That Which Purifies us is Contraries

Making the Irrational Choice in Milton’s Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes

Matthew KwongEnglish 416

11/19/12

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The power to choose is an important part of John Milton’s work.

Characters created by Milton are often forced to make difficult choices;

readers of his work are also presented with multiple choices, whether it is

how to interpret a particular word or how to understand his ideas as a

whole. In the same way that God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to make

their own choices, so too does Milton give his readers the ability to make

choices by constructing his works in such a way that it can support multiple

readings, all of which are potentially correct. Allowing the freedom to

choose consequently means that the mechanisms of making a choice are

also present, as Milton remarks of Adam in the Areopagitica: “when God

gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but

choosing” (Milton, Areopagitica 252). Therefore to Milton reason is akin to

making a choice, with the act of choosing being an exercise of reason; yet if

reason is practiced by making choices, this still leaves open the question of

whether choices must be governed solely by reason. For there are many

instances in both Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes where choices are

made independent of reason, where the decision made appears irrational,

illogical and contrary to common sense. These apparently unreasonable

choices are an important part of Miltonic reasoning in Paradise Lost and

Samson Agonistes, for they showcase the other forces behind human choice.

That Paradise Lost would contain content which defies reason is not

readily apparent at first glance. The poem is meant to be a “great

argument” (Milton, Paradise Lost 1.24) which will attempt to do “things

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unattempted yet in prose or rhyme” (Lost 1.16). An argument necessitates

the use of proof and evidence, which takes the form of a connected series of

statements or reasons intended to establish a position (OED); hence

Milton’s purpose for Paradise Lost is to make an argument that has yet to

be attempted, through the use of reason, proof and evidence. Specifically

this argument is meant to “justify the ways of God to men” (Milton, Lost

1.26) which would again imply that Milton intends to use reason to prove, or

“justify”, the correctness of God’s actions. Yet the grand scale of the project

Milton has decided to undertake – a miniscule human being arguing on

behalf of his omnipotent creator – also raises a fundamental objection to

Paradise Lost: notwithstanding his claims of being a prophet of God, how

could Milton possibly understand the ways of God, let alone justify them to

others? After all, Milton himself states in Christian Doctrine that “God, as

he really is, is far beyond man’s imagination, let alone his understanding”

(Milton, Doctrine); it would appear that if God is beyond mortal

comprehension than certainly he would not need reason nor justification for

his actions. Furthermore, to justify an action means that the act in question

could potentially be construed as wrong and requires arguments to support

it (Bryson, Evil 92) – does Milton see the need to “justify the ways of God to

men” because he believes God to be less than perfect in his benevolence, a

belief which is blasphemous in itself? Thus Milton’s own choice to pen his

“great argument” can be seen as contradictory to reason because it is

humanly impossible to apply reasons to God. Yet this does not necessarily

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mean that the argument of Paradise Lost is invalid. To reconcile these

contradictions in Milton’s argument it is important to recognize two aspects

of Paradise Lost: the justifying of God’s actions does not have to be through

reason – hence Milton is not overstepping mortal boundaries by trying to

apply human reasons to the divine – and Milton is only creating a

representation of God, without assumptions of the God in Paradise Lost

being one and the same with the divine God – thus a humanly imagined God

can legitimately be understood by humans, with any criticisms of this

representation of God having no direct bearing on the divine God itself (and

is therefore not blasphemous).

In Book III of Paradise Lost God himself feels the need to justify his

creation of man. He claims that man was made free, with whatever

repercussions that would entail – free to stand but also free to fall (3.99).

Freedom is a major component of God’s justification, in that man was made

with the capacity to choose independently of God:

When will and reason (reason also is choice)

Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled,

Made passive both, had served necessity,

Not me. They therefore as to right belonged,

So were created (3.108-112)

Thus the exercise of will and reason is reliant on the presence of freedom.

