Beloved Summary ( M.A Eng. 3rd sem)

Beloved Summary

In 1873, Sethe and her daughter Denver live in 124, a house in a rural area close to Cincinatti. They are ostracized from the community for Sethe's past and her pride. Eighteen years have passed since she escaped from slavery at a farm called Sweet Home. Sweet Home was run by a cruel man known as schoolteacher, who allowed his nephews to brutalize Sethe while he took notes for his scientific studies of blacks. Sethe fled, although she was pregnant, delivering the child along the way with help from a white woman named Amy. Sethe's husband, who was supposed to accompany her, disappeared. After her escape to Cincinatti with her four children, Sethe enjoyed only twenty-eight days of freedom before she was tracked down by her old master. Rather than allow her children to be returned to slavery, she attempted to kill all of them, succeeding only in killing the baby girl. Rejected then by her master, who saw she was no longer fit to serve, Sethe was also saved from hanging and was released to raise her remaining three children at 124. The ghost of the dead baby began to haunt the house. The two sons, Howard and Buglar, left after having particularly frightening encounters with the ghost. The grandmother, Baby Suggs, died a broken woman. Baby Suggs had been a great positive force in Cincinatti's black community, regarded by many as an inspiring holy woman. After what happened to Sethe, she gave up her preaching and retired to bed, asking only for scraps of color. Years after her death, Denver and Sethe continue to live in the house alone. Sethe works as a cook, and Denver spends her days alone. Denver is terribly lonely but is also afraid to leave the yard‹even though she is eighteen years old.

In 1873, two visitors come to 124. The first is Paul D, a man who was a slave with Sethe back at Sweet Home. Paul D, like Sethe, is haunted by the pain of the past. He witnessed and suffered unspeakable atrocities before the end of the Civil War brought him his freedom, and he has survived by not allowing himself to have strong feelings for anything or anyone. He has particularly dark memories of time spent in a prison for blacks, where he worked in a chain gang by day and was kept in a box in the ground at night.

The second visitor is a girl namedBeloved. It gradually becomes clear that she is the ghost of the dead baby come back to life, at the age that the baby would have been had it lived. Awkward, unable to speak like an adult, and dressed in strange clothes, Beloved seems vulnerable at first but proves to be powerful and malicious. Her purposes initially seem benign and are never fully understood, but by the end of the novel her presence is deeply destructive for the living people of 124.

Paul D becomes Sethe's lover, staying for a time despite friction between him and the two young girls. Beloved despises him, and she tries to divide Sethe from Paul D. Paul D eventually leaves when he learns that Sethe murdered her own child. Sethe, on discovering Beloved's identity, believes she has been given a second chance. She tries to make amends for the past, but the girl's needs are devouring. The ghost does not forgive Sethe for her actions. Beloved settles into the house like a parasite, growing ever stronger as Sethe grows weaker. Sethe's sanity begins to unravel, and Beloved only grows more demanding. Denver is forced to go to the community for help.

A group of women, led by Ella, a former agent of the Underground Railroad, go to 124 to exorcise Beloved's ghost. The ghost is forced to leave, but Sethe's spirit has been nearly broken. Paul D returns to her, vowing to help Sethe heal herself. Denver, Paul D, and Sethe will build a new life, one in which they learn to deal with their painful past while focusing on the future.

Beloved is a haunting and dark novel, full of gothic elements and acts of terrible violence. The ghost represents the power of the legacy of slavery, which continues to trouble Sethe eighteen years after she won her freedom. Beloved is the spirit of the dead baby returned but she is also an embodiment of all suffering under slavery; her memory extends back to the slave ships that first carried blacks to the Americas. The question of the rightness of Sethe's terrible act is a difficult one‹moreover, it is a question that the novel does not attempt to answer in a definitive way. Morrison is more concerned that we understand why Sethe did what she did, as well as the ways that her decision has haunted her ever since. The novel effectively conveys the brutality and dehumanization that occurred under slavery, putting Sethe's act in context without necessarily condemning it or excusing it.

The structure is fragmentary, closely tied to the consciousness of each character and weaving suddenly between past and future. More time is spent describing past events than the action of the current moment, reinforcing the idea of the past lingering and shaping life in the present. The novel is often repetitive, telling the same stories of the past again and again, giving more information with each repetition. All of the characters of the novel, former slaves and the children of former slaves, suffer a troubled relationship to their own past. Their relationships to their past often make it impossible for them to live for the present or plan for the future, and slavery has often damaged the ways that they experience love and think about their own worth as human beings.

