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as he interferes with her dream, causing confusion and further regression
into a duplicitous interiority. The very fact that Eve is mediated through
her innermost thoughts adds to the feeling that she is an interior being.
Tellingly, Satan appeals to Eve’s desire to ascend the earthly realm and
reunite with God. As a subject of both Adam and God, Eve is more
inclined to long for a higher status, wherein Adam is already God-like
in Eve’s eyes. When Satan plants the seed of dissent, he provokes Eve
by telling her the fruit is able to “make gods of men” (Milton V. 70).
He follows this assertion by questioning, inaccurately, that “and why
not gods of men since good the more / communicated more abundant
grows, / the Author not impaired but honored more?” (Milton V. 71-
74). Of course, the creation of more beings with knowledge of good
and evil leads to further fragmentation and separation from God, and
detracts from God’s ultimate sovereignty, as already seen with Eve’s near
worship of Adam. Thus, Satan suggests that the production of knowledge
separate from God will result in a sense of equality, when in the context
of the poem it only leads to more disunity. Interestingly, Eve uses similar
language to describe Satan as she did with Adam, calling him her “guide”
(Milton V. 91), demonstrating that Eve is subject to layers of separation
and subjection on account of her gender, which is defined by subjection
to Adam and reliance on mediation in general.
The fall itself is associated with a heightened sense of gender difference
and reproduction, resulting in separation from God and division between
man and woman. As Eve ponders how to tell Adam of her choice to eat the
fruit, she contemplates keeping “the odds of knowledge in [her] pow’r /
Without copartner so to add what wants / in female sex, the more to draw
his love / And render [her] equal” (Milton IX. 820-24). Although this is
Eve’s first moment of seeking equality in difference, rather than relying on
mimicry and mediation, she belies herself in her admittance that women
are lacking. Afterward, she admits to desiring superiority, thus, in line
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with Wittig’s theory, she is still differentiating and causing division by
means of her relationship to Adam. As Wittig argues, “matriarchy is no
less heterosexual than patriarchy: it is only the sex of the oppressor that
changes” (10). Furthermore, directly after Eve partakes of the tree, she
associates the tree’s fruit with childbearing. For instance, she describes her
act as easing the tree’s “fertile burden” (Milton IX. 801), suggesting that
the fall is relieving the over-productive earth of the burden of birthing.
However, due to the tree’s significance as a bearer of knowledge, she is
unburdening the tree of knowledge by dispersing it, which leads to the
fragmentation of ideas, religion and language. Ironically, however, Eve is
not incorrect in her statement. As the reader is aware, Eve literally takes
on the tree’s charge, as she becomes burdened with physical reproduction
via the curse. Furthermore, as Schwartz relates of Lieb and Shawcross, it is
well established that “the expulsion from Eden is itself a great, concluding
birth figure” (Schwartz 236), highlighting that the fall is gendered by
means of its association with birth.
Eve’s punishment is the curse of constant fragmentation and
disconnection from God, as with reproduction comes the division of
languages, peoples and religion. This is best represented in the doubt
that pervades Book X. Pre-fall, events are related with relative certainty;
post-fall, stories are hedged with qualifiers such as “some say” (Milton
X. 668 and 670). Ultimately, discord follows Eve’s curse as she is
responsible for the fragmentation of knowledge, which is manifest in the
reproduction of people; the more people there are, the more versions and
interpretations of stories and events are perpetuated; and, as suggested
in Biblical history, the more interpretations there are, the more division
occurs, and thus, fragmentation and separation from God through levels
of deepening mediation. This fragmentation is best exemplified in the
ever-shifting, quickly told events related by Michael in Book XI. Adam’s
curse, in contrast, requires him to labor for production and subject
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