Webcomics Part 3

The Visual of Appeal of Comics: Childish Trash or Political Medium? 

                The visual appeal of comics is particularly important for American comics because the use of comics in newspapers came as a response to Mark Twain's success with his illustrated novels. The idea that books were made more successful thanks to the use of pictures points to the way in which American society took to the childish idea of pictures and text. Americans seemed to prefer their novels to be more like bed time story picture books. It can be said that this preference is due to the fact that pictures in novels provided readers with more tools to immerse themselves within Twain's stories. Scott McCloud suggests that the “cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled...an empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel in another realm,” and also claims that this is why television cartoons are particularly successful. (36) It can be argued that this idea presents us with a picture of an American society that from its very early history preferred to be submerged into fantasy than to deal with the problems of society. The use of color in comics propelled their success even more, and comics like The Yellow Kid comic strip, became extremely popular. The fantasy world of the comics had become more realistic thus moving readers further into a fantasy world that became more like their own. Readers were not only encouraged to laugh at the funny gag of a comic, but to immerse themselves in a world that was full of laughter and exaggeration outside of their own serious, working class world. In a sense the role of color in comics in the early nineteenth century worked to further the distance between comics and the political, drawing a line between the gray drab world of political news and the fun colorful, careless world of the cartoon. This sense of escapism is one of the inherently childish characteristics that lies at the heart of comics which has magnified itself in the last thirty years and more so thanks to the internet because we can now plunge into our fantasies at any place. By the time comics had made it to America in the nineteenth century the mass produced comic no longer possessed any of the artistic, political, or elite appeal it did in Hogarth's era, and instead began to develop as a purely childish entertainment. It is important to review the extensive history of comics to see that there has always been tension between comics and social-political discourse that ultimately resulted in an alienation between the two.

                Another important aspect to note in order to understand this alienation is the way in which the early comics that were meant as entertainment for adults, became a medium of amusement mainly directed at the youth of America. This began when the humor magazine Puck in 1914 began to change its focus from domestic type humor to humor that would appeal more to a younger audience, and many magazines began to follow suit. This trend would not change until the sixties when counter culture began to use comics as a way of expressing its political ideas. A new movement from the underground erupted, and this new incarnation of comics was dubbed “comix.” These “comix”brought in adult topics that had not been touched on before in the mainstream, such as sex, drugs, and underground/alternative culture. These comix also broke away from regular comic strip, and comic book convention and possessed an artistic flare to them. Comix surfaced in part as a response to the anti-Comics Code that arose in the fifties, which “had stipulated 'no violence', 'no sex', 'no drugs', and 'no social relevance'” (Sabir 92) In the minds of the artists of the underground the Code meant, essentially, that a comic was prevented from saying anything meaningful about the real world, and in defying it they were able to make critiques. Nevertheless, the key word here is “underground,” as this artistic revolution in comics would not be seen in the mainstream. Newspapers comic strips and comic books would retain their status as entertainment for children. This is comparable to what we see today where the “serious” graphic novels have taken a back seat and the childish world of webcomics is what has exploded into the mainstream. Some have argued that “webcomic artists are working within the spirit of the Underground movement” and that this is “reflected in their subversion of comic book conventions and their freedom of expression in content and form.” (Fenty and Houp and Taylor, ImageTexT) However, despite the fact that during our time we have experienced ourselves a controversial war experience parallel to that of the Vietnam war, webcomics have very rarely taken advantage of the freedom that the internet provides to approach head on the problems of the Bush administration, the war on terror, or the current economic crisis that the country is facing. Furthermore, webcomics lack the artistic exploration that the underground comix movement once had because they are devoid of any social commentary and while they may be mash ups of old and new styles of comic art they do not experiment with the same artistic ambition. Their main aim is the entertainment of the masses. This can be seen in the way in which many webcomics will experiment with Flash programs to add limited movement and allow for fan interaction with their webcomics. In other words, the so called “experimental expressions,” which are made possible by the freedom that the internet provides for webcomics, are nothing more than bells and whistles that webcomic creators add to their work.