About Beloved ( M.A Eng. 3rd sem)

About Beloved

Beloved is Toni Morrison's fifth novel. Published in 1987 as Morrison was enjoying increasing popularity and success, Beloved became a best seller and received the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Its reception by critics was overwhelming, and the book is widely considered Morrison's greatest novel to date.

Mythic in scope, Beloved is an attempt to grapple with the legacy of slavery. Morrison based her novel on a real-life incident, in which an escaped slave woman who faced recapture killed her children rather than allow them to be taken back into slavery. In the novel, the protagonist's near-recapture follows the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, part of the Compromise of 1850, which stated that escaped slaves, as property, could be tracked down across state lines and retrieved by their old masters.

In Beloved, Morrison explores themes of love, family, and self-possession in a world where slavery has only recently become a thing of the past. Beloved is the ghost of Sethe's murdered child, returned for unclear reasons, embodied as a full-grown woman at the age that the baby would have been had it lived. Part history, part ghost story, part historical fiction, the novel also seek to understand the impact of slavery, both on the psychology of individuals and on the larger patterns of culture and history. Morrison was drawn to the historical account, which brought up questions of what it meant to love and to be a mother in a place and time where life was often devalued. The novel powerfully portrays the meanings of what it means to be owned by another and the difficulty of owning oneself.

Beloved also presents a powerful account of the foundation of black America. The memories of the characters?even the strange, supernatural race-memory of Beloved?extend back no farther than the beginnings of American slavery. The institution of slavery destroyed much of the heritage of the Africans brought to the Americas; the novel partially recounts the creation of a new people and culture, a people displaced and forced to forge a new identity in the face of brutality and dehumanization. Fragmentary in structure and written with great psychological intimacy, the book also continues with Morrison's narrative experiments that began with The Bluest Eye and have continued throughout her career. In 1998 it was adapted for a film starring Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey. The film met mixed critical response and was a box office failure, a testament, at least, to the uniquely literary qualities of the novel.

Character List ( M.A Eng. 3rd sem)

Character List

Sethe

Born on a distant plantation that she barely remembers, Sethe is the child of an African-born slave woman whose name she never knew. As a young teenager she was brought to Sweet Home, where she took a man named Halle Suggs for her husband. She had four children, pregnant with the fourth when she fled Sweet Home on foot and alone. When schoolteacher, the brutal master at Sweet Home, tracked her down, Sethe attempted to kill her children rather than see them returned to slavery. Sethe has a troubled relationship with her own past, often not willing to speak about it but obsessively reliving it in her own head. She has a mass of scars on her back that resemble a tree.

Beloved

Beloved is the ghost of Sethe's third child, murdered to protect her from schoolteacher. Her real name is never known. She is the embodiment not only of the baby's ghost but also the legacy of slavery. She represents the power of the past to intrude into the present.

Paul D

Paul D was one of the Sweet Home men. He has also suffered horribly, and has reacted by shutting away any deep feelings. He shows up at 124 and tries to make a life with Sethe. He is powerless against Beloved, who seduces him as a way of controlling him and dividing him from her mother. After nearly twenty years of freedom, he is still unsure of the source of his manhood and his humanity.

Denver

Sethe's daughter. She is the grown up daughter of Sethe who was born during Sethe's flight to the North. Denver is eighteen years old and terribly lonely. She has not left the yard of 124 by herself for twelve years. She has a possessive need for Beloved, and initially will do anything to please her. But she is also a very dynamic character; by the end of the novel, she is transformed into a strong and independent young woman with a new understanding of her mother.

Baby Suggs

Halle Suggs mother and Sethe's mother-in-law. Halle bought her freedom, which she accepted because she saw how much it meant to him. She did not expect how much it would mean to her, feeling while still a slave that she was too old to enjoy freedom anyway. But freedom transformed Baby Suggs, giving her a new understanding of what it meant to be alive and transforming her into a kind of holy woman for Cincinatti's black community. Sethe's tragedy, however, broke Baby Suggs' spirit, and she spent her last days bed-ridden and somber.

Halle Suggs

Halle Suggs was Sethe's husband and the father of all of her children. Halle vanished at the time when he was supposed to flee to the North with Sethe; later, it is discovered that he witnessed Sethe's brutalization at the hands of schoolteacher and his nephews. When Paul D last saw Halle, he had gone insane.

