collusion between all the participants. In
this way, systems theory has a leveling effect by distributing re
sponsibility for outcomes. Such an interactional view of causation
again brings it into conflict with the theological reader's view
of Paradise Lost, which holds God blameless and makes Adam
and Eve, tempted by Satan, solely responsible for their catas
trophe. A. O. Lovejoy (1937), however, does find considerable
support for God's collusion, dating back to St. Ambrose in the
fourth century. As Lovejoy writes, "if (from the point of view of
Ambrose and Gregory) the Fall was preponderatingly a good,
was it not necessary to assume that its outcome must after all
have been in accordance with God's will?" (173).

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God's abdication of supervision serves a developmental

purpose by fostering the independence in his grown children
that is an essential component of mature love. But it inadver
tently colludes with the disobedience of the couple (Empson
1961, 112-16). Their disobedience has weighty symbolic,
mythological, and theological implications, but as a literal act
it isn't too heinous. Even if the fruit is a consciousness-altering
drug, a one-time experiment doesn't usually hurt anyone, not
even the user. Viewed this way, it begins to look as though the
parent really saw the necessity for the children to leave home,
but was too ambivalent or tender-hearted to say so explicitly. It
appears as though God set a rule and "warned" Adam to keep
it in a way that would preserve God's own "deniability." He then
permitted the rule to be broken and appropriated this single
infraction as the justification for a separation he knew to be
necessary. God, in this sense, forces both his own maturation
as a parent and that of his children.
God does not simply make a decree and enforce it as he did
with his elder "child," Satan. He muses about Adam's inner life,
ensures Adam's ability to choose, and mentally prepares him
self for Adam's disobedience. He makes his law less draconian,
justifying his lenience (III.129-32) by distinguishing between
degrees of culpability: those who disobey on their own (Satan
and other fallen angels) are more at fault than those who are
tempted by others to disobey (Adam and Eve). This differen
tial treatment of older and younger children is a widespread,
though usually unintentional, parental practice.
Christ shows appreciation for the advent of this new paren
tal behavior and aids God's flexibility. Instead of resorting to
punishment as his only alternative, God can now grant grace.
As Christ says, "O Father, gracious was that word which clos'd /
Thy Sovran sentence, that Man should find grace" (III.144-45).
God proposes a psychic compromise for himself. He does not
overturn his arbitrary regulation, but asks heaven for a volun
teer to take Adam's punishment for him: "Some other able,
and as willing, pay / The rigid satisfaction, death for death"
(III.211-12). Tellingly, none of the angels takes God up on his
offer: "He ask'd, but all the Heavn'ly Choir stood mute, / And
silence was in Heav'n" (III.217-18). But Christ steps forward:

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Behold me then, mee for him, life for life

I offer, on me let thine anger fall;
Account mee man. (III.236-38)
Christ's offer serves at least two purposes in the heavenly

family system. It helps God to save face. God doesn't have to ap
pear weak, but he also doesn't have to destroy Adam, for whom
he has considerable affection. Christ may wish to enhance his
reputation with his "siblings" by finding a role as something
other than God's enforcer. Christ is not only specified by God as
the angels' superior (surely this must have seemed like nepotism,
even to loyal followers), but he makes it unnecessary for any
of them to volunteer for the sacrifice. In this way, Christ earns
the respect of the sibling subgroup, and the angels are suitably
grateful: "Admiration seiz'd / All Heav'n" (111.271-72).
God, with essential cooperation from his progeny, becomes
a more compassionate parent. From the theological point of
view, of course, God is eternally compassionate and unchang
ing. The drama of the poem, however, points to an interaction
among several members of God's family to bring about this
reconciliation. Christ develops his own role still further when
he intercedes for Adam and Eve, presenting to God a case for
leniency toward them (XI.22-44). He leaves their penalty of
death in place but transforms it into an occasion for Adam
and Eve (and all redeemed sinners) to merge with God: "All
my redeem'd may dwell in joy and bliss, / Made one with me
as I with thee am one" (XI.43-44). Such "at-one-ment" is the
"being at one again" that Loewald (1980), explicitly referring to
the expulsion from the Garden, describes as part of a healthy
oedipal resolution. As he puts it, "guilt and atonement are
crucial motivational aspects of the self' (394).
After receiving their punishment from their parent, Adam
and Eve have a conversation in which they develop a more
mature viewpoint. Instead of making choices in relation to
obedience to God, they begin to make them in relation to
how they treat each other. At first Adam blames Eve, and she is
contrite. She rejects her formerly idealized mentor, Satan. This
disillusionment with a mentor is another common maturational
step in young adulthood. In despair, she offers to take God's
punishment for both of them, then suggests remaining child

