Devilish Whispers: Milton’s Influence on Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman

Abstract

This article analyses how in Neil Gaiman’s comic series entitled The Sandman, there is a great influence from the figure of Lucifer, the character at the core of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Furthermore, the article aims to engage with and portray a deeper understanding of how Milton’s epic poem echoes in Gaiman’s comic series, and especially how the characters of Morpheus and Lucifer are totally based on Milton’s models. Yet, Gaiman is adapting the Miltonian narrative for newer audiences in a reinvention of one of the classics of English literature. Using Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation and the main ideas of inter and transmediality, this paper will try to build a bridge between Milton and Gaiman to analyse the correlations between the two. Paradise Lost greatly influences The Sandman, especially in the description of its characters, the conceptualisation of Hell and the concept of storytelling. By analysing their similarities and differences, readers will understand Gaiman’s reinvention of the Miltonian Satan to illustrate how the frontier between good and evil might be blurrier than humanity tends to think.

Keywords: Paradise Lost; The Sandman; Adaptation; Transmediality; Intermediality.

Highlights:

1. This paper deeply explores the reconfiguration of the Miltonian narrative inside Paradise Lost within Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, delving into the complexly moral and rebellious identities of two of his main characters: Lucifer and Morpheus.  2. Through transmedial and intermedial theories, this study showcases how Milton's theological and narratological ideas are redefined through the visual language of the comic.  3. This paper enlarges Linda Hutcheon's adaptation theory by exploring how Gaiman's work does not only adapt Milton but also reinterprets his epic poem, adapting it for the contemporary reader's eyes.  4. This study deepens into the way in which the characters of Lucifer and Morpheus inherit and recast Milton's Satanic traits into a postmodern and contemporary articulation of rebellious autonomy.  5. Through the analysis of John Milton's Paradise Lost and its echoes in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, this paper builds a bridge between the restoration period and contemporary discourse, thus exhibiting the power of literature and showing how classical archetypes -even those representing evil- persevere across time, sometimes finding solace in the minds of authors as dark and twistingly interesting as that of Gaiman.