He, who is dressed in green, follows her thoughts, like a lioness tracking her prey.
She, clad in red and daring red lipstick, stands behind her, creating an unknown glow.
He, in orange, remains on the side, donning mischief all this time.
But, he, dressed in green, is the most dangerous of all.
It’s supposed to be easy.
Created virtuously and purely, it’s supposed to be easy.
But they can take many forms.
Greed, envy, satisfaction, and vanity can take the form of the snake.
A snake that deceivingly takes the voice of the omnipotent power.
A snake that can so viciously be so many things.
Greed can take the form of a woman who wants knowledge, eager to disregard any kind of caution mentioned before.
Envy can take the form of a woman who thinks of possibilities, possibilities that turn to satisfaction.
Satisfaction can take the form of a woman finally having someone beside her to walk through the gates of sin with her.
Vanity can take the form of a woman who appeals to her companion.
They can take many forms.
They can take the form of another.
But they can take the form of yourself
The downfall of she.
They can take the form of abstractness.
They can take the form of she.
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For my creative project, I used multiple lines from Paradise Lost.
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat (9.780-781)
Greedily she engorged without restraint
And knew not eating death. Satiate at length
And heightened as with wine, jocund and boon,
Thus to herself she pleasingly began. (9.791-794)
Then I shall be no more
And Adam wedded to another Eve
Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct:
A death to think! Confirmed then I resolve
Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe.
So dear I love him that with him all deaths
I could endure, without him live no life. (9.827-833)
He sculpted not to eat,
Against his better knowledge, not deceived
But fondly overcome with female charm. (9.997-999)
In Paradise Lost, Milton shows Satan’s perspective of events, and readers are able to understand his feelings and thoughts. I applied a similar thought process with Eve, specifically after she is convinced by Satan to eat from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. While not explicitly stated, Eve begins to feel sinful emotions, including greed, satisfaction, envy, and vanity. She feels greed when she’s eating the fruit, satisfaction when Adam joins her in eating the fruit, envy when she thinks of Adam with another woman, and vanity when she successfully persuades Adam through her “female charm.”
In my poem, I was able to depict how and who Eve became after she ate from the Tree of Knowledge through the sinful emotions she immediately felt. Instead of explicitly stating the sinful emotions, I first personified the sins into humans—people who whisper into her ear and follow her, surrounding her and her thoughts. I used colors to depict the sins more clearly: green is often associated with greed and envy, orange with satisfaction, and red with vanity. In addition to the sins in color, the sins are in the snake—Satan—and are in her own self. She becomes these sins after she eats from the tree.