                Graphic comic artists like award winning Art Spiegelman¹utilized the comics medium during the sixties and seventies to “ 'unselfconsciously [redefine] what comics could be, by smashing formal and stylistic, as well as cultural and political, taboos.' ” ( qtd. in Sabir 118) Nevertheless, we have to be reminded that this movement was completely underground and came about as a response to the mainstream comics that were predominantly infantile and purely for entertainment. In this way we can see that in spite of the cultural impact some artists who were part of the underground comix movement went on to make later, these types of attempts to turn comics into a serious medium for political discussion would remain only within a niche audience of die hard fans, or the scholarly crowd. As Walter Ryce tells us in “1985, Will Eisner published Comics and Sequential Art, a treatise that approached the craft of comics as a serious medium...inviting writers and artists to strive for higher aspirations.” (30) While the creators of graphic novels would strive to push the boundaries of their art their fans would revere their quality but would nonetheless in a way come fetishize their works, and as Sabir points out is that what became the center of attention was not the creators, but the characters they created. In analyzing the fact that the fans lost sight of the fact that these graphic novel creators were looking to be thought of as artists is indicative of the way in which American society was not interested in art, but in the escape that these comics provided.

1Spiegelman received many awards for his work Maus, which depicted his father's struggles during the Holocaust, and among these awards the prestigious Pulitzer. Spiegelman was “the first cartoonist ever to be so honoured” (Sabir 186)

Webcomics Part 2

Beginnings: The Evolution of Sequential Art

                It seems that from its creation comics were destined to be the food of the masses. Although Roger Sabir tells us that, “the comic itself is an invention of the nineteenth century...” he also remarks that “its antecedents date back to the Middle ages.” (10) These antecedents were called broadsheets and were in fact sketches of public executions, such as hangings and burnings, and were made as souvenirs for the public. (Sabir 10) The fact that this type of entertainment was so popular is very telling of the history of comics because it presents them as a sort of crude diversion for the people from its very inception. These broadsheets were not intended to tell a story and did not possess any type of social commentary, and in fact the main aim of the sheets was to “make as much money...for as little outlay as possible.” (Sabir 12) Although webcomics today may not depict hangings, many strips will make use of crude jokes and lack any real commentary on their topic, and in a similar way they too become a souvenir of particular pop cultural event for the masses. This can be seen in the fact that most webcomics are made of image files that can be easily downloaded into one's own computer to keep. One such an instance of this occurring was upon the death of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, where many webcomics took it upon themselves to relay the news to the world of his death in a comical way.

In a way webcomics parallel the distribution of broadsheets because they show the way in which both of these allowed for an audience to live through private moments vicariously through these images. However, at the same time another thing that webcomics have in common with the phenomenon of broadsheets, is the fact that both broadsheets and webcomics are made for the most profit for the least effort. Webcomics do it in a different way however, where what matters is not necessarily the immediate monetary gain but the traffic that the website will get from strips such as the strip on Jobs. Furthermore, these “pre-comics” were directed at the masses, but more specifically the illiterate uneducated masses. These broadsheets contained rarely any text and were only meant as a diversion, but when publishers decided to go in a different direction and began to market them to the the higher classes this changed. 

                One example of this is the work of William Hogarth, who is considered to be the father of sequential art, the basis of what comics are today. Hogarth brought in a more moralistic element into comics, but he and artists like him, also helped to create more costly versions of these broadsheets that were “designed for a middle-class, monied audience with some knowledge of politics.”(Sabir 12) It can then be said that the division between a comic and a political cartoon has always been set by class and money, a dynamic that would not really change through out the years. Webcomics today rarely step out of their world of comedy and pop culture references to discuss anything serious, let alone do they venture into discussing morality. In a sense thanks to the development of webcomics this line of difference has become even more visible because webcomics are made for the people by the people, where as the political cartoon continues to be created by the expert, schooled, cartoonist and are published in newspapers and magazines such as The New Yorker. Despite the fact that there is a comical element to the political cartoon it is its lack of approachability in terms of language and topics which have always posed a problem, while comics have always been meant to be unambiguous and easy to follow. 

               During the early nineteenth century magazines began to circulate and these possessed an element of social commentary in their comics but it was during this time that speech bubbles became a main future in comics. Sabir tells us that these works that were directed at a middle class audience and were far from the sequential art works of Hogarth, and were in fact less ornate and began to “[make] extensive use of word balloons.” (14) It is interesting to note this difference because in Hogarth's art there were but a few phrases below the prints and the moral of the story for the most part was implied by looking at the sequence, which assumed that the elite aristocracy would understand its meaning without much aid. However, when comics became available to the middle class one of the first things to become dominant was the use of the word bubble, suggesting that the lower classes were less likely to comprehend the humor, or the moral of the comic if the meaning was not directly pointed to by the writer. Similarly, one of the main features of webcomics is they are simple to follow, and deal with topics that do not require any type of specialized knowledge, or training, only common knowledge of pop culture.