Schoolteacher

Mr. Garner's brother-in-law. Schoolteacher was a cruel and sadistic master, interested in ways to break the wills of his slaves. He conducted a pseudo-scientific study of the slaves, treating them in his study the way a biologist treats lab animals. His nephews held Sethe down and stole her milk while schoolteacher took notes. When it was discovered that Sethe told Mrs. Garner what they had done, schoolteacher had one of his nephews whip Sethe, giving her the distinctive scars on her back.

Amy Denver

A former indentured servant, Amy helped Sethe to escape to the North, saving Sethe's life and helping to deliver her baby. Amy was trying to get to Boston so she could buy carmine colored velvet. Sethe's daughter Denver is named after her.

Howard and Buglar

Sethe's sons and her two older children, she tried and failed to kill them when schoolteacher came. The two boys fled years ago after particularly frightening encounters with the ghost. Sethe has recurring dreams of her boys walking away from her, unable to hear her as she calls for them to come back.

Mr. Garner

The old master of Sweet Home, Mr. Garner was generous by the standards of slave owners, and insisted that his slaves were the only male slaves in Kentucky who were real men. His "enlightened" slavery, however, proves to be a sham after his death and was full of contradictions and hypocrisy even in his life.

Mrs. Garner

Mr. Garner's sickly wife. She brought schoolteacher to Sweet Home after Mr. Garner's death. She spent the last months of her life bed-ridden and very ill.

Sixo

One of the slaves at Sweet Home, Sixo was one of the planners behind their flight to the North. He regularly visited a woman who lived thirty miles away, dubbed the Thirty-Mile woman. He was close to Paul D during the time of Sweet Home, but was killed during their escape attempt.

Paul A, Paul F

The brothers of Paul D. All three brothers were at Sweet Home for most of their lives, until Paul F was sold and Paul A died during the escape.

Ella

A woman who was an agent on the Underground Railroad. She took Sethe on the final leg of her flight to the North. When Ella was a girl, she was shared by a white man and his son. After Sethe killed her child, Ella becomes one of her harshest critics. Later, she softens her opinion, and organizes the woman to go and exorcise Beloved from 124.

Stamp Paid

Born with the name of Joshua, Stamp Paid changed his name after his wife was taken to the bed of their master's owner. Stamp felt he had paid all of life's debts in that year. Stamp worked as an agent for the Underground Railroad for many years. When schoolteacher came for Sethe, it was Stamp who saved Denver's life. He is a friend to the family and also to Paul D.

Lady Jones

Lady Jones teaches the black children of Cincinatti how to read and write. She is mixed-race, with yellow hair that she despises. She was once Denver's teacher. When Denver flees 124 looking for help, she turns to Lady Jones.

Nan

Nan was the one-armed woman who nursed children back at the plantation where Sethe was born. Sethe has more memories of Nan than of her own mother.

Janey

Servant to the Bodwins. She spreads the story of Beloved's return through the black community. She was working for the Bodwins when Baby Suggs first arrived, and she is still working for them when Denver is looking for work decades later.

Edward Bodwin and Miss Bodwin

Brother and sister, they are former abolitionists and try to be helpful to the black community. They own 124, which they allowed Baby Suggs and her family to use. Edward Bodwin witnesses the exorcism of Beloved.

Short Summary of Beloved ( M.A Eng. 3rd sem)

How It All Goes Down

Sethe, a former slave, lives in Cincinnati with her daughter, Denver, and her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs. She's been ostracized from her community because, about 15 years before our story begins, she did the unthinkable: she killed one of her own children. There was a good reason for it, of course—if child-killing can ever be justified. See, Sethe was trying to keep her children from slave catchers.

Time passes. Baby Suggs dies. That leaves Denver all alone (she's got two brothers, Howard and Bugler, but they ran off years ago). Oh: there is onecreature still around the house. It's a ghost. That's right, folks—124 Bluestone is haunted. Furniture gets thrown around the house; people get moved. Sethe doesn't seem to mind too much though. She's got a good job as a cook, and she's got her daughter. Things are about as good (or as bad) as they're ever going to be.