Should will and reason not be free they would both be made “passive” and

cease to function; actions and reason driven by anything other than

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themselves would be a service of necessity and would therefore not be an

appropriate obedience to God (Walker 147). God specifies directly that

“reason also is choice”, in an echo of Milton’s phrase in Areopagitica that

“reason is but choosing” (252). Hence the obedience that God requires is

that which is freely chosen, through an exercise of both will and reason

(Walker 148). Implicit in God’s justification of himself is that he cannot

make man free without giving them the freedom to disobey; a Hobson’s

choice whereby man has freedom to obey God but not the freedom to

disobey would also qualify as serving “necessity”, in that man literally has

no choice but to obey. Yet to make man free to disobey also means

accepting that man can and will disobey. True freedom means accepting

man in its entirety, both in their potential to stand but also to fall; the

choice to be free necessarily entails an act of tolerance, whereby we must

choose to accept that others may not make decisions or have viewpoints

that we agree with. To tamper with freedom – in the case of God, to make

humanity incapable of disobeying – would be the end of freedom.

This principle is exemplified when Satan comes to the gates of Hell in

Book II and finds his progeny Sin in possession of the only key which can

open the gates. A reasonable person may ask why God would lock Satan

into Hell but leave the key within Satan’s reach, in the possession of Sin

who is clearly disloyal to God. As Sin herself states “But what owe I to his

commands above who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down” (2.856-

857). She has no reason to listen to God’s commands, having been thrust

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down into the depths of Hell; thus it may appear unreasonable for God to

entrust the key of Hell’s gates to the one being he knows he cannot trust,

but arguably that is the point. Satan must be given the means of escaping –

the key and lock on his side of the gates – because to do otherwise would be

to force his captivity and obedience to God’s wishes. Whether God desires

him to remain in hell or not is beside the point; God desires free obedience

and therefore Satan must be allowed the choice of whether he will remain

in hell or not. Denying Satan the ability to choose would be to violate God’s

own principles of creating man free.

Ironically the same concept governing God’s entrusting of Hell’s key

to Sin can also be applied to the fall of man in Book IX, whereby Eve eats

the forbidden fruit against God’s direct commands. Though many critics

have questioned why God would banish Satan to hell but leave him with the

means of escaping, interestingly the parallel concept of having a forbidden

tree in the Garden of Eden has not received similar scrutiny. Why would

God create forbidden fruit in Eden, if its only purpose is to allow Adam and

Eve the means of disobeying? One possible answer is the aforementioned

principle of freedom, whereby God must give Adam and Eve the means of

disobeying in order for them to prove their obedience. Yet Satan and Sin

also differ from Adam and Eve in that the former have fallen while the latter

have not; presumably God would be more concerned with protecting Adam

and Eve from falling and would therefore provide reasons as to why they

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should not eat the fruit. Inexplicably however no reasons are given for

God`s command, and Eve remarks as such:

But of this tree we may not taste nor touch;

God so commanded, and left that command

Sole daughter of his voice; the rest, we live

Law to our selves, our reason is our law. (9.651-654)

God left his command as “the sole daughter of his voice” because he never

explained to Adam and Eve why this particular tree out of all the other trees

in the garden is forbidden. Thus Adam and Eve’s actions in regards to the

forbidden tree are essentially devoid of reason because they only have

God’s commands to rely on. For everything else in the Garden of Eden

besides the forbidden tree Adam and Eve “live law to our selves” in that

“our reason is our law”. As previously mentioned reason is the same as

choice, meaning that Adam and Eve’s choices are the law; specifically law is

representative of outside restriction on choice, and since Adam and Eve’s

choices govern law they are essentially devoid of restriction. The forbidden

fruit is the only exception since God has imposed a law upon their choices

and is therefore the only case in which Adam and Eve’s reason is not the

law (Fish 254). Adam and Eve are expected to abstain from eating the

forbidden fruit merely because God told them to do so; the arbitrariness of

the command is itself the point, meaning that Adam and Eve are supposed

to demonstrate their belief rather than reason in choosing God (Fish 270).