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less to deprive death of future victims (X.989), then proposes

suicide (X.1002). Adam stops blaming her and argues against
her desperate proposals. He suggests that by continuing to live
they and their descendants might be able to take revenge on
Satan. More importantly, he comes to view God's "curses" as
rather lenient:
to thee
Pains only in Child-bearing were foretold

And bringing forth, soon recompensed with joy,
Fruit of thy Womb; On mee the Curse aslope
Glanced on the ground, with labor I must earn
My bread; what harm? Idleness had been worse.
(X. 1050-55)
What the parent had "condemned" them to is, in fact, no more

than what the reader knows as the reality of adult life: having
sex can have serious consequences, and having to work for a
living is hard. Of course, to call these aspects of life "reality"
is, in theological terms, to assume a fallen perspective. The
theological critics believe that sin and its vicissitudes were,
at least in principle, avoidable. But to engage in speculation
about what might have been is not particularly helpful when
one has to deal with the challenges of daily life. Rather than
focusing on whether their parent likes their behavior or not,
the children mature.
God tries to soften the starkness of Adam and Eve's fate by
several means. First, he has the archangel Michael give Adam
the equivalent of a liberal arts education. Michael permits Adam
to look forward in time to see the history of the future world.
Coeducation is not yet an option, so Eve is put to sleep during
Adam's college years. Being humbled, Adam is more receptive
to God's lesson, which is now presented as gritty human real
ism, not the fantastic spectacle of the War in Heaven. Adam can
recognize himself in these scenes. This cinema vérité clarifies what
death actually is. This time the archangel-produced show is no
video game. Adam sees one man approach another:
And as they talk'd,

Smote him in the Midriff with a stone

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That beat out life; he fell, and deadly pale

Groan'd out his Soul with gushing blood effused.
(XI.444-47)
An especially deep horror resides in this first death. When Mi

chael explains to Adam that he has just prophetically beheld the
killing of one of his sons by the other, Adam begins to get it:
But have I now seen Death? Is this the way

I must return to native dust? O sight
Of terror, foul and ugly to behold,
Horrid to think, how horrible to feel! (XI.462-65)
This insight is characteristic of the end of young adulthood, the

realization that one's resources are not infinite. At the onset
of adolescence, one thinks oneself immortal. By its close, the

prospect of death, even for oneself, has had its sobering effect.
While Adam and Eve's getting of children leads to strife and
murder, it is also presented by Michael as an antidote to death.
Their progeny are traced forward to Abraham, then through
the House of David to Christ the Messiah, who promises resur
rection and peace (XI. 150-385). Conjugal union is seen as the
way to regain immortality.
Marriage is the resolution of young adulthood for many
couples who take the route of householders. It can also be
seen as a way to return to their religious ideals. Couples hope
that the dreams they have for themselves (to resolve conflicts,
to love and be loved, to be successful in work, even to be im
mortal) may be realized in their children. They pair off, in
Slater's interpretation (1966) of Bion's last phase. Each child
is greeted as a possible Messiah, a wish that at once motivates
parental care and imposes heavy expectations on the progeny
(135, 191).
Adam's vision of his own descendants as the means by which
Christ will live among men raises his spirits:
Greatly instructed I shall hence depart. . . .

