ABSTRACT
While not the protagonist of Milton's drama, Manoa, nevertheless, is the character who ties the action together through beginning, well-known “middle,” and ending. Milton's expansion of Manoa's role and limitations as earthly father deepens the ironies of Samson's search for some sign from his heavenly father and thus heightens the dramatic tension. The differing and developing responses of Manoa and Samson, as father and son, to the same experience intersect and interact, defining each other by contrast. Samson is the son larger than life, caught in life and reaching beyond it and beyond his physical and spiritual blindness; Manoa is the too-human father, trapped by the limitations of his own vision and by his relationship to his son. The ambiguity of the drama—whether it be tragedy or triumph or both—perhaps derives from the polarities of father and son.
