media journal entry #5

Recently I re-read John Milton's "Paradise Lost" for a Survey of British Literature class. I must ask myself how much of the bible creates our common archetype for Adam and Eve's original sin and how many components of the archetype can be attributed to Milton for this piece. Milton's epic poem portrays the story of the devil's fall from heaven, humanity's first original sin, and highlights the esteemed garden of Eden. Reading this piece critically and especially keeping in mind the power of the media in regard to forming individual perceptions of life, "Paradise Lost" emphasizes patriarchal social values, along with values associated with free will humanity's god-fearing tendencies. The piece also serves to highlight in many ways the mentality of the United States as the land of the free mirroring the garden and humanity's present fall from this garden of freedom, or in general humanity's fall from a garden of Eden paradigm for existence post the presence of fearing God, as emphasized by Milton.
Eve's temptation highlights her superficial beauty and takes advantage of her yearning curiosity. Eve's quest for fruit from the tree of knowledge and her humility and loss of innocence following tasting the fruit imply a woman-based blame for sin. Eve's action is seeking knowledge to cure her own ignorance and by allowing knowledge into the garden, Eve has fallen and is banned. The brings to question our present notions of what is sinful. Milton's story creates the binary of knowledge vs. ignorance/innocence and Eve's decision provides the common notion that innocence and blind following are in some way more chaste than seeking truth. This may in ways be the foundation for so many individuals' stubborn diligence in keeping to beliefs of creationism and fundamental Christianity. Knowing God and fending curiosity seems more important and esteemed than pushing the mind and yearning for knowledge in this sense.
The story of Adam and Eve has many other layers worth examining in "Paradise Lost" such as justice, mortality, and vanity. In terms of this entry it is more so just worth noting the roles and values of individuals in literary pieces widely circulated and observing how people mirror the media, in this sense literature. Meaning is always based on one's reading of a text or acceptance of given media and when reading texts even texts elevated past the merit of traditional authors such as the Bible, we must always remember to keep a critical mind. Even if the criticism entails contradicting values instilled in what we're critique. Kudos to Milton's Eve for seeking knowledge and standing up, past her angel-on-his-shoulder, sheep-like counterpart Adam.