Henceforth I learn, that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God, to walk
As in his presence. (XII.557, 561-63)

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This reconciliation is different from what was possible for Sa

tan, partly because Adam always felt more genuinely attached
to God (not having such a narcissistic constitution), but partly
because God treated him so much more tenderly when he did
disobey. God did condemn Adam to death, but not right away.
Instead, God has provided him with excellent parental substi
tutes, the teaching archangels. He also furnished an intercessor
in Christ, who opens a path for atonement. Adam's statement,
"to obey is best," is not the result of having been beaten down
by God, the "submission" that Satan rejects. It partakes rather
of Ghent's "surrender." Adam has acquired what Roy Schäfer
(1960) views as the precipitate of a successful oedipal resolu
tion, the "loving and beloved superego," and aspires to obey
it. His new conscience has internalized God's ability to create
and maintain order, and he uses it to tolerate separateness, no
longer needing to be with the parent, but able "to walk / Ai in
his presence."
There is theological and critical precedent for seeing what
initially appears to be a moral catastrophe as good fortune. After
being shown Christ's life, death, and resurrection by Michael,
Adam wonders whether he should "repent" or "rejoice" because
his sinful action inadvertently stimulated Christ's redemptive
sacrifice for the whole human race (XII.473-78). In his classic
article, Lovejoy (1937) referred to this conundrum as "the para
dox of the Fortunate Fall." The combination of disobedience
and family connectedness played out in the Fall is arduous but
necessary for development. Painful separation leads to moral,
physical, and psychological self-reliance.
According to Michael's exposition, it is the function of the
Holy Spirit to serve as a "Comforter" (XII.486), which becomes
a metaphor for internalization of parental care and values in the
form of a mature conscience: "The promise of the Father, who
shall dwell / His Spirit within them" (487-98). The internaliza
tion of the divine Parent as a moral ideal and a guide through
one's own physically independent existence signals the end of
young adulthood. The angel sees Adam's acquired wisdom as
something that will make leaving Paradise easier. Here is the
final evidence for the argument that Milton's God eventually
became a parent who not only delivered punishment but encour
aged growth. His agent details the rigorous positive behaviors

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necessary for happiness and then presents leaving Eden not as

a terrible loss, but as an achievement, even an improvement.
Eden is now carried within the individual:
then wilt thou not be loath
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess

A paradise within thee, happier far. (XII.585-87)
While Michael directs attention to personal ideals, Eve,

characteristically, makes leaving home bearable by referring to
her attachment to Adam:
With thee to go,

Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling. (XII.615-17)
The young adults, transformed from children supported by a

powerful parent into householders making their way with each
other, are soon out the door:
Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon;

The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow;
Through Eden took thir solitary way. (XII.645-49)
It may be too simple to say that Adam and Eve choose

love over law. Perhaps the title of this paper should have been
"From Law to Conscience." Parental "laws" can be a way of lov
ing children, and obeying them can be a child's way of showing
love. Even love itself is not without its restraints or "laws." But
viewing Paradise Lost as a story of shifting attachments within a
family during a particular phase of development, rather than
as a story of two individuals' disobedience to God, permits a
more comprehensive view of the multiple ways in which each
character changes.
The developmental stage begins by God's thoughtlessly im
posing a new hierarchy in heaven with the begetting of a new and
favored son and demanding that all the angels obey him. Satan
reacts by creating a permanent rift in the family. God proves

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to be more nurturing to his next creations, Adam and Eve. He

avoids more disruption by giving them lower status and power
and isolating them in Paradise. This isolation enables them to
begin to become "householders" by forming an attachment to
each other. His withdrawal from them in the garden challenges
Eve to develop her own approach to life, and she leads Adam
toward differentiation and self-reliance.
All the characters are helped either directly or indirectly

by Satan's ruthless assertion of freedom. Even though Satan,
driven to renounce relationships in favor of his ideals, has his
own agenda and is eventually rejected by Eve, he performs a
service for the family group by helping them toward freedom,
God's precondition for love. Satan is the only character who
has gone to Hell and back for this purpose. Eve's encounter
with his dark vision forces her to contemplate despair as she
realizes how alone she is.
Adam and Eve's story is not one of moral failure, but of

