Eve's Agency in The Fall in "Paradise Lost"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost

I found Milton's depiction of The Fall intriguing and unlike what I had always pictured in my head. It seems to me that Milton gave Eve much more agency than I expected and gave Adam much less. The way that I've always heard this story told is that the serpent easily convinced Eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and Eve shared that fruit with Adam unknowingly; I have always been under the impression that Adam did not know what Eve had done until after he had eaten the fruit she brought him. I was surprised at the portrayal of Eve as questioning and reluctant because she tends to be looked upon as a naive woman who fell for Satan's trickery. I perceive Eve's questioning not as a commitment to her relationship with God, but as another way in which she demonstrates her humanness; I perceive her as being more concerned with her own death- which has been threatened by God for eating from the Tree of Knowledge- and not so concerned with upsetting God. Milton illustrates Eve in much the same way that he does the character of Sin, except that Sin is outwardly grotesque and Eve is inwardly so because of her selfish desires to be like God, as Satan suggests she will be if she eats the forbidden fruit. This even links back to Satan himself, who was the beloved Lucifer prior to his thinking that he could be like God. At first I found the similarities between Satan, Sin, and Eve (human nature) a surprising revelation but then I realized that it makes sense; Eve's likeness to Satan and Sin alludes to the fact that human nature becomes innately sinful from this point on. Milton writes Paradise Lost without any consideration of time therefore including information from humanity after The Fall which makes this portrayal accurate and cunning on Milton's part.