The sixth book of John Milton's Paradise Lost is the continuation of the angel Raphael's speech to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It is chronicling the fall of Satan and focuses on the battles that take place between the angels and the rebel angels. These battles are the prelude to the expulsion of the rebels from Heaven. Raphael must find a way to convey the details of the fight in a way that humans are able to relate to. Because they are not ethereal, the ways of angels are beyond their reach. Raphael decides to tell the story as an epic battle using Homeric style and language, thus positioning this Book as a sort of epic within an epic. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As the book begins, dawn breaks over the landscape of Paradise as the angel Abdiel heads toward God and his faithful legions. At the beginning of the conflict between Satan and God, Abdiel takes Satan's side. After recognizing the folly of this course of action, he changes his mind and returns to God. This is a lesson offered for the benefit of Adam and Eve. Illustrates the power of free will: Abdiel did not have to side with Satan, he was not out of his control and it was under his free will that he made the right decision to return to God. Abdiel's name means "Servant of God" and it is representative of free will directed towards the path of good. In the Bible, Abdiel is not an angel, but a person, and it has been speculated that Milton was using the angel as an allegorical character for himself and his quest to justify God's ways to men. This, if true, further complicates the effort of keeping track of individual allegories, because now one can see that there is an allegory within an allegory within an allegory. Raphael is trying to convey the fact that Adam and Eve should not turn away from God in the first place, but that even if they do, hope is not yet lost. After Abdiel's return to the ranks of the faithful, God shows His mercy and forgiveness by welcoming him back with open arms and without any warning, thus illustrating that any of the rebellious angels at any time could have recognized the wrongness of their actions and returned on God's side without fear of negative repercussions. God's justice is also displayed when He requires as many of His angels to fight as there are rebellious angels in opposition. However, God also proves himself to be a force to be reckoned with by the very fact that he is gathering troops to fight. Raphael describes the righteous angels crossing Heaven to confront the rebellious angels in a way that Adam and Eve can understand; no mortal could hope to fathom the breadth of Paradise. Raphael puts it in terms that both humans can understand: “They marched through many stretches / Of Heaven, and through many provinces wide, / Ten times the length of this ground” (VI, 76-78). When the rebel angels meet, Raphael points out the irony that the two groups are now meeting in a civil war that they had once met "So often in feasts of joy and love" (vi, 94). Abdiel then confronts Satan, but before that he delivers a digression intended not only for the consideration of Adam and Eve, but also for Milton's audience. It follows the tradition of the chorus in Greek theatre, which exists for the purpose of asking important questions and drawing the audience's attention to significant plot points. Abdiel wonders why Satan would still keep an angel's healthy body when his faith and virtue have begun to rot inside. This feelingforeshadows Satan after his fall, when he begins to transform into lower and lower animals, eventually becoming unrecognizable to the angels in Heaven. Aside from that, Abdiel accuses Satan of thinking he has a chance to win a battle against God. Satan is reminded that he could have repented and been forgiven at any time of his transgressions, but he chose not to and is now a fallen angel. This may be a lesson in disguise for Adam and Eve, whose fall was foreseen but who still have the ability to resist temptation. Satan replies that he would prefer Hell to servility, to which Abdiel replies that Satan is servile only to himself. Abdiel then strikes Satan in anger. That shot marks the beginning of the battle. Michael gives the battle cry and Raphael describes the battle in epic terms to convey to Adam the incredible magnitude of the fight. The outcome of the battle remains suspended in mid-air for a long time because the angels cannot die and both the rebel angels and the righteous ones are on equal terms. Satan and the angel Michael meet on the battlefield, and Michael is optimistic that the war will now end. He does not raise his sword against Satan in the hope that Satan will surrender and take his rebels to Hell. In Michael's speech to Satan, he reminds Satan that he was unknown until he decided to rebel, and admonishes him for disturbing the peace of Heaven and bringing misery to nature. Michael gives Satan a chance to leave and take his rebel angels with him peacefully, before the sword drives him out. Satan tells Michael not to make superficial threats: he still believes he can win the battle. Having recognized the fact that neither will yield to the other, Michael and Satan prepare for battle. They both raise their arms to strike, but Michael's sword was given to him from God's armory and falls first. Satan is split almost completely in half: «Satan was the first to know pain» (vi, 327). This can be seen perhaps in contrast to Book II, line 752: "Suddenly a miserable pain / Overtook you" – which is about when sin arises from Satan's head. However, since Sin's birth was Satan's first experience with pain, he cannot be said to actually "know" it, whereas Satan was able to recognize pain when it arose. Likewise, before the Fall, Adam was able to talk about Death but for him it was an empty idea; he didn't understand what it was or how it worked. But after the fall all men experienced Death. Satan and his angels are injured, so they retreat for the night and try to regroup. This book is interesting in that it frames the battle allegory that Raphael presents to Adam and Eve within the larger framework of the entire play presented by Milton. to his audience. This allegorical battle is told as an epic and as such is representative of Milton's familiarity with classical epics. In the first lines of the Book, in fact, there is a reference to Homer's Iliad. In lines 2 through 4, Raphael describes the morning as opening the gates of light “with a rosy hand,” which immediately calls to mind Homer’s “rosy-fingered dawn.” Both Dawn and Morning are personified as characters within the poem, and by following them soon after, the action of the poems begins. Likewise, when Satan enters the battlefield, he is described as follows: "with broad and haughty steps he advances, / come towering, armed with diamond and gold" (VI, 109-110). In the Iliad, Achilles he is described as entering "the city, terrible and strong, / with high and haughty steps he towered". This is almost the same image presented by Milton and further supports the epic atmosphere of the.