ENL 10A: Samson’s Captivity: A Reawakening of Purpose

Jolene Patricia Brown

ENL 10A: English Lit to 1700

19 November 2009

Samson’s Captivity: A Reawakening of Purpose

Milton explores the captivity of man in Samson Agonistes as more than the jail and slave labor that Samson must endure at the hands of the Philistines. Captivity is the fallen condition of man, Milton argues, as man is born with obstacles that must be overcome before he can reach his full potential as a servant of God, which turns out to be another form of captivity. The example of Samson, from the biblical book of Judges, allows Milton to write make this argument from the perspective of a man who was born with gifts bestowed on no other man by God. This is an important perspective from which to write because if a great man can be held captive by his own imperfection, then all men can. It is only through recognition of man’s potential failings that one can reach their full potential despite their post-lapsarian condition.

Samson is captive to the Philistines because he is chained, and forced to do slave labor. This is his most obvious form of captivity: forced physical labor. Samson is forced to slave for those people he was born to destroy, and by doing so is also forced to consider all his failings: “From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm / Of Hornets arm’d… / rush upon me thronging, and present / Times past, what once I was, and what am now” (19-22). For Samson, it is not the physical labor that is the worst part of the slavery. With nothing to do but work, he is forced to consider all his failings by his “restless thoughts” and he dissects his own fall from grace, which makes the physical work a form of “ease” from his thoughts (18). He comes to an important conclusion: that strength, though useful, is not immune to failure unless there is wisdom.

But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensome,
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall…
God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair. (53-55, 58-59)

Even his great gift of strength is a form of captivity for Samson because he did not have the wisdom to guard it properly. God endowed the strength with an inherent weakness by placing it in Samson’s hair thereby rendering Samson strong but not invincible. The captivity, therefore, is Samson’s false sense of security brought on by his lack of wisdom and overabundant strength which he does not realize until it is too late and he is physically captive to the Philistines: “Immeasurable strength they might behold / In me, of wisdom nothing more then mean; / This with the other should, at least, have paird, / These two proportion’d ill drove me transverse” (206-209).

The Philistines have also blinded him, depriving him of the light of the world and the light of God:

O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse then chains…
Light the prime work of God to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull’d, which might in part my grief have eas’d… (67-68, 70-72)

His blindness is a sensual captivity as Samson finds himself not only a slave to those he was intended to slay, but also without the guidance of his sight. It is sight that guides man in his daily life, without which one would wander hopelessly lost; without his sight Samson cannot make his way alone in the world. His blindness also implies he is without his God—another form of sight—as it is God who has, until now, guided Samson through his exploits against the Philistines. The sight that Samson has lost is multi-faceted: it is the physical sight in the world that allows him mobility and success in his battles against his enemies, but also the sight of God who has guided him in those battles. The loss of sight is a double-tragedy because he is deprived of a sensual pleasure and a spiritual pleasure, both of which are unbearable to Samson.

Before his captivity by the Philistines, Samson was captive to his passions as a man by allowing himself to be weakened by the love of a woman who is loyal to his enemy. Samson realizes he had fallen into service to woman, instead of in service to God when he states:

The base degree to which I am now fall’n,
these rags, this grinding, is not yet so base
As was my former servitude, ignoble,
Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,
True slavery, and that blindness worse then this,
That saw not how degenerately I serv’d. (414-419)

Both the physical captivity and the sensual captivity that he faces now in service to the Philistines is, he claims, better than his service to woman he paid before his fall. It is this captivity to woman that is another captivity that Samson is subject to, and another that he does not realize until he is already taken prisoner, betrayed by the woman he loved.