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Belief in Miltonic terms is the stage of understanding which is above

and beyond reason, whereby individuals are supposed to use reason to

evaluate all the evidence available but ultimately make the choice which

leads to God, even if God is not the most well-reasoned (Pallister 80-82).

The choosing of God despite evidence and reason serves as a demonstration

of the individual’s belief. While this may sound obtuse – indeed belief can

never be wrong since the absence of reason means it is impossible to

disprove it – there are nonetheless times when choices must made through

belief rather than reason. Consider the contemporary example of comic

book heroes: in the first Spider-Man movie Peter Parker gains his powers as

Spider-Man and naturally uses his powers for good. Already there is an

exercise of belief – Parker does not choose good over evil because of any

particular reasons either way, but rather out of the belief that doing good is

right. Unfortunately the citizens do not take kindly to Spider-Man and shun

him irrespective of his good deeds, leading to Spider-Man’s nemesis Green

Goblin attempting to persuade Parker to team up with him as a villain.

Green Goblin has ample reasons for Parker to turn evil: if Spider-Man is

going to be hated by the citizenry anyway, why should he not benefit from

his powers? Parker refuses the offer but does not refute Green Goblin’s

reasons, stating only that “it is the right thing to do”. This is an exercise of

belief: the fact that doing good “is the right thing to do” cannot be proven,

cannot be supported by evidence and is independent of reason. In contrast

doing evil can be reasoned and proven; the money gained from robbing

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banks and the angry newspaper articles citizens write about Spider-Man are

all evidence in support of doing evil and can be quantified and measured.

Yet Parker chooses the less well-reasoned choice out of belief, the choice he

believes is correct. Hence the choice between good and evil is one of belief

and extends beyond the comic book to encompass society in general.

Conscience is a form of belief and everyday people make choices based on it

– if they did not robberies would be everywhere and no one would pay for

anything, because there are reasons in favor of not paying but no reasons in

favor of paying. Adam and Eve lacked sufficient belief to choose God

regardless of reason and thus fell; likewise our own society can fall if we do

not exercise belief in our choices.

The character of Dalilah in Samson Agonistes has proven to be deeply

perplexing to critics. Readers who are aware of her depiction in the bible

would recognize her as treacherous prostitute, who sold out Samson to the

Philistines and indirectly caused his death. Her representation in the bible

leaves little doubt as to her motives, since it explicitly states that Samson

was literally sold out for gold. In Milton’s version of the bible story however

he reworks Samson Agonistes to allow readers to choose; whereas the bible

account does not allow reader’s a choice on how to perceive Dalilah by

directly presenting her motives, Milton is more ambiguous about her

character. Samson Agonistes does not retell the entire bible story of

Samson but rather begins after Samson has been captured by the

Philistines and put in prison. Hence it is not a coincidence that the epic

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begins after Dalilah’s betrayal has happened; by carefully choosing to

exclude her actual betrayal, Milton prevents readers from making an easy

judgement of Dalilah based on her treachery. What he does present readers

with is a dichotomy, of Samson portraying Dalilah as a “monster” (230) and

a “traitress” (725) juxtaposed with her actual appearance within the epic as

a repentant and loving wife. Thus Milton has set up the framework for an

argument regarding Dalilah’s character, with two competing and equally

relevant viewpoints that the reader will use to pass judgement on her. To

judge also means to choose, and by allowing readers the ability to judge

Milton is also prompting them to choose whether Dalilah is sincere or not.

Once Dalilah comes to seek the forgiveness of Samson, their exchange

is akin to an argument. Dalilah enters the epic dressed in luxurious

garments: “that so bedecked, ornate, and gay, Comes this way sailing Like a

stately ship” (712-714). To be gay means to be happy, meaning that her

“gay” dress is unbefitting of a mourning woman seeking forgiveness and

does not seem to fit her purpose of extracting pity from Samson.

