John Milton's Paradise Lost:

Character Analysis:
Adam:
Adam is the first human in Eden created by God. He is the more intellectual of the two, with Eve being more rooted in experience. Positively, Adam is a model of a good ruler, gently leading Eve during their first encounter away from her reflection, using force but not excessively. Although he and Eve are not equal in the story, Adam is not an oppressive ruler. He and Eve have a mutually dependent relationship. This illustrates Milton’s views on the relationship between ruler and subject as well as husband and wife.

Negatively, he like Satan shares the problem of lack of self-knowledge, but unlike Satan who is totally self-absorbed and narcissistic, Adam’s problem stems from the fact that he seems to be in danger of losing sight of himself. The cause of his loss of self is the beauty of Eve, which he complains about during his discourse with Raphael, saying that she is "Too much of Ornament". He talks anxiously of how he feels like he is becoming dependent on Eve, who conversely seems to be self-sufficient and naturally independent.

Adam is distraught by this because it would seem to him that she should be the one dependent because he was created first and she was made from a part of him, and yet as it stands he is becoming obsessed with Eve almost to the point of idolizing her. There is also an element of heresy to Adam even before the Fall. He wishes to avoid confrontation with Satan completely, even to the fact of being cowardly about it, denying the idea of the "felix culpa", that the Fall might not be a bad thing, perhaps part of God’s greater plan.