That's when Paul D Garner shows up. Paul D lived with Sethe at Sweet Home, the plantation where they both were enslaved. He remembers just about everything in Sethe's past—her husband Halle, their former masters, all the bad stuff that went on at the plantation. When Paul D comes around, Sethe feels like she can finally open up. As you might expect, Paul D and Sethe end up in bed together. It's not just a fling either; they become a couple.

Denver's not that wild about the new man in their life. That's why, when a strange woman shows up on the doorstep of 124 Bluestone Road, Denver's excited. The woman says that her name is Beloved, which is totally freaky since "Beloved" is what Sethe had carved on the tombstone of her dead baby. That's not the only coincidence either. Beloved seems to know things about Sethe that no one should know. Sethe lets Beloved stay because she thinks Denver needs a friend; plus, Sethe can't shake the idea that this Beloved might actually be her little Beloved, back from the dead and grown. Denver wants Beloved to stay because she's always wanted an older sister. Paul D's the only one who's not so sure about Beloved, but it's not like he can do anything about it; he doesn't own the house.

Once Beloved is part of the household, things start to change. Denver will do anything to please her. Beloved, however, only wants what Sethe has. You can guess what happens next right? Cue: "Bizarre Love Triangle." Beloved ends up seducing Paul D. We told you she was trouble.

But that's not what splits up Paul D and Sethe. Stamp Paid, an old friendof the family, tells Paul D about how Sethe killed her daughter and went to jail. Paul D can't believe it. When he confronts Sethe, they get in a huge fight. Paul D leaves. Sethe couldn't care less—all she cares about is Beloved.

Here's when things get even uglier. Now that Paul D is out of the picture, Beloved's got the girls all to herself. Sethe and Denver give her everything they have—but Beloved wants more. Pretty soon Denver realizes that Beloved only wants Sethe. Sethe, in turn, gets fired from her job and, thus, spends all of her time with Beloved. Pretty soon there's no food in the house.

Denver suddenly realizes that they're all going to die unless she steps up and does something. She hasn't left 124 Bluestone in years—not since when she used to go to school—but she finally screws up the courage to leave the house and ask for help.

Surprisingly, all of the townspeople who once scorned Sethe and Denver now pour out their help. They give Denver food and hook her up with a new job. She's able to buy food for her mother and Beloved, who is now pregnant (we told you things get uglier!). When the neighbors ask about Sethe, Denver gets evasive, but eventually the neighbors figure out that Beloved is "haunting" Sethe. So they decide to do something about it.

The women of the town perform an exorcism. While that's going on, the white man who happens to be Denver's employer drives by the house to pick up Denver. Sethe snaps: she sees the slave catchers coming to take her children again and runs at the man with an ice pick.

That's where things get blurry. No one can say exactly what happens, but Sethe is safe, the white man is safe—and Beloved is gone.

Eventually Paul D returns to 124 and makes up with Sethe. Denver's happy in her new life out in the community. And Beloved? That's still a mystery.

In A Nutshell

You might need to sit down for this one.

A mother slits her baby girl's throat because she has this deranged idea that she's saving her daughter from a fate worse than death. Sounds likeone of those crazy mothers who ends up on the evening news, right? Close. It's actually a true story: back in 1856, a runaway slave named Margaret Garner killed one of her kids—a two-year-old girl—with a butcher knife, in order to keep her away from slave catchers. She would have killed her other children and herself, too, but she was caught before she could complete the deed.

And there you have the starting point for Beloved. Yep—this is one of those "based on a true story" books. But since the author is none other than the esteemed, Nobel Prize-winning Toni Morrison, you better believe that the book is way more than that story.

So here's what you absolutely need to know about Beloved. The book is about a slave woman, Sethe, who—before the book even begins—kills her baby girl in order to keep her away from slave catchers. That baby girl, called Beloved, ends up haunting the house in which Sethe and her youngest child Denver live. And by "haunt," we don't mean some limp, pale ghost hanging out in the corner who occasionally says "Boo!" This girl ain't no Casper. She throws stuff around like a second coming ofPoltergeist. And then some. Like come-back-from-the-dead, possess-you-like-a-demon haunting.

But Beloved isn't really a horror story. It's more like a Great American Novel. In fact, when it was first published in 1987, it sealed Toni Morrison's reputation as one of the hottest new novelists of the decade—if not the century. The novel was so popular that it won the Pulitzer Prize in '87. We're guessing that the book also played a pretty big part in the decision to award Morrison the Nobel Prize just a few years later (1993 to be exact). As far as book awards go, that's a clean sweep.

