In Milton's Paradise Lost, before the fall Adam and Eve live in harmony with each other, enjoy the provisions and comforts of nature, and have a direct relationship with God and the angels. Unhampered by conflict, they live in innocence, working not out of necessity but to make their home beautiful, speaking not to clear up misunderstandings but for the pleasure of doing so, and anticipating a time when they will rise to the order of angels and be favored from a closer communion with God. Autumn changes all this. Everything becomes more separated, more differentiated: the distance between Adam and Eve grows, they understand each other less and argue more; nature is no longer harmonious but rather something to struggle and toil with; what was once pleasant and innocent may now be incontinent and evil; God and the angels no longer indulge humanity with friendship and dialogue, but move away and become almost inaccessible. Adam and Eve, raised solely in innocence and pleasure, must learn to live in this new world where nature is mutually incompatible with God. The first thing Adam is taught is how to reason morally. Michael spends a lot of time showing Adam the image of death, lust, greed, disease, and other vices that will now be part of his world. When shown the image of lascivious feasts, Adam says, "Much better does this vision seem, and more hope / of peaceful days does it portend [...] Here nature seems satisfied in all her ends" (11.599-602). Adam is accustomed to the pleasures of paradise, and this idyllic scene reminds him of the times when he enjoyed feasting with Raphael and sleeping with Eve. He believes that sex, once a pleasant and natural nocturnal activity, should still be thought of as such....... middle of paper... now they are differentiated and divided. Once they shared their labors, now they are assigned different roles; Eve is told to have children and Adam is told to work the land for his sustenance. Adam and Eve must now live apart in a world from which God has departed, and as a result they too are estranged from Him. In the invocation of Book 9, the narrator says that before the fall God would sit indulgently with the humanity, "allowing him time / Venial speech without guilt" (9.4-5). Now the conversation with heaven is no longer beyond reproach. The lessons given by Michele contrast with those of Raphael as they are much colder and more formal; Raphael sat with Adam and Eve and partook of their meal, while Michael stands in full armor and lectures Adam. Michael also criticizes Adam's judgment on numerous occasions, correcting him for a misinterpretation.