You weren’t mommy and daddy’s little angel. Not all the time anyways. Neither was I, and neither were most people. Therefore, I think we can all relate to how Satan felt.
Milton’s characterization of Satan includes significant elements of basic human emotions, such as rebelliousness, ambition, hate and envy, while simultaneously displaying imperious wisdom and leadership to synthesize the overall effect: awe and respect but, in contrast to “the almighty”, not wonder.
Satan begins his speech with some standard wounded spite, “To do aught good never will be our task,/ But ever to do ill our sole delight,/ as being contrary to his high will/ Whom we resist.” and plays upon the damaged pride of his cohorts. This, on first glance, seems like a petty reaction to the punishment he deserves, but a reaction that tempts us all when we are punished: thwart your oppressor, because he is bad and mean. Yet, Satan laces it with the rhetorical foundation that he will build upon until his final lines. Satan uses the italicized words to put his statement into an eternal context. He knows there is no way back into heaven and he knows that his troops may well hate him for their fall from grace. His depiction of an enteral task of malicious resistance both prevents his angels from wandering onto a new task, such as a new rebellion against Satan, and focuses their anger right back at his foe instead of at him.
Satan culminates his welcome to hell pep talk with lines of camaraderie and wisdom, “How overcome this dire calamity,/ what reinforcement we may gain from hope,/ if not what resolution from despair.” First he refers, for the billionth time, to how “dire” the “calamity” is before presenting the ultimate win-win situation. If there is hope in the situation then great because hope is good and can act to reinforce flagging wills, and if there is nothing but despair then, as highlighted earlier, the despair is eternal and there is no use crying about it; Satan and his angels are all in it together, there is no choice but to take resolve and plough forward.
Satan’s rebellious outburst of teenage angst is shockingly mundane, and all too easy to empathize with and dismiss, until his speech. Too much empathy leaves little room for divine wonder, and in the beginning I felt myself viewing Satan as I might King Lear. But after reading his speech, and the way he phrased his language to such a powerful rhetorical climax, it makes me wonder if I wouldn’t have been right behind him in his rage against the system.
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