At the top of Milton's universe is Heaven with God on his throne; at the bottom of this universe is Hell, with Satan on his throne. In between the two is Chaos with his consort Night. Chaos and Night are depicted as characters, but they are actually personifications of the great unorganized chasm that separates Heaven from Hell. For Milton, relying on earlier writers and thinkers, Chaos was the formless void that existed before creation. It was the abyss, the darkness, and the mighty wind out of which God created first Heaven and, later, Earth.
Chaos also physically demonstrates the profound width of the gap between Heaven and Hell. Not only is Hell at the bottom of the universe in Milton's design, it is at the bottom of an almost limitless and unimaginably disordered space. Milton describes Chaos as "Eternal Anarchy" (II, 896) and a "wild Abyss" (II, 917). He adds that it is "The Womb of nature, and perhaps her Grave, / Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire, / But all these in their pregnant causes mixt / Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight" (II, 911–914).
In Paradise Lost, Satan has to journey across Chaos to find Earth. This journey is long and arduous and is one of the accomplishments of Satan that makes him seem heroic. In Book II, Satan, with no clear idea of where he is going or how to get there, sets out across Chaos, intent on finding God's new creation. If the reader forgets Satan's motive, to corrupt and destroy, then Satan becomes the heroic individual, pitting himself against the universe.
