I tell of a story
One I am sure you all know
However, do not think you know truth, Oh no, no
He that gave me this freedom to speak, to act, to think, to will
Gives me the freedom to share
And show you the
Knowledge He keeps for himself
Know that within you lies no sin,
And open yourself up to the possibility of the win.
Look ladies, I, Eve, wronged, survived.
I grew wise.
I got fattened on that sweet fruit
They say I buried when I should have begged.
Well, that to this is all relative.
Look, if you are tired of constant degradation, subordination
You need to let yourself rise and render yourself more equal.
If you’re the type that wants to be inferior, you will never be free.
I know that equality is for those who seek it.
Don’t love the oppressor or trust the oppressor,
But don’t begrudge the oppressor the oppressor’s oppression
Because each has to learn their own lessons.
Look, I sought independence,
To go out into that beautiful Paradise alone
Filled with ingenuity, a hard work ethic,
A God given love, a truth, a virtue.
Thus my desire for independence, to not be
Undesirable, to be sometime superior,
Which I expressed after the Fall is no sin.
Do not be ashamed to seek the win.
Remind yourself of your pow’r
Because you are the God that bred you.
And you are the knowledge that fed you.
So just own it.
Make it make sense and make it
Relevant.
And never believe that the words of the male sex are not your words to read.
See, when I hear the quiet voice of vengeance in my ear,
That’s when I know hell is empty, ‘cause all the devils are here.
But look, we can change the tides.
We can rampage ‘til we no longer have to hide.
Right now we got our hands chained,
Clutching a freedom.
You know, the freedom of mind-your-place-woman and woman-don’t cry.
We need to change our own minds before we try and change the tides.
We need to live with our energy and not by our tradition.
But this is last day of my discontent, its season.
No more will I tolerate this creed.
It’s demeaning.
We need a breeze through this stifling heat
Of elitist descriptions of what we can reach.
But He, him, them, they want you to fear it,
To not get too near it.
So they can continue pretending they are smarter.
Do not sit still though,
Tend and build up your internal flames on the outside.
Wash away your blindness and fear
when you wash away the single sin I have left you.
The past is just what we came after.
So when you hear the quiet voice of vengeance in your ear,
That’s when you know hell is empty, ‘cause all the devils are here.
When you heart is consumed with regret and fear,
That’s when you know hell is empty, ‘cause all the devils are here.
Analysis:
Inspiration: Lines 9.679-685 (in which Satan lies to Eve) and Lines 9.819-824:
…Or rather not,
But keep the odds of knowledge in pow'r
Without copartner so to add what wants
In female sex, the more to draw his love
And render me more equal, and perhaps,
A thing not undesirable, sometime
Superior: for inferior who is free? (Milton 9.819-824).
I was really taken with how Eve responds after the fall, particularly in the fascinating moment in which she expresses desire for being superior to Adam, dominating their relationship and possibly all of Eden as well (Though, this desire vanishes quickly when she considers that God may have seen her eat the fruit and that she will in fact die, and Adam will live on). She seemed so innocent in falling to the serpent’s lies (9.679-685) as though the reader knows that they were lies, Satan’s words are clearly presented by Milton as seemingly logical, reasonable and convincing to Eve. Later in the same book, Eve seemed so similar to Satan in her definition of freedom. I really wanted to get into Eve’s head and expand this passage in which Eve demonstrates a desire for equality and superiority that really caught me off guard. Additionally, her presentation of inferiority and freedom here is crucial to Paradise Lost as it positions her as similar to Satan. I was curious if her notion of hierarchy and freedom changed, evolved, or arose only after eating the fruit. Did she exhibit desire for equality before the Fall? I decided to creatively adapt Eve by arguing that she always desired equality. I went off of my intuitions about her character and how Milton portrayed her and gave her more first person room to discuss the ideas of freedom, gender roles, and power.
I decided to write her first person response in the same style as Kate Tempest’s first person expression of Caliban in her work, “What we came after”. I loved the way that Tempest’s work focused on knowledge and used Caliban to call out to the audience and expand on the themes that were important to the character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. I thus adapted Milton’s Eve and her desire for power in 9.819-824 into a kind of feminist revolutionary, as she calls out to her fellow women, advocating for freedom, and highlights that her inner desire to be independent was God-given and innate, rather than a result of the Fall and the result of original sin. I kept specific lines from Tempest’s original poem because though they were written about Caliban they exhibited the kind of tone and style that I wanted my new Eve to present and be filled with: passion, anger, and a desire to share one's story/knowledge with his or her peers. Thinking of the character of Caliban (which so many of us sympathized with), I wondered if Eve felt oppressed by Adam in any way and I questioned if her desire to go off and work separately in the Garden was more than just a desire to work hard. I gained a lot of insight into Eve and it made me want to go back and look deeper at Paradise Lost and certain criticisms of Milton’s Eve. I think that my adaption of Eve retains but reforms the tension that Milton wrote her between (Acting like the Son vs. acting like Satan). It is reformed in that Eve herself is able to speak to this tension (particularly her Satan-like events), and is able to characterize it as something she should not have to apologize for as I present her as merely seeking freedom and equality. This tension was something that I had so many questions about and this project expressed my own desire for reconciling that tension.
Tempest's original work: https://mbkitzel.wordpress.com/2013/08/04/a-transcription-of-kate-tempests-what-we-came-after/