Explore Milton's presentation of Eden in the 'Labour Debate' in Book Nine of Paradise Lost.

The Labour Debate is a crucial moment in Book Nine whereby Milton exposes the structural flaws of Eden, so that the reader can later understand the internal dynamics of the temptation scene. The centre of Eve’s opening argument is that the Garden is growing out of control because they are cutting it back- as summarised in the oxymoronic description ‘luxurious by restraint’. The questioning Eve examines the effects on nature of the imposition of culture; this creates a new understanding of the Fall as a cultural issue rather than a theological one. The post lapsarian reader will have already have made the judgement that Eve is wrong, knowing that her separation leads to the Fall. Yet Milton uses the format of a debate to counter this assumption through the narrator validating Eve’s position before she even presents it. In the line ‘their growing work: for much their work outgrew’, the use of apposition and caesura demonstrates how the narrator modifies his description to emphasise the growing workload. This then connects to the next line ‘the hands dispatch of two gardening so wide’, which foreshadows the distance which will grow between the married couple through the adjective ‘wide’. The proleptic tone adopted by the narrator links the ‘growing work’ to the ‘wide’ distance which is emerging between Eve and Adam. Thus, God’s commandment to work and maintain order is subtly associated with the build-up of the Fall.  In the description ‘lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind’, Eve’s use of polysyndeton further portrays the impressive rate of natural growth, which cannot be contained by any form of human control. The pace of the rhythm also conveys Eve’s own restlessness, which mirrors the activity of the garden. Eve identifies with the natural tendencies of the garden which become unruly when restrained through plosive, aggressive verbs. The subversive discourse of the poem is developed through her argument; it is suggested that the imposition of law doesn’t control disorder, it produces disorder. Thus, this extends through the agricultural metaphor created by Milton to suggest that the interdiction of the fruit itself is the cause of the Fall. Only the structure of a debate between Adam and Eve would allow Milton to present Eden as structurally flawed without Milton's Epic being branded as blasphemous. When commenting on Eve’s motivations in the temptation scene, Empson states ‘I think Milton would have said that Eve did not know why’. Yet the Labour Debate challenges this reading, as it exposes Eve’s awareness of the structural flaws within Eden, and the limitations this imposes on her Free Will. Her description of ‘wanton growth’ refers to the morally neutral tendency of things to overgrow, yet to the post lapsayrian reader the adjective ‘wanton’ has negative connotations of promiscuity and seduction, due to the cultural evolution of language. This further supports the concept that morally neutral tendencies are branded with negative interpretations through the enforcement of law and unnatural order. Thus, the Labour Debate is fundamental as a tool for Milton to present Eden as structurally flawed before the Fall.