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Among those familiar with the Judeo-Christian belief
system, Jesus is normally accepted as a selfless figure, one
who became human, suffered, and was put to death out
of divine love for humanity. In his portrayal of the Son of
God in Paradise Lost, John Milton does not necessarily
disagree with the devotion or love present in the Son. His
characterization of the Son does not oppose this tradition;
rather, it is simply different. By Milton’s portrayal, the Son
has an acute craving for attention, a desire for gory revenge
over Death, and an appetite for glory. Furthermore,
while the Son, after accepting the task of becoming mortal
and dying to save Adam’s descendants, receives plenty of
specific praise from his father (“ ‘thou... hast been found by
merit more than birthright Son of God’”(3.308-9)) and from
the narrator (“[he] breathed immortal love to mortal men”
(3.267-8)), he builds up the ramifications of his sacrifice
even more in his own language. Such language from the
Son comes across as not only grandiose, but even narcissistic
at times. The Son of God’s speech betrays narcissism not
only in its visual language (that is, the images depicted in
the speech), but also in its emphasis on drawing the attention
of the angels and future humans to himself.
The Father precipitates his Son’s not-quite-selfless
speech by musing before all the angels who might actually
undertake the doubtlessly miserable task of becoming
human, suffering, and dying for the sake of Adam and his
descendants. “ ‘Where shall we find such love,’” he wonders,“ ‘[where] in all heaven charity so dear?’” (3.213-6) The
implication of such language is that becoming mortal is
such a chore, such a sacrifice, that the Father must wonder
earnestly whether the ranks of angels contain someone
who would accept the challenge. That one exceptional individual,
of course, is the Son. His acceptance implies, then,
that his “love and charity” surpass that of any of the angels.
Perhaps to a Christian this is true, but for the Son to see so
readily in himself a previously impossible amount of love
(as the Father’s language suggests) is not a particularly
humble act.
It is possible, though, to see the Son’s narcissism as being
more apparent in the language he uses to accept his
responsibility than from the acceptance itself. As such, we
ought to examine that language: the manner in which the
Son accepts the challenge is even more loaded and selfreferential.
He makes mention to himself six times in three
lines of his acceptance speech (my italics):
Behold me, then, me for him, life for life
I offer, on me let thine anger fall;
Account me man; I for his [man’s] sake will leave
Thy bosom... (3.236-9)
In addition to mentioning himself repeatedly, the Son uses
a key phrase: “Behold me.” The first nine lines (3.227-35)
of his speech are about Grace’s speed and universality; as
soon as he mentions himself, however, his rhetoric changes,
describing the dread power of Death and how he plans
to vanquish Death. Grace, which comes from the Father,
seems to come quite naturally (“finds her way... unprevented,
unimplored, unsought” (3.229-31), while to crush
Death requires more of an effort “‘on me let Death wreak all
his rage... Death his death’s wound shall then receive, and
stoop inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed’” (3.241-54)).
Though the Father’s grace may save, the Son seems to say,
the real spectacle is the battle against death: “‘Behold me”’
The Son’s invitation to his Father and, by their presence, to
all the angels to watch him submit to death, only to ultimately
rise and crush it, does not seem like the invitation
of a humble individual. The Son is a figure who knows he is
about to do something terribly important, wants everyone
to see him carry it out, and wants to make sure everyone
knows it is he who indeed is carrying it out.
To discuss the idea of the Father’s grace saving humanity,
we ought to look at an even earlier dialogue in the epic.
The Father gives a lengthy speech about the fall of man
and the notion that grace will redeem humanity (3.93-134).
The Son responds, saying, “‘O Father, gracious was the word
which closed / thy sovereign sentence, that man should
find grace’” (3.144-5). Though this may seem like an innocent
compliment, it has deeper implications. The reader
knows perfectly well that humanity will ultimately find the
Father’s grace through the Son, and given the Son’s divinity
as well as his readiness to volunteer to minister that grace,
it could be argued that he already knows at this point
what his role is to be in the transferal of heavenly grace to
humans. The Son’s implication, then, is something more
like, “Gracious was the word that man should find grace in
me.” He can already be seen as building up the importance
of his role, even before officially accepting it. For those
with any doubts still about his self-aggrandizing intentions,
we can turn to the first line of his acceptance speech
(bracketed phrase based on my interpretation): “‘Father, thy
word is past; man shall find grace [in me]’” (3.228). Indeed,
with this perspective, even the Son’s introductory praise of
grace comes across as implicitly narcissistic, because the
Son tacitly refers to himself as the medium for that grace.