Furthermore Samson would not able to see her dress anyway since he is

blind; hence her real purpose in dressing glamorously is not to impress

Samson but rather the reader who will be judging her, cementing the

reader’s role as a judge for Dailah. She employs an emotional argument in

trying to justify her actions:

And what if love, which thou interpret’st hate,

The jealousy of love, powerful of sway

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In human hearts, nor less in mine towards thee,

Caused what I did? I saw thee mutable

Of fancy, feared lest one day thou wouldst leave me (790-794)

Dalilah’s argument is intriguing in that she argues her actions were

motivated not by a lack of love, but too much love. She rebuts Samson’s

allegation that she betrayed him out of hate – a lack of love – and instead

claims was moved to act by love “powerful of sway in human hearts”, love

which consumed her heart and was too great to resist. This “powerful” love

is jealousy and her line about “the jealousy of love” can thus be interpreted

in multiple ways. Dalilah is referring to the jealousy which results from

loving Samson too much but also the jealousy of love, whereby Dalilah is

jealous of Samson’s love and whether it may be bestowed upon somebody

else. Therefore her statement that “I saw thee mutable Of fancy, feared lest

one day thou wouldst leave me” serves to frame Dalilah as a victim of

intense love and jealousy for Samson, but also to shed some of the blame on

him. Samson is portrayed as inconstant, with Dalilah’s insinuation being

that she only acted out of jealousy because she realized he is “mutable of

fancy” and prone to changing his affections.

Dalilah’s reasoning that she loved Samson too much is reminiscent of

the closing lines in Othello by William Shakespeare, whereby Othello states

he “loved not wisely but too well”. His love for Desdemona consumed him

with jealousy, which caused him to kill his own wife and commit suicide

once he realizes his folly; thus Dalilah’s argument has precedence among

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previous dramatic works. Furthermore both Othello and Samson Agonistes

are defined as tragedies, with Milton stating in the title that Samson

Agonistes is “of that sort of dramatic poem which is called tragedy”. As a

genre tragedies operate on the downfall of a character which is honorable

but flawed, and arguably both Samson and Dalilah fit this description. Just

like the title character of Othello, Dalilah “loved not wisely but too well”

because her love for Samson caused her to succumb to jealousy. Therefore

in naming his epic a tragedy Milton may be arguing that Dalilah is also a

tragic character. Milton’s version of Dalilah deviates from her bible

counterpart because she possesses well-meaning but detrimental love,

allowing readers to make the unreasonable choice: to look beyond her

betrayal of Samson and judge her not as a conniving schemer, but rather as

a tragic character that was honorable but also flawed.

In a departure from the bible Dalilah also argues that she was not

motivated by greed. She directly refutes the bible statement that she was

paid off by the Philistines: “It was not gold, as to my charge thou lay’st, that

wrought with me” (849-850). In stating so she emphasizes that her love is

not mercenary, or rather that her affections for Samson are not that which

can be superseded with gold. Her motivations are therefore more

intangible: she was “adjured by all the bonds of civil duty and of religion”

(853-854), until at last “to the public good private respects must yield” (867-

868). This means that Dalilah’s previous argument about acting out of love

for Samson is still valid; she did not betray him because she did not love

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him, but rather it was her “civil duty” and the “public good” which overrode

her love, whereupon her “private respects” of love must yield to the

common interest. Milton casts Dalilah as a parallel to his own life serving

the public good by supporting the English republic. Just like Dalilah Milton

often had to sacrifice his own interests for civil duty, so presumably he

would be supportive of Dalilah’s reasoning. The attempt to frame Dalilah as

a makeshift heroine who compromised her own good for everybody else’s

would be troubling to readers, since Dalilah is also a traitor. Yet what this

contradiction shows is that ultimately the difference between a heroine and

a villainess is a matter of perspective. To the Israelites and Samson Dalilah

is a villainess, but to the Philistines she is a selfless heroine who worked for

the common good. Samson Agonistes circumvents the narrow viewpoint

afforded of Dalilah in the bible by showing that she made a difficult and

selfless choice, by sacrificing her personal love for Samson and choosing the

public good over her own interests.

