Instead, he recounts his dreams of human progress and achievement; he feels that now, unencumbered by God's rules, he is ready to pursue his own glory.

The first period they visit, ancient Egypt, is the realization of Adam's dream of immense human achievements.

Adam is usually engrossed in his role at the beginning of each scene, and only becomes self-aware and aware of Lucifer as his guide near the end.

From the 19th century period on, Adam is no longer a leader, but retreats into an observer role, his political and historical enthusiasm having disappeared.

The Sun is dying, civilization has disappeared, and mankind has been reduced to a few scattered savages trying to eke out a living.

It is never addressed whether this is truly the future Madách foresaw, or whether this is an elaborate illusion on the part of Lucifer to make Adam lose hope once and for all.

God rebukes Satan, and tells Adam that regardless of whether he sees hope or not, his task is only to "strive on, and have faith."

Adam is Tancred, Prince of Galilee; Lucifer is his squire; Eve is a noble maiden forced to become a nun.

Adam is Georges Danton; Lucifer is an executioner; Eve appears in two forms, first as an aristocrat about to be executed, then immediately following as a bloodthirsty poor woman.

The play is invariably compared to John Milton's Paradise Lost, as the two deal with the same subject matter—the creation and fall of Man, and the devil's role in it.

As in Paradise Lost, some critics maintain that the true protagonist of the Tragedy is Lucifer himself, being more active than Adam and God combined.

Milton offers a more well-rounded Lucifer, however; he is motivated chiefly by a desire for power, and all his actions stem from that, rather than from any specifically malicious drive.

Madách's version is significantly more one-sidedly villainous, seeking to destroy mankind simply to prove God's creation experiment a failure.

This spite, combined with his charisma in dealing with Adam and Eve, make him a decidedly sinister character, more so than Milton's.

Each scene, each historical period, is the realization of some ideal of Adam (thesis), which Lucifer then exposes as being deeply flawed (antithesis).

Adam, on the verge of losing hope, comes into contact with Eve, and decides upon a new ideal (synthesis) which would cure the worst problems of his present reality.

[1] Therefore, the interpretation of God as a capricious and arbitrary deity who wants to see his creations toil and suffer for no purpose does not seem to fit with Madách's probable intentions.

Both notably contributed to the representation of the Lucifer, that takes characteristics from both Milton's Satan and Goethe's Mephistopheles.

Likewise, existentialist themes reflecting on the apparent absurdity of existence are present throughout; Kierkegaard's influence can also be inferred, especially in the ending, which affirms both the world's meaninglessness and the meaningfulness of striving for God.