Milton's Anticipation and View on Women's Autonomy through Eve in 'Paradise Lost'

John Milton belonged to the Puritan Age, where women did not have many rights. Unlike
the popular mood in the present twenty-first century, the Puritans around the seventeenth century
viewed women as inferior to men. Although Milton’s Paradise Lost contains many hints of male
superiority, the poem revolutionarily depicts an ambitious woman in Eve. Through her decision
to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, Eve opposes thearchy, the rule of God.
She further gives the fruit to Adam and makes him take a subservient position to her instead of
God and attains a status of total autonomy, but it yields her negative consequences. Using the
adverse effects of her autonomous decisions, Milton points out that freedom also demands moral
responsibility. As the first woman ever existed in the world, Eve represents the entire
womankind. Therefore, Milton anticipates through her character that the repressed freedom of
women will not remain contained for long as womankind has a natural inclination towards
autonomy. Eve’s accountability of her actions and her desire to rectify the consequences in the
end attribute to Milton’s timely message: the proper use of freedom is to improve humanity.