In contrast Samson’s heroism is harder to ascertain. Presumably he is

cast as the hero of Samson Agonistes because of his grand mission ordained

from birth, to “Israel from Philistian yoke deliver” (39); likewise the tragedy

is that he divulged the secret of his strength in a moment of weakness to

Dalilah – tragic characters have flaws – and is thus “himself in bonds under

Philistian yoke” (42) rather than delivering Israel from that yoke. Yet

Harapha raises an interesting argument against Samson’s heroism even

before he became blind:

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For hadst thou not committed

Notorious murder on those thirty men

At Ascalon, who never did thee harm,

Then like a robber stripp’dst them of their robes? (1185-1188)

Harapha labels Samson as a criminal, not a hero. He argues that Samson

committed “murder” on thirty men who had never done any wrong to him,

the insinuation being that Samson killed for the sake of killing rather than

for any justifiable cause. Nor did Samson stop at killing thirty men: he also

stripped them of their robes, an act which Harapha defines as robbery and a

symbol of Samson’s own corrupt morals. Samson replies that in a case of

national interests the use of force was justified: “my nation was subjected to

your lords. It was the force of conquest; force with force Is well ejected

when the conquered can” (1205-1207). The problem with his rebuttal

however is twofold. First he is unable to directly refute Harapha’s claim

that Samson targeted people who did not actually harm him; the argument

that violence was necessary because Samson’s nation was subjected by

Philistine lords broadens the conduct of a few lords to encompass the entire

Philistine population, exposing a weakness in Samson’s argument. This

practice of stereotyping a nation according to the conduct of an elite few is

common among war propaganda and lends credence to the idea that

Samson is representative of a terrorist or warmonger. Another issue is

apparent with his use of the word “conquest” and how “force with force is

well ejected”. The Philistines used force to conquer the Israelites and now

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Samson would use force to overthrow the Philistian yoke; though their

motivations are different in the end Samson is no different from his

Philistine enemies. Both insist on using force to accomplish their objectives,

but Samson has yet to realize that his goal of delivering Israel cannot be

accomplished by strength alone.

Ultimately the contradiction between Samson’s mission and his

methods is a symptom of a larger problem. The use of force to achieve

salvation is self-defeating because the very act of using force produces the

wrong virtues (Hill 364). By using force to overthrow the Philistines Samson

produces the same virtues of brutality and cruelty that the Philistines

produced in conquering Israel, which could be a reason why the Israelites

reject him as their saviour. For his part Samson believes that the fault lies

with the Israelites: “if their servile minds me their deliverer sent would not

receive, but to their masters gave me up for nought, the unworthier they”

(1213-1216). This establishes a parallel between Samson and Jesus,

whereby the Messiah was sent by God to deliver mankind from sin just as

Samson was sent as a “deliverer” for Israel. Likewise it is the duty of the

people to “receive” their saviour and both Jesus and Samson were rejected

by the Jews. The difference between them lies in how they respond to this

rejection. Whereas Jesus continued to work towards saving the Jews despite

their rejection of him, stating that they should not be blamed because “they

know not what they do”, Samson chalks up the Jew’s rejection of him as

proof of their “servile minds” and unworthiness. Both men are tasked with

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the deliverance of their people, but Jesus realizes that to deliver people

from sin means that “the true fight is fought first in the hearts of men” (Hill

364). Physical deliverance is not enough: Jesus could destroy all temptations

and even – theoretically – destroy the source of sin by eliminating Satan

himself, but that would not bring spiritual deliverance because he has not

won the fight within the hearts of men. Similarly Samson has the strength to

kill every single Philistine and thus provide physical deliverance for the

Israelites, but that would not turn his people away from Dagon and back to

God; in fact the Israelites hate him precisely because he tried to provide

physical deliverance, tying Samson up and handing him over to the

Philistines after Samson had killed a number of Philistine people. This

exemplifies the point that the use of force is self-defeating, whereupon

Samson’s victories in physical war also make him lose the spiritual war

within human hearts. To truly deliver the Israelites, Samson must choose to

move past the mindset of fighting force with force – a natural human

instinct to strike back when struck – and instead help the Israelites to make

their own choice of turning back to God.

