There's a
quotation from
Paradise Lost that, like many others, I find extremely interesting:
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same
At first, I took it to mean that Satan can escape God's punishment by altering his perception, i.e., he can make Hell into Heaven in his mind. After all, one of the subthemes of Paradise Lost is that all of God's creatures must possess free will. But then I started to think, "Why did Satan not manage to free himself?" and, "Why did God give Satan a way to escape eternal suffering?" Then the idea occured to me that Satan was being ironic. Perhaps Hell is not Hell because of its distance from God and its physical pain, but rather it is due to Satan's personality. Consider why God sent Satan and his crew to Hell. Satan viewed himself to be God's equal and was willing to (attempt to) prove it during the battle in Heaven. The thought of rebellion (which begat Sin) and the act of executing the rebellion show an inherent flaw in Satan's character. Satan's pride, a unique and unequaled pride, makes him evil; his pride causes him to oppose God. This same character flaw causes him to attempt to oppose God after being sent to Hell, although unsuccessfully (God will make all of Satan's evil turn into goodness).
So what does it all mean? Satan is free to try to alter his perceptions (God allows him free will), to "make a Heav'n of Hell," but he will always fail precisely because of his mind. What he sees in his mind is salvation, when in reality it is damnation. For me, the most compelling justification for this idea is the last line of the above quotation: "What matter where, if I be still the same." Satan, regardless of where he is, brings Hell with him because Hell is a state of mind. The evil and the wicked are in Hell long before they know it.
If I'm missing something glaringly obvious or have stated something blatantly wrong, please /msg me.
Well, I figured out that I was missing out on something fairly big. When Satan utters the lines above, he does know that he will never have anything like the glory of Heaven; however, he refuses to accept total defeat and misery. Instead, he tries to find ways to bring about joy in a perveted sense, by opposing God. So, if he does realize that he will never restore his lost happiness, most of the above is a misinformed guess. However, the rest of the above quotation...
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then hee
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free
This is absolutely riddled with irony. While Satan may realize that he will not have the happiness he had in Heaven, he does not understand how absolutely correct his rhetorical question is. Satan and Hell are both a part of each other, and have been since Satan's ambitious thoughts for the throne of Heaven. Satan does not waver because of his change of state; this iron will is exactly what damns him for eternity.
The irony of, "Here at least We shall be free" (emphasis mine), is explained by Milton later in Book I; God has Satan on an invisible leash, and only allows him to do as much evil as He sees fit. In fact, any evil committed by Satan will be turned into goodness and grace for humankind. God, by knowing the nature of Satan that made him fall, devised the perfect and ultimate punishment for Satan and his horrible crew.