Though he ultimately takes responsibility for his own fall in admitting that “She [Delila] was not the prime cause” (234), he still laments his failing to identify her as a “specious Monster” and his “accomplisht snare” (230). The description of Delila as a “specious Monster” is especially telling, as the word specious, according to the OED, means “Having a fair or attractive appearance or character, calculated to make a favourable impression on the mind, but in reality devoid of the qualities apparently possessed” and “Of falsehood, bad qualities.” Samson is captive to her appearance, and his weakness for Delila echoes that of Adam’s for Eve in the garden of Paradise Lost, as both men allow women to have power over them. In Paradise Lost God was forced to remind Adam of the original hierarchy of subjection after the fall:

Was she [Eve] thy God, that her thou didst obey
Before his voice, or was she made they guide,
Superior, or but equal, that to her
Thou didst resign thy manhood, and the place
Wherein God set thee above her made of thee
And for thee, whose perfection far excelled
Hers in all real dignity: adorned
She was indeed, and lovely to attract
They love, not thy subjection… (X.145-153)

Like Adam, Samson’s perfection “far excelled” that of Delila’s, for she not only was an idolater according to the Hebrew people, but she was also a woman, and therefore inherently imperfect and subject to man. The Chorus recognizes this shortcoming of woman as well: “Is it for that such outward ornament / Was lavish’t on thir Sex, that inward gifts / Were left for haste unfinish’t, judgment scant, / Capacity not raise’d to apprehend / Or value what is best / In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong (1025-1030)? Further, like Adam, Samson became enchanted by a woman and allowed himself to become subject to her, overturning the hierarchy of power that should be God over man, man over woman.

Samson is also captive of God, and God’s plans. Samson was a gift to his parents, who could not conceive a child on their own, in order to free the Hebrew people from the Philistines. Samson’s responsibility is to his people and to his God and by allowing himself to be overthrown and taken prisoner by those he is supposed to slay, he has shirked his duties. This is his final captivity, and one that he must embrace and accept before death, though this captivity is one of service to God and not of to man, be it the Philistines or to women. Samson reawakens to his calling, slowly, through the visitations of his father, his wife, and a giant who refuses his challenge:

But come what will, my deadliest foe will prove
My speediest friend, by death to rid me hence,
The worst that he can give, to me the best.
Yet so it may fall out, because thir end
Is hate, not help to me, it may with mine
Draw thir own ruin who attempt the deed. (1262-1267)

At the end of the poem Samson accepts that to be a man in the fallen world is a life of captivity be it captivity to sin, women, slavery, senses or captivity in service to God. It is, however, within man’s power to decide what they will be captive to, and that is when Samson reaffirms his service to God, killing the Philistinian Lords:

Be of good courage, I begin to feel
Some rousing motions in me which dispose
To something extraordinary my thoughts…
If there be aught of presage in the mind,
This day will be remarkable in my life
By some great act, or of my days the last. (1381-1383, 1387-1389)

Captivity in this post-lapsarian world is can be chosen, and what man chooses to be captive to determines his end, be it in shame or in heroism. Samson, because he chose ultimately to be captive to God, became a hero and is remembered to this day for his feats in saving the Hebrew people. Though captivity can deprive man of his gifts, it can also give him strength, depending on the captivity he chooses.

ENL 122: “Adam, Eve and Satan: Disaster in the Garden”

Jolene Patricia Brown

ENL 122

3 Nov 2009

Adam, Eve and Satan: Disaster in the Garden

Adam and Eve are of one flesh; they share every part of their being and existence. By sharing one flesh they are not only of one person; they are one person. It is the ultimate partnership: physical, emotional and spiritual. They are born into a hierarchy that is established from the moment of their conception: there are no questions of authority as God is ruler over Adam; Adam over Eve; both over the animals and plants within the garden. As rational creatures it should be easy for both Adam and Eve to fit themselves into this preformed world, and it leaves no room for them to conceive of anything different. This eliminates the concern for an overthrow of the heavens by humans, since they cannot conceive of anything outside of the hierarchy. These are all strengths in their relationship that should be a recipe for success, however it is exactly these traits that give Satan an edge is his deception and temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden, leading them to make the sacrifice that Satan himself made.

