Satan, a towering yet negative character is the most dynamic character of English Literature.

He
represents Strength and the evil’s scope and its impact on mankind. He is the most criticized yet
idealized personality in Paradise Lost. Satan occupies the most prominent position in the action of
Paradise Lost. Though the main theme of the poem is the “Man’s first disobedience” yet it is the
character of Satan which gives a touch of greatness to this epic. Al the poetic powers of Milton are
shown on the delineation of the majestic personality of the enemy of God and Man, i.e. Satan.

As it is shown in Paradise Lost Book-I that the character of Satan is a blend of the noble and the
ignoble, the exalted and the mean, the great and the low, therefore, it becomes difficult to declare him
either a hero or a wholly villain.

In Paradise Lost Book-I we can hardly doubt his heroic qualities because this book fully exhibits his
exemplary will-power, unsurpassable determination, unshakable confidence and unbelievable courage.
However, the encyclopedia of religion removes some of the confusion from our minds regarding
Satan’s character in the following words:

“Satan means the arch-enemy of men, the adversary of God and of Christianity, a rebel against God,
a lost arch-angle.”

In Paradise Lost, the Genesis story upon the corruption of man was recreated by the author. Paradise
Lost starts, not with the expected potential heroes of the Genesis stories, God or man, but it begins
instead with Satan, therefore paying great attention to him, his actions and characteristics. Satan was
once God’s principle angels, but he rebelled when God gave precedence to Christ.

The very descriptions of Satan’s physical dimensions and the size of the tools he carries mark him out
as a kind of hero. His limbs are long and large; his bulk is as huge as that of the Titan who fought
against Jove or that of Leviathan which God of all His works created hugest that swim the ocean
stream. He has a mighty stature so that, when he rises, the flames on both sides of him are driven
backward and roll in billows. He carries a ponderous, massy, and large shield on his shoulder. This
shield is compared to the moon as seen through a telescope. His spear is so big that the tallest pine
tree would be but a wand by comparison, etc. An outcast from Heaven, Hell trembles beneath his feet;
Sin and Death are at his heels, and mankind are his easy prey. Milton’s has rightly said in Book I:
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
Free will is another factor of Satan’s character. The allure of free will is where attractiveness and power
of Satan’s lies. Although Satan undergoes perpetual mental and physical torture in hell yet he is
satisfied with his liberty to do whatever he likes.
“Better to reign in Hell, the Serve in Heaven.”
 Satan’s mind is not only unconquerable it also influences other minds to use their freewill to oppose
the will of God. Beelzebub appreciates him for his fearless virtues as the commander of fallen angels.
His speech to the fallen angels is a sole roof of his great leadership because it infuses a new spirit in the
defeated angels who come out of the pit of hill with their swords and are ready to face any danger
regardless of their crushing and humiliating defeat at the hands of God.
Awake, arise, or be forever fall'n.
They heard, and were abasht, and up they sprung
Pride is the cause of his fall from Heaven – Pride that has ‘raised’ him to contend with the mightiest.
But where is that pride when the Archangel enters into the mouth of a sleeping serpent and hides
himself in its “Mazy folds”. Here from the grand figure that he is in the beginning, he degenerates into
a man and cunning fellow, and then he tries to tempt Eve by guile. So, Satan degenerates from the role
of a brave hero to that of a cunning villain.
Milton portrayed Satan as a vengeful, manipulative, trickish, lying, and vicious individual. Satan
decision was that they wouldn’t attack Heaven through war, but attack the newest creation of God,
Man. Satan volunteered his services to “seduce them to our party, that their God May prove their foe,
and with repenting hand Abolish his own works.” Unlike Satan and his followers, Adam and Eve didn’t
choose a destructive path after their Fall. They kept a hopeful and humble behavior. Adam even
conformed himself to the corruptive archangel saying that his pain was never before and never again.
This portrayal of the main character is seen in Homer’s Iliad, “a sense of injuried merit” and the hero’s
wrath.
Satan has always been portrayed as the embodiment of evil. In paradise lost, he is the “Arch Enemy”,
who opposes the divine degree. In order to be different for God who is thought to be good, he takes
the title of evil. Satan explicitly rejects Micheal’s term evil for the war in Heaven, which “we style/The
strife of glory”. Only later when Satan arrives on Earth to manipulate god’s creation, the sun rays
remind him of his previous glory in heaven. His famous and paradoxical cry is that, “Evil be thou my
good.” In the same passage, Satan is bedazzled by Eve’s innocence and “Stupidly good”, that he is for
the only time called, “the evil one.” But Milton also has Satan admit that it was god who made him “in
that bright eminence”, meaning he was making God responsible from the existence of evil.
So in the end, it can be said that Satan has all the heroic qualities of a classical epic hero who rebels
against what he regards as tyranny.