               The more affordable it was to print paper and make publications the more widely spread magazines became during the nineteenth century. This decrease in cost of production lead to a spread of magazines that involved comics far from just the reach of the aristocracy or the middle class. One example of this is the penny dreadful that later became extremely popular in the late nineteenth century. These “were serialized prose stories...with accompanying pictures, commonly involving tales that glorified criminals, but also anti-aristocratic romances” and were “designed for a working class readership.” (Sabir 14) This shift from a political cartoon or comic that would comment on societal issues into topics that were of a comical nature shows that as the cartoon worked its way down the social latter certain topics were made exclusive and were reserved for the aristocracy, or the higher classes. Works relevant to the lower classes were meant to tell a cautionary tales, while the comics that were available for the higher classes would contain commentary that would bring about an intellectual discussion. The comics that were specifically designed for the working class dealt with the lives of criminals and the evils of the aristocracy, but they no longer possessed the political/social critique that had distinguish them previously. The masses were being discouraged from engaging in the political fervor of their time and were being pushed to lose themselves in a world of laughter and comedy. In American society “the most popular of the early strip genres was the domestic comedy” and also those that were “lightweight, and [placed] an emphasis on slapstick.” (Sabir 24) The majority of Americans in the early twentieth century were not interested in reading comics that dealt with political or social issues, that were serious, or thought provoking, and rather were interested in the laughs and the visual appeal that comics provided.

Webcomics Part 1

 Webcomics: The Shift in American Culture from Productive Critique Into Youthful Oblivion

                The growth of the internet as a source for immediate gratification has led to the expansion of fan created entertainment, where the fan is no longer receiving information top-down, but is finding new ways of engaging with it. The wide access that the internet provides has allowed “fan-culture” to expand in new and inventive ways, one of these being Webcomics. The internet has allowed for the propagation of “amateur” created comics which has created a phenomenon that is based on the idea of convergence culture, a mash up of old media with new media, created not by corporate America but by the consumer. The roots of comics lie within the political cartoon, and William Hogarth's woodcuts which possessed an element of social critique. Traditional comics as we think of them today are a medium of entertainment which has appealed to children, or to an audience that wishes to be taken out of the monotony of their life into a fantasy world far away. Yet, it cannot be ignored that a shift began to occur in comics when they were appropriated by counter culture as a new means of expression of social critique, and which culminated with the creation of the graphic novel in the eighties as a vehicle for discussing socially relevant topics, such as the holocaust or the Islamic revolution in Iran, in an experimental new way. However, the “serious” graphic novels that tried to deal with social topics, or tried to implement social critique into the myth of superheroes like Batman, could not be taken seriously due to the eruption of comic book and participatory fan culture. Comic book culture evolved along with participatory culture, which sprang out of the science fiction community, over the decades to allow for these so called geeks – which refers to persons who are obsessively devoted to comic books, science fiction, and technology – to create an entirely new community that embraced the fantasy worlds of their entertainment into their everyday lives. This community of people who seized upon the idea of living inside a fantasy overshadowed the literary and erudite aspirations that graphic novel artists had sought. Similarly, when webcomics boomed on the net the topics they dealt with were not ground breaking, socially critical or analytic works, and were rather a return to an emphasis on the comical, and once again placed the graphic novel in the background. Although webcomics are not produced by the corporations that control printed comics, they are mass produced in such a way that they can be described as “fast-food” comics, in the sense that they are watered down versions of what the graphic novels have to offer. In other words, because webcomics are abundant, and so readily available, they become the replacement for the thought provoking graphic novels of the eighties and nineties. A culture where entertainment is required to be instantly available at the touch of a button, allows for the amateur to stand in for the expert, or the skilled artist, who cannot produce their art at a sufficiently quick enough pace to serve the demand. Therefore, a society which is built around the idea of immediate gratification that the internet provides, creates a great demand for childish entertainment, that takes a fraction of a second to read. This kind of entertainment that is vacuous and lacks intellectual stimulation is a sign of a society which allows adults to live suspended in fantasy within their own “personalized lifestyle cocoons,” (Maasik/Solomon 485) and to remain in a perpetual Never Never land, where play and fun are all that matter, and adult responsibilities are only secondary.