Being created of “one flesh” they are equal and God did create Eve with a capacity for rationality equal to Adam. This is made clear by her tendency to ask good questions, and she takes what she learns very seriously. This equality among the pair makes it clear that by asking her to behave as a subject to Adam seems counter-intuitive. Her curiosity about night, for instance, is a great example of her tendency to think even at a grander scope than even Adam seems capable:

Of grateful evening mild, then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heav’n, her starry train…
But wherefore all night long shine these, for whom
This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes? (VI. 647-649, 657-658)

Adam gives her an answer of nothing more than to say that to watch the beauty of the nighttime would take away from worship of God: “These then, though unbeheld in deep of night, / Shine not in vain, nor think, though men were none, / That heav’n would want spectators, God want praise” (IV. 674-676). This answer seems too simple for a question as thought provoking as Eve’s, for it does seem strange that God would spend time creating a beautiful nighttime world only to have his most prized creatures not take advantage of it.

The unity of Adam and Eve is what the narrator wants us to reflect on when he makes his hail on “wedded love” as a “mysterious law, true source / Of human offspring, sole propriety / In paradise of all things common else” (IV. 750-752). Any wedded pair should share a bond between them that is brought forth in a physical form by procreation. Marriage is, to the narrator, a unity on every level between two people that culminates in the creation of children. Satan interferes with the ultimate plan for Adam and Eve to create children within the garden. The interjection of Satan into this plan poses him as a threat to the unity between man and God, but also between man and women as the symbol of their unity—children—never come to fruition.

Neither Adam nor Eve understands the concept of evil. Being confined to a state of innocence allows them a freedom that no other human will have after them: ignorance without fear of sin. Because they do not know evil they will never commit, accidentally or otherwise, a sin against God because, in their present situation, they have no idea what a sin is or how to commit it. This innocence and ignorance of sin is implied by what is their sign of obedience:

…God has pronounced it death to taste that Tree,
The only sign of our obedience left…
Then let us not think hard
One easy prohibition, who enjoy
Free leave so large to all things else, and choice
Unlimited of manifold delights… (IV. 427-428, 432-435)

It is only through the outside influence of Satan that they are led into a temptation to sin and eat of the tree of knowledge which frees them of their innocence and ignorance. Indeed it is innocence which makes them vulnerable since they cannot conceive of evil and they cannot conceive of hypocrisy or trickery. Despite Raphael’s warnings to be on their guard against Satan, even that idea is beyond their scope of understanding. They have no concept of guile, mistrust, lies or ill-intentions. Asking them to be on guard against that which they cannot understand is like asking a child to know what is best for them: it cannot, in the best interests of the child, be done.

Satan’s primary motivation throughout these first books is jealousy. It is clear that he is jealous of the Son who was promoted above him by God, but his jealousy is rekindled when he realizes the love and joy that is shared by God and man in the garden.

Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two
Imparadised in one another’s arms
The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill
Of bliss on bliss, while I to hell am thrust,
Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,
Among our other torments not the least,
Still unfulfilled with pain of longing pines. (IV.505-511)

Satan sacrificed all that he loved for nothing more than a shot at a throne he would never achieve. In seeing Adam and Eve in their nuptial bliss he must be reminded of the joys in heaven of which he is now deprived because of nothing more than his own pride and jealousy. It is his jealousy, first of God and then of Adam and Eve, that continually drives him to make the wrong decisions: first to turn away from God and ultimately be hurled from heaven, and then to tempt Adam and Eve into sin. Both of his decisions were because he was jealous of what was not his, power in heaven and love on earth.

Satan deprives man of the one thing that would have saved him from temptation: unity, both between God and man, as well as between man and woman. Satan recognizes that the hierarchy of God/man/woman has changed as Adam declares Eve his “best image” and “dearer half” (V.95) and it is this weakness alone that allows Satan the opportunity to drive each pair apart. Satan does not want God, Adam or Eve to have what he has been deprived of: true love. Since God has already defeated Satan, the best Satan can do is to take away God’s prized new creation, and ruin the unity between the happy pair.

