In his famous epic poem, Milton retells the story "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit / Of that forbidden tree."  It's the drama of original sin, and Satan plays a starring role.  In the guise of a tempting serpent, the fallen angel successfully persuades Eve – and through Eve, Adam – to reject God.  The rest, as they say, is salvation history.

As we celebrate John Milton's 409th birthday, Paradise Lost still has much to say to us today – particularly when it comes to our consumer culture.  The way Milton depicts Satan's temptation of Eve sounds exactly like the ads on our TV.  In the poet's skilled rendering of his deceit, the father of lies uses the language and logic that advertisers still use to sell us beer and shampoo.

Like many good ads, Satan begins with flattery.  As he twines his way toward the lady of creation, he praises her "celestial beauty" and says that she is "universally admired."  He then goes on to make a sinister hint at polygamy, lamenting that only "one man" – Adam – has the privilege of seeing Eve's beauty.  Besides Adam, he asks, "Who sees thee? (and what is one?)"  Eve should be, Satan suggests, "adored and served / by angels numberless."

Just like in advertisements, the flattery ("You're popular!"  "You've got great hair!") comes with the implication that you could be better off than you are now.  Make people feel good, but not too good: they still need your product.  "You're popular, so make sure to stay popular by drinking the right beer."  "You've got great hair, but using our shampoo will make it fantastic."

In addition to this flattery, Satan also makes a more destructive appeal – the appeal to envy.  Sure, we'd all like to be well liked or attractive, but Satan takes it a step farther by suggesting that if Eve eats the fruit, she'll become the object of envy to others.  Satan claims to have eaten the fruit himself, and then he goes on to describe how the other animals wished they were him: "All the other beasts that saw, with like desire / Longing and envying stood, but could not reach."  This is that commercial where a woman walks in wearing a diamond ring or a particularly gorgeous pair of heels, and all the other women stare.  It's pathetic, but don't we secretly all want to be that person with the heels?  Advertisement plays upon the deepest of our insecurities and the basest of our desires.

Satan saves his best deception for last.  He claims that Eve can become more than human – will even become a goddess – by eating the fruit.  He promises that "by putting off / Human, to put on gods,"  Eve will rise above her created state.  "For what are gods," he asks, "that man may not become / As they, participating godlike food?"

And at the end of the day, isn't this what advertising essentially promises?  That with the right bank, the right bourbon, the right haircut or hemorrhoid cream, we'll escape the aches and pains and worries and limitations of our frail mortality?  Ultimately, we all suffer and die.  It's what we do with that fact, and not what we buy, that will shape our human happiness – and for Milton, our eternal destination.

Satan sells Eve a bill of goods, and she willingly and freely buys it:

... her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate:
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.

Eve has internalized Satan's message and freely chooses to eat the forbidden fruit.  So Milton gives us the poisonous persuasion of Satan's advertisement to Eve and makes us think twice about which voices we heed.  The fact that Satan's advertisement leads to universal human woe – murder, disease, natural disaster, and war – should also make us seriously reconsider which voices we let into the sanctum of our homes, and into the sanctum of our souls.

This holiday season, let's not let our desires be shaped or distorted by companies seeking their own profit.  Let's moderate our holiday spending.  Let's install sensible ad-blockers.  Let's mute the commercials.  Best of all, let's turn off the screen and open up a copy of Paradise Lost.

Kelly Scott Franklin is a writer and assistant professor of English at Hillsdale College.