Beloved is a story about America's relationship with slavery, but it's also a story about rebirth and redemption for those who seem irredeemable. Grand, right? Well, that's just how Toni Morrison rolls.

Biography of Toni Morrison ( M.A Eng 3rd sem)

Here we present the biography of Toni Morrison, the first black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, she also has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction

Chloe Anthony Wofford was born February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio (a northern community located near Lake Erie) as what was to be the second of four children of George Wofford and Ramah Willis Wofford. Her parents had moved to Ohio from the South to escape racism and to find better opportunities in the North. George found employment as a shipyard welder, but often worked three jobs in order support his family. He was a hardworking and dignified man who took a great deal of pride in the quality of his work, so that each time he welded a perfect seam he'd also weld his name onto the side of the ship. He also made sure to be well-dressed, even during the Depression. Her mother was a church-going woman and she sang in the choir. At home, Chloe heard many songs and tales of Southern black folklore. The Woffords were proud of their heritage.

Lorain was a small industrial town populated with immigrant Europeans, Mexicans and Southern blacks who lived next to each other. Chloe attended an integrated school. In her first grade, she was the only black student in her class and the only one who could read. She was friends with many of her white schoolmates and did not encounter discrimination until she started dating.

From her father, Chloe gained a Marcus Garvey-like perspective on whites, one that left her with a distrust for them all. She readily admits: "My father was a racist. As a child in Georgia, he received shocking impressions of adult white people, and for the rest of his life felt he was justified in despising all whites, and that they were not justified in despising him."

Chloe hoped one day to become a dancer like her favorite ballerina, Maria Tallchief, and she also loved to read. Her early favorites were the Russian writers Tolstoy and Dostoyevski, French author Gustave Flaubert and English novelist Jane Austen. She was an excellent student and she graduated with honors from Lorain High School in 1949.

Chloe Wofford then attended, with the financial aid of her parents, the prestigious Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she majored in English with a minor in classics. Since many people couldn't pronounce her first name correctly, she changed it to Toni, a shortened version of her middle name. She joined a repertory company, the Howard University Players, with whom she made several tours of the South. She saw firsthand the life of the blacks there, the life her parents had escaped by moving north. Toni Wofford graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. She then attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and received a master's degree in 1955.

After graduating, Toni Wofford was offered a job at Texas Southern University in Houston, where she taught introductory English. Unlike Howard University, where black culture was neglected or minimized, at Texas Southern they "always had Negro history week" and introduced to her the idea of black culture as a discipline rather than just personal family reminiscences. In 1957 she returned to Howard University as a member of faculty and there she met Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect she married in 1958. This was a time of civil rights movement and she met several people who were later active in the struggle. She met the poet Amiri Baraka (at that time called LeRoi Jones) and Andrew Young (who later worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, and later still, became a mayor of Atlanta, Georgia). One of her students was Stokely Carmichael, who then became a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Another of her students, Claude Brown, wrote Manchild in the Promised Land (1965) a classic of African-American literature.

The Morrison's first son, Harold Ford, was born in 1961. Toni continued teaching while helping take care of her family. She also joined a small writer's group as a temporary escape from an unhappy married life. She needed company of other people who appreciated literature as much as she did. Each member was required to bring a story or poem for discussion. One week, having nothing to bring, she quickly wrote a story loosely based on a girl she knew in childhood Loraine who had prayed to God for blue eyes. The story was well-received by the group and then Toni put it away thinking she was done with it. Her marriage deteriorated, and while pregnant with their second child she left her husband, left her job at the university, and took her son on a trip to Europe. Later, she divorced her husband and returned to her parents' house in Lorain with her two sons.

In the fall of 1964 Morrison obtained a job with a textbook subsidiary of Random House in Syracuse, New York as an associate editor. Her hope was to be transferred downstate soon to New York City. While working all day, her sons were taken care of by the housekeeper and in the evening Morrison cooked dinner and played with the boys until their bedtime. When her sons were asleep, she started writing. She dusted off the story she had written for the writer's group and decided to make it into a novel. She drew on her memories from childhood and expanded them with her imagination so that the characters developed a life of their own. She found writing exciting and challenging. Other than parenting, she found everything else boring by comparison.