Adam and Eve had everything they needed to be happy in the garden, just as Satan had everything he needed to be happy in Heaven. Adam and Eve were innocent and ignorant of sin, and only had to show obedience through refraining from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The hierarchy of power only needed to be maintained between God and man/man and woman in order for authority to have stopped the tragedy to come. They were also given warnings from heaven about Satan, and a reminder that with knowledge, comes death. This, however, did nothing to stop Satan from deciding his pride and jealousy should bring ruin to Adam and Eve. Adam, by putting Eve above himself, changed the dynamic of power in the garden; Satan introduced sin and jealousy into the garden by showing Eve the dream of man as gods; suddenly ignorance is something to fear. All of these combine to create a perfect opportunity for man to fall from God, and Satan to take his revenge upon God, by denying him man as a perfect creation on earth.

ENL 122: "Words to Remind you: Milton's Subtle Reminders"

Jolene Patricia Brown

Dr. R. Levin

ENL 122

15 Oct 2009

Words to Remind You: Milton’s Subtle Reminders

Beyond this flood a frozen continent

Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms

Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land

Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems (590)

Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice,

A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog

Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,

Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air

Burns frore, and cold performs th’ effect of fire. (595)

Thither by harpy-footed Furies haled,

At certain revolutions all the damned

Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,

From beds of raging fire to starve in ice (600)

Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine

Immovable, infixed, and frozen round,

Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.

(Page 49, second edition.)

Words Defined:

Fierce (line 599): Fierce is a word that has two very different meanings according to the OED. In one instance it can mean a “formidably violent and intractable temper, like a wild beast” but it can also mean “high spirited, brave, and valiant.” These two definitions ring together in line 599, as the word is not mentioned once, but twice in the same line. Milton gives Satan all of these qualities: he rises against his creator violently, but he is also a hero among his men for his valor and heroism in battle. Hell, it seems, takes on the same qualities of its king in that the extremes of hell are such that those who are damned must suffer physically under the angry torment but also remember that which they lost. In hell one can have no valor, so the memory of such a grand emotion only compounds the terror and pain of existence in the place furthest away from God.

Extremes (line 599): An extreme is the “farthest from the center” and if two things are in extremes they are “removed as far as possible from each other in position, nature, or condition” (OED). This word in its line context reinforces the effect of the word fierce (above) creating a juxtaposition of God/Satan and Heaven/Hell. This reinforcement, especially as this word is also repeated in this line, contrasts one with the other setting them as opposites in the scope of the universe, and the reader is forced to see the good in heaven and the evil in hell. By doing this Milton has given no room to doubt that hell is, in every way, the opposite of heaven, and Satan the opposite of God. There is no confusing the two, despite the charisma and beauty that Milton might endow Satan and hell with, and the reader must look past the deception to realize that in being in opposition with heaven, there is nothing worthy or virtuous in hell.

Starve (line 600): This word was particularly interesting as it, surprisingly, is used specifically to describe a “pestilence” or “a pestilent being (esp. applied to the devil).” It is a usage that is described as rare in the OED but Milton, as well-educated as he was, probably had knowledge of the word in this form. The context in which it is used in the poem refers to being “brought gradually nearer to death” as well as “to suffer extreme cold.” Each definition ties in deeply to other words and ideas presented in the passage: Satan as a pestilent devil, the damned gradually dying of their suffering in hell, as well as the cold heat that is described. It is obvious that Milton used this word very deliberately in this passage, as the word has many definitions and meanings that are relevant to his vision of hell. It is also a word that raises fear in the reader since to starve is a terrible, prolonged way to die, so it would be appropriately used if Milton wants to make clear the torments that are waiting for sinners in hell.

Pine (line 601): Continuing the succession of words that reinforce one another in Milton’s description of hell, the word pine is, according to the OED a “punishment, torment, torture, suffering or loss…as punishment” especially in hell or purgatory, but it is also “suffering caused by hunger or lack of food” and the OED even calls it a “starvation.” The word gives strength to the word starve in the line immediately before it, but it also conjures the ideas of punishment for sins committed against God. It is not only the sinners who are suffering starvation, it is the fallen angels as well, who through their rebellion are forever punished, banished from heaven. Both definitions are integral in connecting the mortal sinners from the immortal; both sinners will suffer for their choices infinitely through the torment of hell.