moral growth. Adam accepts the idea that he would rather be
with Eve than be "good" in an abstract sense. He thus matures
from blindly obeying a law he never understands (nor is ad
equately helped by his parent to understand) to an internalized
morality based on love of a peer, loyalty, and responsibility for
one's own actions. God, who has staged this drama, matures as
a parent from being harsh and dictatorial to being firm and
supportive. While at first simply peremptory, God eventually
supports Adam with an education that helps him interpret his
own life. God permits himself to be left when Adam forms a
real relationship with another of his generation. Satan is not
able to triumph over God, but he is triumphant in expressing
himself. He powerfully asserts his freedom beyond the bonds of
love, and the price that he must pay is lonely misery. Milton's
version of the first episode of Young Adulthood comes to an
end as man and woman leave the protected state of childhood
and step into the stream of time.
Postdoctoral Programs in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
Adelphi University
Garden Citty, NY 11530
rhfulmer@mindspring. com

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Notes
1. All citations from Milton's works will be to the edition of Hughes (1957), with
book and line numbers of Paradise Lost given parenthetically in the text.
2. For a recent application of Ghent's categories to an analysis of the Eden story, see
Aron (2005). Aron contrasts Erich Fromm's emphasis on Adam and Eve's freedom
to rebel with Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's insistence on the need to overcome urges
for omniscience. Aron notes that whereas for Fromm submission is masochistic,
for Soloveitchik it is a way of staying in "communion with the source of being"
(699). Trying to retain the potency of both Fromm's autonomy and Soloveitchik's
communion, Aron observes, "One person's submission is another person's sur
render!" (701). See also Louise Kaplan's pertinent description of adolescence
as the opportunity "to remodel the archaic conscience, which is constituted of
the residues of the infantile love dialogues—watchful eyes, prohibiting voices,
demands for perfection," culminating in "the taming of the ideals by which a
person measures herself" (1984, 111).
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From Law To Love: Young Adulthood in Milton's "Paradise Lost"

Author(s): RICHARD H. FULMER

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26305292

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From Law To Love:

Young Adulthood in Milton's Paradise Lost

Milton's Paradise Lost (1674) is usually read as a moral tale,

Peter Rudnytsky played an essential role in guiding my reading of Milton criticism

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The prolonged dispute between those readers who have

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theological treatise, De doctrina Christiana (1643), was found in

a psychoanalytic framework by Erik Erikson (1963) and from a

The moral sense is an essential component of the human

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A larger shift in the fields of psychoanalysis and family

Moral Catastrophe or Normal Experience?

From the theological point of view, the Fall refers to man's

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the arc of Young Adulthood and to the stories of the characters

As a high-status angel in Heaven, Satan begins by being

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God Elevates Christ as a Leader

The Family Life Cycle is marked by entrances (birth,

him who disobeys

As an example of parenting, this behavior is remarkably

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members of a loving family based on emotional connections,

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Such a conscience is not available to Satan, as it will be later

a distance from Satan, using the latter's rebellion to reach his

The Mentor as a Transitional Figure

A central conflict of young adulthood is between the ac

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Not Your Parents' Religion

Young adulthood is a time of intense religious seeking.

Transgression as a Way of Life

Satan's existence as a figure who expresses themes of young

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lion and consequent independence have brought loneliness,

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is his individual initiative, a brave deed that brings him (albeit

Renunciates and Householders

The young adult must negotiate a path between polar op

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Parents' Dilemma: To Protect or Allow Freedom?

Watching Satan wing his way toward Earth, God engages in

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happiness, who can enjoy alone, / Or all enjoying, what content

What call'st thou solitude? is not the Earth

With various living creatures, and the Air

Eve begins by worshiping Adam. Her feelings exemplify a

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Giver of all things fair, but fairest this

Adam begins by seeing Eve as a reflection of himself. He then

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time. Eve is unafraid, however, and argues for differentiation,

If this be our condition, thus to dwell

In upholding the principle of separation, Eve most re

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moves toward valuing freedom and the relationship with her

The Denial of Createdness

Both Satan and Adam feel daunted when they think of