Webcomics: A Critical Approach

        So far most of the posts I have made on this blog haven't been of a literary nature but in the next few days I will post in parts my essay on webcomics, which I wrote for my Pop Culture graduate seminar in the fall of 2011. I chose webcomics because it is something I read every day but that I never gave much thought to before. I had a really hard time writing this essay not because it was difficult to find information but because my professor, Dr. Solomon, and I clashed a lot on what the essay was suppose to focus on and what tone it should have. I learned a lot about the history of comics and the way in which the pass time of reading newspaper comics has evolved into geek culture and webcomics. I am very attached to these things and it was hard to be critical of a movement that I am part of and Dr. Solomon had warned me of the road blocks I would hit by attempting to go through with this essay. It is definitely an essay worth reading because it is self reflexive and on the personal basis it has allowed me to analyze myself and my role in this culture as well, I think it would have that effect for other people as well. This essay also encouraged me to try and validate this culture that I am so attached to because I realize that there is still a lot of stigma attached to the idea of being a geek, liking comics and immersing yourself in a fantasy world of your choosing.

Reflexive Reading: Undead Edition

 Our Fascination With Vampires and the Walking Dead

        I have always found the proliferation of zombies and vampires to be interesting as I had been interested in them before their major spike, especially vampires. I think that the spread of vampire literature and film is responding to something much different than what the zombie culture is responding to. First I'd like to discuss my ideas on the changes in what vampires were and what they are now. To me the image of the vampire had always been Bram Stoker's portrayal of a monster who hid behind the mask of a man, who was alluring and dark, who lived in an old dark castle. True even Stoker's image of the vampire is not something terrifying, but it delved into the idea that evil would hide within a man without any clear signs until it was too late. Evil in Stoker's Dracula hid behind a charismatic man, it was not too far from other renditions of evil that we saw in class. Although Osmond was not supernatural in any sense of the word he too put on a charismatic persona to allure his pray. Nevertheless, what is important here is the idea that evil to me was terrifying because it could be anywhere, it could be anyone, and therefore vampires could hold in my mind a sort of status as a monster and not just an alluring handsome young gentleman. Later on with the novels of Anne Rice the vampire became more of a tragic Byronic hero that was a monster because he had to subsist on human blood, but who was internally tormented by this fact. These types of the vampires are the type that now prevail in our popular culture and I think in a sense it is our culture trying to embrace that darkness, that evil, which is inside of us all. If we look at the type of vampire that are very popular now and take into consideration their current attributes it becomes obvious that these vampires are the ground upon which are trying to reconcile the internal evil that plagues us all. One of the characteristics which Interview with the Vampire, Vampire Dairies, and Twilight all have is that their central vampire figures choose to not give into their dark instinct to take blood from human beings and instead resort to become “vegetarian” vampires, feeding only on animals. At the same time these vampires are trying to find a place in the world,

The Vampire Diaries

 a person who will accept the monster that they are and will love them. These main attributes that connect all these popular text are metaphors for the fight that we as humans have to fight every day within ourselves. We may not feed off blood, but we regularly feed on other people's kindness and their willingness to do things for us. This idea of feeding off the blood of human beings in the context of these romantic stories represents the one sided relationships that we humans often carry out. We use people regularly for our own selfish reasons and never as much care about them after we have received what we were looking for. This is the same type of selfishness that was seen in many of the novels we have read in class thus far but placed within a romantic context, where matters of the heart are seems to be mainly at stake. However, it is interesting that these vampiric characters who can take our blood and life, are pictured as even more human than ourselves. That is to say that despite the fact that they are suppose to be monsters often they are the ones who are most sympathetic, they feel more and understand pain and suffering a lot more than the people who's heart still literally beat. These vampires are made out to be “super human” so as to give us home of the idea that despite our selfishness and evil desires there is a kindness with us that will win out if we let it. For this reason these “monster” are constantly looking for acceptance and love, it is this search that gives them soul, the relatively happy endings that these characters have in their respective worlds give us hope of not only finding love, but also being able to placate our evil so as to be able to do what is best for all, and not only for ourselves, so that we may stop using others as a means to an end. 
 

