OCR AS and a Level English Literature Coleridge Delivery Gudie Learner Resource

Learner Resource 3

Relationships between men and women

Key concepts: Gender relations

Look at Lines 192- 384.

ln these lines Milton presents the only dialogue in book 9 where the pair are in their unfallen or prelapsarian state.
· In what ways do they seem innocent to you?
Explore the way Eve is presented here.
· How far is it significant that ‘Eve first to her husband thus began’?
Eve is first to suggest parting. ‘Let us divide our labours’.
· Do you see this as rebellious or adventurous?
· Can you think of other stories where women’s curiosity or desire for independence gets them into trouble?
· What do the examples you have thought of suggest about representations of women?
What do you think of Adam’s praise of Eve ‘nothing lovelier can be found/In woman, than to study household good,/ And good works in her husband to promote.’
· Is this an accurate analysis of Eve’s intentions?
· Is he naive or is he flattering her?
· What do you think of Adam’s warnings to her?
· Is he proven right later?
· He argues ‘The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,/Safest and seemliest by her husband stays.’ Later he allows her to go. What does this suggest about him?
· Is he weak or fair and reasonable in his treatment of Eve?
Look at the modes of address that Adam and Eve use about each other. For example Adam calls Eve ‘Sole Eve, associate sole,’ ‘Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve’. Eve calls Adam ‘Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth’s lord.
· Look for others and discuss what these modes of address reveal about the way they see each other.
Adam tells Eve ‘best are all things as the will/Of God ordained them’.
· Do you find it contradictory that he allows Eve to go?
· Do you find Eve’s words ‘With thy permission then’ ironic?
· Did Adam give consent?
· How do you see Milton’s presentation of the relationship between the sexes here?
· Do you feel Milton is blaming Eve for her individualistic desires?
· Do you feel he blames Adam for not arguing his point of view more forcefully?
Milton has developed the story extensively from the Genesis version.
· What does his retelling add to the story?
· How far do his changes reinforce the tragic elements in the narrative?
Extension work: Compare this section of dialogue in tone and atmosphere to the later dialogues between Adam and Eve. How has their relationship changed?
Extension work, A level: Compare Milton’s representation of gender relations with the way a dramatist presents relationships between the sexes.

John Milton Paradise Lost books 9 and 10