One of the most intriguing arguments that Bowers made in this article dealt with the roles that the two played in their marriage but more importantly how those roles affected the other. According to Bowers, Eve was the passion, the matter, the body and the inferior participant in the marriage while Adam was the opposite. Bowers believed Adam to be the superior figure in their marriage; he was the governing one to Eve's passion, the spirit to her matter, and the soul to her body. ( Adam, Eve, and the Fall in "Paradise Lost", Fredson Bowers, PMLA, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Mar., 1969), pp. 265)
Bowers mentions the philosophy of Plato that says man was created as a perfect sphere and then spilt in half in order to make woman and it is the challenge to find the one that makes you a whole sphere again. Together Adam and Eve are "two parts joining reason to passion to create "one flesh, one heart, one soule.""(pp. 265). However, Adam is warned not to let Eve's beauty fool his reason. He is told that he is to lead and guide Eve and whatever he does she will in turn do; whatever he believes she will do the same. Bowers says in the article that if Adam does not lead, Eve will not follow. (pp. 266)
It is said later on that man [Adam] was in fact created perfectly despite his mistakes however when he was created perfectly he was not created immutably. (pp. 268) This hold true as we see Adam become subservient to Eve. Bowers says in the article that, "the fall occurs when reason, stronger in the person in Adam relinquishes its sovereignty over judgment, or decision, to passion, which is stronger in the person Eve"(pp. 265). Here Adam has allowed passion to overtake him and as a result he places his love for Eve over his love for God.
The article claims that Eve too was deceived however not by passion nor reason but pride, the worst of the 7 deadly sins. Bower remarks that,"Eve's weaker reason falls victim to more powerful passion and under this influence she makes a decision that seals the fate of them both." (pp. 265). I believe that the more powerful passion that Bower references is the pride that comes to Eve as a result of Satan whispering in her ear as she slept. This pride is what allows the serpent to get to Eve and tempt her with the apple. At that point Adam tells her that they should stay together mainly because he cares for her but she believes that he doubts her abilities and her faith and therefore insists on separating. Eve's pride, according to Bower, caused "not only a breach in the chain of being, it was a breach of their love. . ." (pp. 272).
In the end, Bower drew a conclusion that I had not truthfully considered before. He said that even though Eve was so deceived that Adam himself was not deceived by Satan directly however he still places the blame on Adam. When I first read this I again thought of the quote, "" He for God only, she for God in Him" (4.299) however I thought of it in a different way. In a sense I believe that this quote could be reversed to depict that at a certain point the order changed and it was now Eve for the God she saw in Satan and Adam for the God he saw in Eve.
I also thought it was interesting as to how Bower rationalized the fall as being Adam's fault because he failed to lead, protect, and guide Eve as God instructed him to. It is this that allows her to become deceived by Satan. (pp. 273) Bower also believes Adam to be more a fault than Eve because he turned his back on reason and all that he knew to be right in order to please Eve as he was deceived by her passion and her beauty when he should have been the stronger one who should have governed the relationship. I think that this article had many valid arguments and overall forced me to reconsider this key relationship.
Em
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