Eve is a simpler character than Adam. She is created from Adam's rib as his helpmeet. While she is beautiful, wise, and able, she is superior to Adam only in her beauty. From the time of her creation, when she looks in the water and falls in love with her own reflection, Eve is linked to the flaw of vanity, and Satan as the serpent will use this defect against her.
Before the fall, Eve is generally presented as submissive to Adam and, to some extent, dependent on him. Her reasoning powers are not as fully realized as his. However, Milton in no way suggests a lack of intelligence on Eve's part. Eve listens to Raphael's description of the war in Heaven and the defeat of the rebellious angels. When the conversation turns to more abstract questions of creation and planetary motion at the start of Book VIII, Eve walks away to tend her Garden. Milton is quick to note, however, "Yet went she not, as not with such discourse / Delighted, or not capable of her ear / Of what was high: such pleasures she reserv'd, / Adam relating, she sole Auditress" (VIII, 48–51). In other words, Eve is perfectly capable of comprehending the abstruse subject, but she prefers hearing the ideas from Adam alone. The implied idea here is that Eve understands her position in the hierarchical arrangement and leaves this conversation so that she will in no way usurp Adam's place with the angel.