        When it comes to zombies however, there are very rare instance where they can appear as loveable because where as vampires are responding to the internal turmoil zombies in our time have to respond to those things which are beyond our control, that evil in nature which is even more impossible to reconcile than that which is found within us. Zombies are the product of world after World War II, Vietnam, Afghanistan, but also after the rise of diseases like AIDS, and a world in which our consumerist culture has begun to put our lives in mortal danger because our resources, specifically oil, have begun to rapidly dwindle. Zombie movies are responding to our biggest fears as a society, when we stop contemplating the evil within and realize everyone around is capable of major evil we become paranoid and begin to fear our neighbors. At the same time zombie movies explore the fact that we cannot trust the government to protect us in case of natural disasters, wars or even pandemics. This is in response specifically in American culture to the post Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 world. There sparked in the American consciousness a realization that we are vulnerable to the whims of nature and that even with preventive measures in place they are not enough to help us neither during or after. This is why zombie movies often revolve around the time when the pandemic is first starting to spring, showing how people are trying to desperately survive, or take place in a devastated world where human kind is left to pick up the remains and is forced to build up their world once again. 

 This can be found in movies like Zombiland where our hero takes us through his experience during and after the outbreak and gives us helpful tips on how to survive along the way. The real message in movies like these is that the only person we can rely on is ourselves. In The Walking Dead we see a world that is devastated and we follow a band a survivors, not much trying rebuild, but trying to survive because a lot of the time there will not be enough resources to rebuild. In Max Brooks's World War Z Brooks tackles the consequences of war, the unfairness that occurs during such hard times in a society where the rich can buy all possible protection they can for themselves, and where a corrupt government does more to unsure its survival than the survival of its people. Zombies can therefore be seen as representing our fear of lacking a safety net on which to fall on when we rely so much on a social structure previously built for us, not necessarily by us. When our moral system are simply rules meant to police our instincts, rather than an actual moral code which takes into consideration the emotions and well being of others. Zombies reflect our greatest fear, that when we are left unchecked, that when our society crumbles, we will not be able to survive.

Reflexive Reading: The Killer Inside Me Edition

Casey Affleck playing Lou Ford in the 2010 adaptation of the novel

       From the moment I began to read The Killer Inside Me I found that there was something strange about Lou. Obviously was meant to do right away because in the first pages of the book Lou assaults and beats Joyce, but they both enjoyed the encounter so who's to say that it was weird? Maybe for them it was just a “kink,” a way to arouse themselves sexually that I just did not identify with. What I found most strange in Lou was his will to admit that he put on a face all the time and that he found it amusing to pester people with boring cliches and platitudes. Lou states in the first chapter, “If there's anything worse than a bore, it's a corny bore. But how can you brush off a nice friendly fellow who'd give you his shirt if you asked for it?” (Thompson 5) This immediately in my mind made me realize that I could not trust this man, that he pretended to be a sensitive and kind man who's purpose in life was nothing but to look out for the well being of others. Furthermore, it made me realize that he wanted people to view him a bit of a dolt. It seemed strange who someone who seemed so aware of himself and his actions would want people to have such an erroneous image of him unless he was hiding something. From the very beginning of the text I could not trust anything that Lou told us. He did not only seem to be lying to people to protect himself and his secret, but it seemed he also enjoyed lying to people about who he really was.

        The moment that Lou mentioned “the sickness” as a justification for his first murder I understood that this was a man who had delusions of what and who was for sure. He viewed himself as suffering some sort of illness, but not a mental illness as he believed to be very cunning smart and capable. In a sense I believe that part of trying to keep up a charade of being a good cop and a good person was not entirely for the purposes of hiding his “sickness” from others but from himself. To the last minute Lou was unable to admit that he was truly ill. Lou believed that “[p]lenty of pretty smart psychiatrists [had] been fooled by guys like [him]” and that he might have “the condition; or [he] might just be cold-blooded and smart as hell.” (Thompson 222) This to me resonates with the ideas expressed in the DSM IV on Sociopathology where it is expressed that people with Antisocial Personality Disorder often see themselves as calculating and looking out for their best interest, as if life were some sort of game for them. 

