Can One Envisage The Garden of Eden Without Eve?

Abstract

Milton’s Paradise Lost suggests that it is the woman, in the figure of Eve, who causes the fall of man. In addition, Eve plays a vital role in the loss of the Garden of Eden and everything related to it. To Milton’s mind, Adam was happy when he was alone in the Garden until Eve was created; and, by inference, all the problems began with her creation. Eve, a secondary and contingent creation, made from Adam, is commonly considered to be the source of sin and carnal temptation as the primary reasons of mankind’s fall from God’s favour. The Garden of Eden, the perfect place to live, was the first paradise granted to Adam by the Almighty; and his solitude was, in effect, a second paradise for him. My purpose in the present study is to discuss Eve’s seduction by the devilish Satan in Book IX of Paradise Lost when she is alone in the Garden. And the significance of the separation of the human pair that seems to be the catalyst for the fall of mankind is also taken into account. This tragic situation has a punishment as well as a reward for Adam and Eve. Their punishments are clearly stated in Genesis. But what concerns me here is the reward, especially the “reward” that is initiated by Eve: the fall from a state of “perfection” into a state of human reality, and it, interestingly, takes place within the framework of first Eve’s and then Adam’s crossing the boundaries dictated by God.