Arguably Samson succeeds in delivering the Israelites by the end of

Samson Agonistes because he adopts the model of spiritual deliverance

favored by Jesus. Samson’s final act is to bring down a building on the

Philistines, killing himself and masses of other people in the process.

Whereas the bible version of the Samson story only describes the

consequences of this act in terms of how many people he killed, Milton’s

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version alludes to other possible outcomes besides killing people. Samson is

described as having completed his purpose: “Living or dying thou has

fulfilled the work for which thou wast foretold to Israel, and now li’st

victorious” (1661-1663). Though literally the “work” that Samson fulfilled is

the slaughtering of Philistines, the statement that he fulfilled “the work for

which thou wast foretold to Israel” is ambiguous enough to suggest that

since Samson was foretold by God to deliver the Israelites, what Samson

actually achieved was the deliverance of the Israeli people. Hence Samson

“li’st victorious” because in death he had completed God’s will. Exactly how

spiritual deliverance of the Israelites can result from Samson’s sacrifice is

unclear, but some hints are provided:

Find courage to lay hold on this occasion,

To himself and father’s house eternal fame;

And which is best and happiest yet, all this

With God not parted from him, as was feared,

But favouring and assisting to the end. (1716-1720)

By sacrificing himself Samson has assumed a messiah role to the Israeli

people. The line “to himself and father’s house eternal fame” does not

specify exactly who “himself” and “father” is; therefore it is possible that

Samson is being cast as the son of God, sitting beside the almighty father’s

throne. As the son of God Samson would be likened to Jesus, an

interpretation which is further supported by Samson’s identity as a Nazarite

– directly descended from God to deliver Israel at his behest. That Samson

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has gained “eternal fame” is an allusion to the glory which he tried to obtain

in life but was only able to achieve in death. By dying and renouncing all

glory Samson is heralded for his sacrifice because he no longer desires to

be glorified (Hill 364). Thus Samson becomes a hero precisely when he

stops wanting to be a hero; true heroism comes not from his killing of the

Philistines during life, but rather his self-sacrifice and self-denial in death

(Bryson, Evil 89). As an emulation of Jesus dying for humanity’s sins,

Samson has likewise died for the Israelites to save them from their sins.

There is also a suggestion that Samson’s sacrifice has done what he could

not do while he was alive, by winning the battle within people’s hearts and

turning the Israelites back to God. His death and subsequent killing of the

Philistines convinces the Israelites that God had not abandoned Samson,

but rather was “favouring and assisting to the end” (1719-1720). Again

Samson is likened to Jesus, in that just as the sacrifice of Jesus convinced

humanity of the benevolence of God, so too does the sacrifice of Samson

convince the Israelites that their God has not forsaken them. Thus his

ultimate victory comes internally rather than externally; deliverance of the

Israelites came not from his killing of the Philistines, but rather his own

choice to set aside his heroism and demonstrate the goodness of God

through self-sacrifice.

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Paradise Lost." Milton Quarterly (2002): 87-105.

—. "A Poem to the Unknown God: Samson Agonistes and Negative Theology." Milton Quarterly (2008): 22-43.

Fish, Stanley. Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost. London: Macmillan, 1997.

Hill, Christopher. Milton and the English Revolution. London: Faber, 1977. Book.

Milton, John. "Paradise Lost." Orgel, Stephen and Jonathan Goldberg. John Milton: The Major Works. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 356-618. Print.

Milton, John. "Samson Agonistes." Orgel, Stepen and Jonathan Goldberg. John Milton: The Major Works. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 671-715. Print.

Pallister, William. Between Worlds: The Rhetorical Universe of Paradise Lost. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Book.

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Walker, William. "Reason, Faith, Freedom in Paradise Lost." Studies in English Literature (2007): 143-159.