 Lou actually at the end of the book states, “All of us that started the game with a crooked cue, that wanted so much and got so little...” (Thompson 244) Lou seems to have viewed life as a reign where only the fittest survive and found himself to be among the fittest at least in terms of intelligence as seen in the previous statement. The DSM IV on Sociopathology helped me to understand that Lou is the perfect picture of a mental illness, but it did not help me understand the “why” of why Lou did what he did. The ideas behind Antisocial Personality Disorder are as vague as the concept of “the sickness” that Lou comes up with, there is no why, it just is. The DSM IV states that there are several things that affect people who have Antisocial Personality Disorder and that it appears “to be associated with low socioeconomic status and urban settings,” (Osksenborg 334) and that men are more prone than women to suffer from this, but other than that there is no clear explanation as to why this disorder arises. I understand the symptoms that Lou showcased in the novel a lot better but I did not find any justification for what did. Moreover, his explanations for his killings and hurting others were not very rational either. Lou spoke of “the sickness” as a justification, and when he attempted to murder Joyce and murdered Elmer he stated. “Joyce had asked for it. The Conways had asked for it.” (Thompson 44) Although, he appeared to himself to be a reasonable man full of knowledge and insight into other people's mind I believe he failed to understand the one person that mattered, himself. There is no logic or reason behind the murders except that they had it coming, that it was their destiny in a sense. The idea of the “sickness” is an obscure concept as well that does not explain anything about what is really going on in Lou's mind. I feel as though my understanding of evil has decreased even more as we read through text like Primo Levi's survival tale and this novel. There are no clear motivations, no clear reasons behind causing harm and pain to others, except because “I was told to” or because “I felt like it.” More and more it seems to be that the heart of man is akin to the indescribable darkness that Conrad explored in his novel, as if there were no real rationality behind it and as if we will never be able to explain and explore it even with all our science.

Reflexive Reading: Paradise Lost Edition

        Milton gives Satan some very interesting characteristics in Paradise Lost, he makes him appear heroic, valiant, purposeful, a great rhetorician and all in spite of the fact that he is presented as rebelling against the ultimate power, God. At the same time it interesting to note that it is rebelliousness that also makes him relatable to us as a character, we find something noble in his fight for freedom. I think people in general seem to love rebels, law breakers, when they see their cause as being noble in someway and what is more noble to us Americans than fighting for freedom?

I think, as I've said that Satan's motivation in Paradise Lost seems to be a freedom, to not be tied down by rules. In a way it seems as though Satan is trying to escape the limits that God has set, he's trying to possess more than he already has and feels he deserves to have more power than he is seems to be allowed to have. Satan's quest seems superficially to be heroic but really when we strip him of all his fanciful rhetoric his motives are just those of greed and envy for something that has not been permitted to him. In really his motives aren't really freedom against an unjust ruler, as God does not seem to have anything that isn’t understandable from Satan and the rest of the fallen angels, or if he had we will never know because Milton never made it quite clear why the war was started. Servitude seems to be an issue for Satan, perhaps God is a harsh dictator. This can be seen when Satan claims “To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:/ Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.” (Milton, 262-263) Here it is apparent that Satan had the ambition to try to rule Heaven, or at least be in power in some place, because while his first intent was to rule Heaven, he seems to accept the idea of having some sort of power to rule even if it is in Hell. Therefore, it appears that Satan's true motives are selfish and greedy, and although it appears as though they are noble nothing positive comes of it, something which Milton represented in a literal way by placing Sin and Death as the offspring of Satan's rebellion.

        I feel as though Satan in Heaven found himself questioning why there were rules and boundaries, why he could not obtain more power, or knowledge than what he already possessed from God. I find it curious that Satan asks to himself when spying upon Adam and Eve the reasons that God might have for forbidding them to eat from the tree of knowledge, it is an example of the true nature of Satan. He states, “Knowledge forbidden?/ Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord/ Envy them that? Can it be sin to know,/ Can it be death? And do they only stand/ By ignorance, is that their happy state,/ The proof of their obedience and their faith?” (515-520) Satan is not simply jealous or envious of Adam and Eve
because they are beautiful creations but because they are innocent and ignorant, without sin, and this caused by the fact that they have knowledge of good or evil, which is God has seemingly endowed the angels with. However, at the same time Satan also questions if their happiness and the harmonious relationship they carry on with their Lord is only based on the fact that they are ignorant. Satan brings up some interesting questions like whether only obliviousness can keep the peace? Or whether God can only secure their faith and obedience by having them be ignorant? These are interesting questions for Milton to ask in his poem, because it pertains not only to God, or religion but to politics as well, a topic which concerned him very much as well. Can we trust a ruler, a human or deity, to rule humanity honestly and justly when we as subjects are kept in ignorance? Is that not in some sense evil? Despite the fact that this text is suppose to be religious, the ideas of what is good and what is evil are not always made clear. Evil is not necessarily Satan's rebellion, evil is not Adam and Eve's defiance, in other words these things are not considered evil, neither for Milton nor God. I don't believe that Paradise Lost really explores the nature of evil, to me it seems to explore questions of oppression, power, motivation, and knowledge. Satan might have caused the fall of human kind and while it could be thought of as destructive and malicious, but in a sense he also set Eve and Adam free of the bonds of ignorance and gave them the ability to aspire to something higher than themselves.