The Invisible Woman: Eve's Self Image in Paradise Lost.

Abstract

This article is a feminist, deconstructive analysis of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Taking the perspective of the story’s main female character—Eve—the article seeks to understand how gender affects interpretation and how Milton’s interpretation of the old biblical story hints at some of the problems of gender roles and “institutionalized misogyny” that are so much a part of our Western tradition. Milton’s Eve has been created from a man, subjected to his rule, and punished for her alleged inferiority. She has been placed in a world that is not her own, her intellectual powers limited, her ability to define herself and her world prevented. Hers is an existence defined by men, and this is a paper dedicated to understanding her perspective—the female perspective. Is she the foil that tradition says she is? Or is she the hero, the first great seeker of knowledge?