Satan's character-or our perception of his character-changes drastically throughout the poem,
and the graphs illustrate this to a certain extent. We chose to analyze three topics that Mallet generated
and their presence in the speeches of Satan and God over the course of the poem. Below is a brief analysis
of each topic, describing what meaning we derived from the results.
The following list of words is a topic that Mallet generated after iterating over all of the speeches within Paradise Lost(topic-keys)
pain hear dwell chance goodness hadst tread devil prevented question beare don union tri'd heavier void
Most interestingly, it appears to us that Mallet seemed to pick up on Satan's sense of self-victimization, which we ascribed
as the semantic realtionship among the words of this topic. We called it "Ego" in our results (See Speech under Mallet). Satan
first appears to us as a powerful, gigantic figure who posseses the characteristics of a strong politcal leader. The onset of our graphs
that represent the content of Satan's speeches show a major focus on war, but we see an increase in the prominance of his "Ego" shortly thereafter.
This makes sense, because after his major rally in Pandemonium he first makes it to Eden and begins to reflect negatively on his past. He regrets
being banished to hell, and this pain he feels inside-rather than a stark opposition to the divine enemey-gives him more reason to do evil. A slight
increase towards the end of the Ego graph indicated to us that Satan was not repentent as he slithered back into Hell in the form of a serpent.
The graph that represents God's "Ego" closely mirror's that of Satan. Could this be interpreted as representing both Satan and God
as equally egoistic,
but morally opposed? It is also possible that God's speeches contain a reference to Satan's own sense of ego. Other times
he appears to be talking about the grandeur of the heavens, speaking highly of the "Angels, Progenie of Light, Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms"
and the like. Oftentimes, his speeches that have a high occurence of the "Ego" topic also show increases in the occurence of the topic of "Creation"
He is undoubtedly proud of what he created in a mere six days time.
Mallet generated this list as a topic (topic-keys); we considered these to be related to the topic of war that permeates the text
power arms worse dayes warr empire born things seemd proud law misery
Looking at Satan's speech, War thematically wraps the plot from the onset to nearly the end of the poem. Satan's first speech is dedicated to
rallying the demons of Pandemonium to wage war against the heavens. The penultimate chapter deals with the fall ofAdam and Eve, the last phase
of Satan's war strategy. We see this topics prominance drop off at the very end of the graph, indicating that the war is indeed over.
God actually serves more to give orders, which are then carried out by Archangels or by Jesus. Because of this, it makes sense that the graph
representing God's references to the topic of war has one clear increase in the earlier portion of the poem. He gives the order, and it is then
put into action by his constituents.
It is also useful to look at which words occur in the speeches about war--that is, words that do not occur within the topic-keys that Mallet generated.
For instance, if we look at God's sixth speech, the words "fight" and "fought" as well as "Military" all occur within the speech, however Mallet
did not include them in the topic-keys.
These words are the topic-keys that Mallet generated; we considered these words to be sematically related to the topic of Creation
free left fall created freely stood onely fell happie infinite foreknowledge fault pledge
What really struck us as semantically meaningful was the way these words correlate with arguably the most famous lines of the poem. God describes
Adam and Eve as being created "sufficient to stand, but free to fall". We also see foreknowledge, fault and pledge, which is reminiscent of Eve's
sinning despite the explicit warning Adam gives her. Adam pledged to not eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge, and because they failed to heed
God's commands, they are banished from Eden.
It is also important to consider that everything that God created is referred to in the same way as the above quote. Therefore, Satan himself, as
well as the kingdom of Pandemonium and all the demons, are possible referents of this topic.
God's first speech is really dedicated to the topic of Creation, particularly the creation of Jesus. However, we notice that his focus seems to deviate
from the topic as the story continues, most likely because he is focussed on his adversary.God's final speech is a reflection on the Paradise that has
been destroyed. It is interesting that Mallet considered this speech to be less about Creation in the same sense as his earlier speeches about Eden; he
wants to dismiss Adam and Eve, some of his most prized creations, from Paradise.
Satan really doesn't appear to mention much of God's creation until he reaches Eden. This explains why we see an increase in the topic's relevance in
the graphs once we reach the midpoint of the plot. Satan's largest dedication to the topic is in his coersion of Eve, which can be interpreted a few different
ways. Obviously, speeking to Eve and referring to the world that God created for her would lend the content of the speech towards this particular topic
But interestingly, could this also be representative of the new perspective of the world that Satan is creating for Eve? He attempts to paint Paradise
with a much darker pallet for Eve, and it was surely enough to get her to break her promise--to eat from the tree of knowledge.