Carrion/Satan (in Paradise Lost)

[malingomango]

Lately i've been reading Paradise Lost for a Literature course in College. A lot of the narrative describes the fall of satan and his fallen character.

He reminds me of Carrion in the sense that he takes hell wherever he goes in his constant torment. Satan can NEVER repent, even though he is capable of seeing the grandeur of God's work in his creation of the Earth. Satan longs to return to heaven and yet he knows he could never repent and bow down to God.

Carrion is evil, and yet longs to be good via his love for Candy/Boa. However he is condemned to evilness and torment. ( I cite the time that candy touched his bare skin and saw faces of evil while he was chasing her around in the flying house, as evidence of this).

It's almost like Carrion is d**ned to eternal torment, born in the darkness and thus condemned to die in it. He has no power to overcome what he truely is, anymore than satan does. ALSO Satan in Paradise Lost wants revenge upon God for his fall on grace. Carrion, in his dark hour, wants to wage war upon Isles of Light in Abarat.

Before the fall of man in Paradise Lost, Satan wanders around Earth for a bit. When he first arrives on Earth he is stunned, and thinks "wow, this is awesome what God has made!!" before shaking out of that thought process and thinking..." this isnt a part of who i am, i'm condemned never to enjoy it, so i will DESTROY it." Isnt this similar to Carrion's admiration of the Light. He is dazzled by it and yet has a destructive urge in him to completely wipe it out.

Does anyone else see these paralells?
What do you guys think?

[Abaratian]

I read Carrion just a slight bit differently than you (if I'm reading you're post correctly), although I do definitely see the paralells between Carrion and Paradise Lost's Satan. I agree with your parallels wholeheartedly and feel like they sum up Carrion pretty well.

In my opinion, there was potential for Carrion to become a good person. This is like Lucifer, before his fall. His slate had almost been whiped clean when his family all perished in the fire. With no relatives to corrupt him, he could have grown to be as good and loving a man as even Finnegan, in my opinion. But Mater Motley survived, looming over him. And he had a great deal of contempt for her, and tried to separate himself, but she was raising him, and even though he attempted to distance himself from his family's devillish history, her presence in his life made that impossible.

So he was a "good" person. By good I just mean he was not evil, I don't mean that he was a great citizen doing charity and helping old ladies cross the street. He was still a dark, haunted man, but he wasn't a typical demonic Carrion, either. However, his fall into these demonic, dangerous ways was inevitable because Mater Motley had raised him and had corrupted him into being a true blue Carrion, even though he had tried to convince himself otherwise.

I don't think he was doing this consciously, either. I don't think he was like "Oh I'm going to be a good, respectable person". I think it was more like he was born innocently, like every creature is. No sins or hatred yet. As he was raised, these feelings and actions were etched into him by Mater Motley. His distrust and dislike for her, made the etchings very shallow - shallow enough for him to heal and leave if he wished. But over time, her marks on him became deeper to the point that they would never heal. It was too late and he would become evil eventually.

I think Boa was the major catalyst for this. It wasn't that he was trying to be a good person for her. I think it was more of he was still underneath it all a good person, trying to shed off his relations to the Carrion family and Mater Motley in order to be with her. But his appearance and reputation were too much for Boa. Along with that, I feel like she could see Mater Motley's grip on him. Even if he wasn't evil when he was courting her, I feel like she knew it was only a matter of time before he snapped.

However, when she denied him to marry Finnegan, I think she accidentally made the snap happen a lot quicker than it would have, ending all chances that he could break himself from Mater Motley's hold on him. He killed her, beginning a spree of crimes and murders that Carrion would continuously commit throughout his life. At this point he was not a good person, he was crazy, hurt, and dangerous, like a cornered dog - not evil at heart, but the situation called for him to bite and bite he did, but once he started biting he just couldn't stop.

So I feel like if you look at it my way, another good paralell with Carrion aside from Lucifer would be perhaps Erik the Phantom of the Opera. If you replace Mater Motley simply with society, it mirrors Carrion's situation quite perfectly. He was born with a clean slate, but the way he was treated because of his appearance dug deeper and deeper into him, until by the time Christine hurt him by choosing Raoul over him, he was near the point of breaking under the pressure.

Another example would be Claude Frollo from Hunchback of Notre Dame. In this case, the replacement for Mater Motley isn't so clear. It's several things piled up on top of each other that equal for Frollo all of the harm she's done to Carrion. But when he meets and falls in love with young, innocent, beautiful Esmeralda and she denies him, he snaps in a similar way.

Great post by the way. Parallels in literature are quite fun