Analyse Adam Character: Discuss the character of Adam in Paradise Lost,


Though the character of Adam does look impotent for any great role when compared to the great war taking place in heaven as well as the grave resolves taken by the host of fallen angels in hell. By no means Adam could be compared to Satan neither in might nor in the great will and resolve; however, the character of Adam gains superiority over Satan only because he has humility and repentance, a path which Satan refuses to take.

However great the character of Satan may be in strength but Adam was endowed with foreknowledge and wisdom. He had the faculty to decide what course to take but he does not act when it was time to. God foretells Christ of Adam's fall with the words that he is capable of withstanding Satan's treachery but he will not:

"So will fall
Hee and his faithless Progenie: whose fault?
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall."


Both Adam and Satan are illustrations of free will granted by God. God reveals that He has given free will to all his creatures and whoever has withstood evil it is their own free choice and the fall is not predestined to anyone: "Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell." God relates that when His creatures use "Will and Reason" to their own advantage and "necessitie" not Him then they fall and cannot blame either Fate or predestination. Man cannot create either his making or his maker because he has been given the choice to decide according to his faculty but if he chooses to "trespass", he is only to blame himself in this act.

"I formd them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree
Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain'd
Thir freedom, they themselves ordain'd thir fall."

The character of Adam inspires reverence despite his failures and lose control of emotions because he is the one that subdues before God while he has been thrown out of heaven into world where there pain, misery and sorrow are to rule. He has been declared mortal that must die. But the repentance of Adam pleases God and He forgives Adam promising His grace for him:

"Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will,
Yet not of will in him, but grace in me"