To make sense of the first two books of the epic poem Paradise Lost and further to understand Satan as a character, the reader must be equipped with a little background information. First of all, Satan, known as Lucifer, and his compatriots were once angels of heaven, with Satan himself being number two behind only God, the trinity (in other words God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit). Satan, with a heart of stone, full of hate, stuck on himself, drowning in the swamps of self-satiation, becomes jealous of the trinity, believing he should have more power than he is allowed. His arrogance and greed earns him an ousting from the promised land to hell. With him other less than divine angels are too cast from heaven into the fiery abyss.
The first 83 lines, written in the third person, are a sort of introduction by the narrator to the nature of the "adventrous song" (13), answers to the question "why hell?" Let's look at a couple of lines that can help answer this all important question. First in lines twenty to twenty three, we are introduced to Satan "brooding on the vast abyss/ And mad it's pregnant." Here, we are introduced to evil himself at home in his eternal home. Then in lines 34 to 38 we find out why he is there. "Th" infernal serpent; . his Pride/ Had cast him out of heaven." It is important to understand here that it was Satan's pride and ego that predetermined his destiny. God may be all loving, but there is no room for hatred in heaven. .
Let's move along to where the story actually begins. In line 84 Satan addresses Beezlebub in gloried fashion. He appears to be a charming character at first his eloquent speech pitied circumstances give him an attractive persona, "If thou beest he; But O how fall"n! how changed/ From him, who in the happy Realms of Light/ Clothed wuth transcendent brightness didst out-shine/ Myriads." His charm and beauty is tarnished a short time later, however, when, in lines 253 and 263 he shows his true colors to the reader, "The mind is it's own place, and in it self/ Can make a Heav"n of Hell, a Hell of Heav"n/.