In 1967 she was transferred to New York and became a senior editor at Random House. While editing books by prominent black Americans like Muhammad Ali, Andrew Young and Angela Davis, she was busy sending her own novel to various publishers. The Bluest Eye (1970), is a novel of initiation concerning a victimized adolescent black girl who is obsessed by white standards of beauty and longs to have blue eyes. The book received enormous critical acclaim for a first book even though it was not commercially successful. From 1971-1972 Morrison was the associate professor of English at the State University of New York at Purchase while she continued working at Random House. In addition, she soon started writing her second novel where she focused on a friendship between two adult black women. Sula (1973), examinining (among other issues) the dynamics of friendship and the expectations for conformity within the community, became an alternate selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club. Excerpts were published in the Redbook magazine and it was nominated for the 1975 National Book Award in fiction.

From 1976-1977, she was a visiting lecturer at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. She was also writing her third novel. This time she focused on strong black male characters. Her insight into male world came from watching her sons. Morrison' third novel Song of Solomon (1977) is told by a male narrator in search of his identity. It won the National Book Critic's Circle Award and theAmerican Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award. Morrison was also appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Council on the Arts. In 1981 she published her fourth novel, Tar Baby, set on a Caribbean island, explores conflicts of race, class, and sex, and is the first time she describes interaction between black and white characters. Her picture appeared on the cover of the March 30, 1981 issue of Newsweek magazine.

In 1983, Morrison left her position at Random House, having worked there for almost twenty years. In 1984 she was named the Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at the State University of New York in Albany. While living in Albany, she started writing her first play, Dreaming Emmett. It was based on the true story of Emmett Till, a black teenager killed by racist whites in 1955 after being accused of whistling at a white woman. The play premiered January 4, 1986 at the Marketplace Theater in Albany. Morrison's next novel, Beloved, was influenced by a published story about a slave, Margaret Garner, who in 1851 escaped with her children to Ohio from, her master in Kentucky. When she was about to be re-captured, she tried to kill her children rather than return them to life of slavery. Only one of her children died and Margaret was imprisoned for her deed. She refused to show remorse, saying she was "unwilling to have her children suffer as she had done." Beloved was published in 1987 and was a bestseller. In 1988 it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

In 1987, Toni Morrison was named the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of Humanities at Princeton University. She became the first black woman writer to hold a named chair at an Ivy League University. While accepting, Morrison said, "I take teaching as seriously as I do my writing." She taught creative writing and also took part in the African-American studies, American studies and women's studies programs. She also started her sixth novel, Jazz, about life in the 1920's. Morrison has suggested that the Beloved andJazz (1992) are the first and second books, respectively, in a planned trilogy. A work of criticism, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, also was published in 1992.

In 1993, Toni Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was the eighth woman and the first black woman to do so. Her seventh and most recent novel, Paradise was published early in 1998.

Summary of Paradise LostBook 1 ( M.A Eng. 1st sem)

Invocation and introduction of theme (1-26)

It is characteristic of a classical epic that the poet invokes the aid of his patron muse. Milton marries his Christian theme and neo-classical method by invoking, as his muse, the Holy Spirit, third Person of the Trinity. This section is a prayer, in which Milton states his subject, and asks for divine assistance in giving voice to it. Milton states that his purpose is to:

“Assert eternal providence And
justify the ways of God to men.”

Note that this section contains only two sentences. The main verb, in the first, is thethirty-ninth word in the sentence. The various indirect objects of the verb “sing” reflect the magnitude of the poem's subject and its author's task: “disobedience...Death…woe...loss of Eden...one greater Man.”

Satan's revolt (27-83)

Note how easily Milton moves from prayer into an account of Satan's fall, by asking who or what caused man to fall. According to Milton, Satan's motive was to be above his peers. The expulsion of Satan from Heaven is depicted more fully in Book 6 (his revolt, partly, in Book 5) of Paradise Lost.

Satan is cast out of Heaven, together with his “horrid crew”. Nine days they lie on a lake of fire, then regain consciousness to find themselves in Hell.

Satan's speech to Beelzebub (84-127)

Satan acknowledges how utterly his confederate, Beelzebub, has been changed, for the worse, by the devils' defeat, but stresses fact that they are still united in their fall. He recognises God's superior strength, but points out that he now knows the extent of God's power, previously unknown because untried. Despite the change they have outwardly undergone, Satan stresses the unchanged nature of his attitude to God's Son, “the potent Victor”. “All is not lost” because Satan will never submit freely to God's authority. Satan suggests that God's rule was endangered by his revolt, that he will never sink to the indignity of asking forgiveness, and outlines his intention of conducting further warfare against God. Satan's speech smacks of wishful thinking; he speaks boastfully, but at the same time tortured by pain and profound despair.