After accepting the role of sacrificial lamb, the Son continues on a more visualized (that is, image-rich), concrete
exploration of his task. First, he rails against Death, an image
that seems to truly repulse him. The Son says,
Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave
His [Death’s] prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul
For ever with corruption there to dwell;
But I shall rise victorious, and subdue
My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil (3.247-51).
The Son’s repulsion by the clutches of Death is akin to that
of the classic narcissist’s repulsion by the idea of old age or
deformity. The source of the Son’s narcissism lies in his soul,
though, rather than his body. “‘Unspotted’” as it is — and
as it ought to be perfectly known by all the angels that
the Son’s soul was unblemished, such mention of it comes
across as sheer boasting, a reminder to himself and those
within earshot that he is unspotted — he cannot tolerate
the thought of his soul being threatened. Rather than face
such a threat, his language lashes against Death, crushing
and ultimately vanquishing Death. If Death can threaten
his soul for even a little while, the Son implies, he will arrange
things so that Death will never have the pleasure of
taking another soul. This is where his language becomes
its most visual: he speaks of parading Death through hell
in his version of a Roman triumph (3.254-6). The grim
parade is the Son displaying for all to see his superiority
over death. He made a public display of his acceptance
of the cross, and he plans on making one more when he
vanquishes Death, this time parading past his foes instead.
Indeed, the Son’s glory is already known in heaven, and
once he is made human, it will be known on earth as well.
He naturally wants to demonstrate his glory in hell as well,
making the fallen angels behold him glorious as he invited
the “intact” angels to behold him pure and gracious.
It seems unlikely that the victory of good over evil would
pass unnoticed by any figure in the universe, but the Son
desires a public show to boot.
We can examine the Son’s description of this triumph
over Death even more deeply when we consider his
language as he tells of his return to heaven “ ‘with the
multitude of my redeemed’ “ (3.260). They are not simply “the redeemed;” they are the Son’s redeemed. Granted,
they would have been redeemed through grace from the
Father, but with the Son’s narcissistic leanings, they become
merely a function of himself (that is, the Son) and his
triumph.
Finally, we must discuss the Father’s reaction to the
Son’s triumph, in the Son’s words, and heaven’s reaction,
in the narrator’s words. The Son says, “ ‘Thou at the sight
pleased, out of heaven shalt look down and smile... Father,
to see thy face, wherein no cloud of anger shall remain,
but peace assured... in thy presence joy entire’” (3.256-65).
Here we see the Son imploring his Father for attention. He
wants his Father to “‘look down and smile”’ at his victory
and triumph over Death. He wishes to please his Father;
more specifically, he is fully confident that his actions will please his Father. There are, of course, implications that as
the Son is the only member of heaven with ample “‘love
and charity”’ to become human for the sake of humanity;
therefore, only he can fully please his Father in turn. The
Son already has his Father’s approval; therefore, it seems as
though he explains his future victory as soothing in order
to assert his own power, to remind himself and his Father
just how much good can come from him. The Son has
nothing to prove to himself or to his father; his language
serves only to re-assert himself to the angels (and, presum-
ably, to posterity). We can also look at the final phrase of
his speech, that his return will mean “‘in thy presence joy
entire”’ (3.265), which seems to say that the Son imagines
himself as being the key component to the Father’s happiness,
that only his return to heaven with the redeemed
would complete the Father’s vision. Perhaps this is true in
the context of Paradise Lost, but for the Son himself to say
so (rather than, say, the narrator) serves no purpose but to
boast of his own importance and high place in his Father’s
heart.
Lastly, we can look at the angels’ reaction to the Son’s acceptance speech. The narrator tells us that “admiration seized
all heaven”’ (3.271-2). The Son has, in that case, prompted the
reaction for which he had aimed. He wanted the admiration
and the attention. It is important to notice that, at this point,
such admiration is not for the Father’s grace or mercy but
rather for the Son, the bringer of said grace and mercy. The
Son has succeeded, then, in diverting the attention from the
message to the messenger. In true narcissistic fashion, he has
made it perfectly clear who the star of this production is.
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