Immovable (line 602): This word stood out among the other three descriptors in this line (infixed, frozen) because it implies the inability of the situation in hell to change. This damning of the sinners and the angels and their suffering is not changeable by just any being. In placing this word right after the word pine, Milton continues to make his case for the uncomfortable, unceasing torments that await sinners against God. Neither angel nor mortal will be able to change his own circumstances; it is only through the asking of forgiveness that hell will cease to exist and since Satan will not relent on his position, hell will continue, immovable, until the end of days.

Stylistic Devices:

Imagery (lines 587-590): Milton opens this passage in a surprising way: hell is not a burning, fiery place, but instead a place that is frozen, dark, wild and stormy (586). This image is different from what we now imagine hell to be with heat, fire and burning lakes. This contrast is important to note because hell is the furthest place from God and this implies that God is a source of heat. A frozen wasteland would be barren of life, uninhabitable by plants, animals and, of course, man. The imagery that he is presenting is one without life, pleasure, comfort and nothing like the warm paradise of heaven and that of the newly created earth.

Simile (line 592): The simile being used in this line compares the deep snow and ice of hell to that of a “Serbonian bog.” The deepness of that bog is one “Where armies whole have sunk” (596) and is an image of helplessness. The comparison that Milton is drawing is one of despair since the sinners cannot help themselves and, like a bog or quicksand, they only fall further into the depths. Hell is cold, but it also renders sinners helpless, and the more they fight the depths of hell the deeper they will sink into despair.

Paradox (line 595): I had a hard time deciding whether line 595 was a metaphor or if it was a paradox. I have decided that it is a paradox because Milton takes two opposing sensations and uses the comparison to enhance the meaning of the ideas. The comparison being made is between cold and fire: “cold performs th’ effect of fire” is an overwhelmingly simple paradox where the reader immediately can imagine the burning cold as much as they can imagine the cold fire. Those two things are contradictions, therefore paradoxical, signifying the true power of God over this hell. A true paradox cannot be solved by imperfect reasoning. God, however, is perfect so his reasoning would be perfectly capable of imagining and creating a world of paradox that would harbor both cold heat and hot cold. I believe Milton is using the idea of a paradoxical hell to indirectly show the power of God in comparison to the weakness of Satan.

Alliteration (lines 595-603): There is an immense number of alliterative words that occur in lines 595-603, especially words that begin with the letter f. It begins with the two words in opposition: frore and fire in line 595, and the word fire is repeated three times in the following lines. Other words include footed, Furies, feel, fierce (mentioned twice), From, soft, infixed, and frozen bringing the total of f-sounding words to eleven, in a very short nine lines. This is significant to the tone of the poem because Milton has just described hell as a cold, inhospitable place yet they are on a lake of fire. It seems Milton wants to remind the reader of the burning of hell with the series of f-sounds that do sound similar to burning when pronounced by the reader. The reminder is subtle but effective and the use of this recurring f also reminds us of the paradox of hell: the cold heat torture that awaits those who sin against God.

Repetition (lines 595-603): There are three words that get repeated in these lines: fierce, extremes, and fire. These words are significant first because of the words themselves. They are each words without a trace of ambiguity, as they conjure of definite images within the mind of the reader. They are words with which one might describe hell, as indeed Milton does here, but they are also words of passion that would be used in both good and bad contexts. The repetition is what makes the words all the more interesting. The words fierce and extremes are each used twice and in the same line (599). As in the definitions state above, I believe that Milton wanted us to ponder these words carefully and note the different ideas that are encompassed by those words. The word fire is used three times, reinforcing the fiery image of hell, and the repetition acts as a reminder, between the descriptions of ice, that hell is a wasteland of paradox, evil, and curses which one should avoid at all costs.