Beelzebub's reply and Satan's second speech (128-191)

Beelzebub acknowledges Satan's trial of God's might, bewails loss of Heaven, and the punishment the fallen angels are suffering, though this will not be alleviated by death. He suggests that God has deliberately left devils their strength, to be His slaves, carrying out “his errands in the gloomy deep” of Hell.

Satan replies that the devils' task must be never to do anything good, but always to strive to pervert to evil ends whatever God does, turning to evil His good actions. Satan suggests leaving the lake of fire in which they lie, and reassembling their forces.

Note Satan's resolution and his taking the initiative. As the poem continues we also note Beelzebub's support of Satan, his ready agreement with all he says - Beelzebub is very shrewd: he makes sure he defers to his superior. Milton gives some account here of the topography of Hell.

Satan's and Beelzebub's quitting the lake of fire (192-282)

Satan and Beelzebub leave the lake of fire and fly to land. Milton compares Satan with the sea-monster, Leviathan, and stresses the fact that it is only with God's permission that the devils quit the lake. Satan acknowledges the horrible nature of Hell, but argues that, for him, to be in Heaven would be Hell (being subservient to God) and it is better to reign where he is than serve in Heaven. Beelzebub repeats Satan's suggestion, advising him to call to other angels, who will be revived by sound of their leader's voice.

Satan rallies his subjects (283-621)

Satan, “the superior fiend”, goes to the edge of the burning lake and calls to his legions who are lying inert on its surface. Note his sarcastic humour: he asks, in effect, “Are you having a rest? Have you chosen to lie in the lake as a way of adoring God (by readily bowing to His will)?”

The devils, waking, stir themselves, fly up into air, and assemble around Satan The chief devils are named and described:

• Moloch (crude, warlike, blustering);
• Chemos (associated with sensual, orgiastic demon worship, idolatry);
• Astarte (a female equivalent of Chemos);
• Thammuz (a fertility god, believed to die and rise to life every year; associated with rebirth of vegetation);
• Dagon (god of the Philistines, referred to in the Biblical books of Judges and 1 Samuel);
• Rimmon (referred to in the Biblical book of 2 Kings);
• Osiris, Isis, Orus (gods of Egyptian mythology), and
• Belial (a deceitful, lustful and lewd god).

The devil host assembles in military fashion. The devils move forward, and come to a halt ready for inspection by Satan. Milton describes the martial prowess and glory they retain despite their fall, and notes how moved Satan is by this display of loyalty.

Note that Moloch and Belial reappear in Book 2, where they are more interestingly portrayed as speakers in the great debate.

Satan's speech to the devils (622-669)

Satan opens his address to his followers by praising them, claiming that none save the Almighty could have matched their strength. He claims that it is hard to believe the fallen angels will not re-ascend to Heaven, and regain their rightful position. Satan blames God for apparently holding His position by “repute” and the ready submission of the angels, while concealing His true strength, and thereby tempting the followers of Satan to rebel.

Satan mentions the rumour, heard in Heaven, of the creation of a new world, and suggests the idea of exploring it, as “celestial spirits” will never be held in bondage by the “infernal pit” of Hell. Satan finishes by insisting that war of some kind “must be resolved”. As he concludes his speech, the devils affirm their loyalty, striking their shields with their swords, “hurling defiance” at Heaven.

Note how Satan flatters his legions - he persuades them they can still thwart God's designs and that Hell cannot hold them. He hints at war, but leaves it till later to determine what kind of conflict this will be. This prepares us for the great debate of Book 2.

The building of Pandemonium (670-798)Utilising the natural mineral wealth of Hell, the devils, under the guidance of the materialist Mammon, construct a great council chamber. This is Pandemonium (“All devil place” or “place of all devils” ). Satan's heralds proclaim a solemn assembly to be held in Pandemonium, and the devils scale themselves down in size, till they are small enough to be “at large” in the hall. (“At large” means having enough space in which to move freely - but Milton puns on the expression) The chief devils, however, retain their full dimensions, and the “great consult” begins.

Note the pictorial and vividly realistic description of building operations (mining, founding and so on), which gives a sense of Hell as a real place.