Analysis and Themes of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus
Doctor Faustus also referred to as The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus is a play by Christopher Marlowe. This play is based on a German story where a man sells his soul to the devil in a quest for knowledge and power (Sales 340. The protagonist in this play is Doctor Faustus. Doctor Faustus was hungry of power and knowledge and in search for them; he sold his soul to the devil. At first, he was very happy with the praise he received from the people as they considered him a hero. Later on, Faustus learns that he committed a grave mistake of selling his soul to the devil for twenty-four years. Even though he felt remorseful for his mistakes, it was already late for him. He is later found by his fellow scholars dead and torn from limb to limb. Faustus was a heroic fool who only thought of power and never thought of eternal damnation. The protagonist in Marlowe’s splay is Faustus. Faustus is represented as a contradictory and ambitious character.
In addition, he was greed-driven, blind, and willing to do anything to get powers even if it meant selling his soul to the devil. Marlowe introduces us to the protagonist as he prepares to embark on a journey of gaining more powers and becoming a magician. He is blinded by greed, and never thinks of what might happen if things do not work out well (Austen2). All the protagonist thought of was how he was going to use the power he was to get from the devil, and how he was to become wealthy with his powers as a magician. Marlowe portrays the central character as blind, arrogant, self-aggrandizing, and ambitious. However, his ambitions were so big until instead of the reader pitying him, one feels impressed by what he plans to do with his powers after selling his soul to the devil
THEMES IN THE TEXT
THEME ANALYSIS OF GREED IN “DOCTOR FAUSTUS”
The play “Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe gives a glimpse into a well-respected scholar known as “Doctor Faustus”. Throughout the play, the central theme of greed is shown in the decisions that are made by Doctor Faustus. He is a man who is wanting more in his life and is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. The play goes to show how greed is a sin that feeds people’s desires for just a moment but can only negatively affect a soul in the end. Doctor Faustus is a man with incredible knowledge. He is a German man who is well respected by the people who surround him because of him being such a significant scholar… shows more content… This does not mean his sin of greed will not catch up to him. He did sign a twenty-four-year contract with Lucifer and his time is soon coming to an end. The night before Doctor Faustus’ contract expires, he begs for God’s forgiveness. He wants his soul to go to heaven and not hell. Sadly, it is too late for him and he must face the consequences of his decision. “Ugly hell, gape not! Come not, Lucifer!” (Marlowe V.i)
At this point in time, the clock has struck midnight and Lucifer is now coming for the soul of Doctor Faustus. In the end, Doctor Faustus has to now spend the rest of eternity suffering in hell along with others who made the mistake of disowning God. The play “Doctor Faustus” is able to showcase the theme of greed and how it can affect the person who is committing the sin.
TEMPTATION, SIN, AND REDEMPTION
Deeply immersed in Christianity, Marlowe’s play explores the alluring temptation of sin, its consequences, and the possibility of redemption for a sinner like Doctor Faustus. Faustus’s journey can be seen in relation to the possible trajectory from the temptation to sin to redemption: Faustus’ ambition is tempted by the prospect of limitless knowledge and power. He sins to achieve it, and then he rejects it for possible redemption. He is so caught up in his desire for power that he neglects the consequences of his deal with Lucifer. Giving in to his temptations, he rejects God in favor of Lucifer and Mephastophilis, a sin if there ever was one.
In portraying Faustus’ sinful behavior, Marlowe reveals the negative effects of sin on Faustus himself. Despite his originally lofty ambitions, Faustus ends up using his magic for practical jokes, parlor tricks, and the summoning of a beautiful woman (Helen of Troy). As the play’s scholars lament, Faustus was once an esteemed scholar but after his deal with the devil he seems a mere shade of his former self. While Faustus hurts himself and others through sin, he still has the possibility of redemption throughout the play. As the Good Angel tells him, it is never too late to repent and thereby gain God’s mercy. But Faustus is persuaded by the Evil Angel not to repent, primarily by convincing Faustus that he’s so damned already that he would never actually be able to return to God. These two angels can be seen as representing the opposing pulls of redemption and the temptation to sin even more.
Faustus listens to the Evil Angel for most of the play but seems to repent in the final scene. Or does he? The question of whether Faustus really repents at the end of the tragedy is debatable and has important implications for whether the play suggests that at some moment it really is too late for a sinner like Faustus to repent and be redeemed. In any case, whether because he repented too late or didn’t repent truly, Faustus rejects the possibility of redemption and is ultimately damned for his sins.
Analysis and Themes of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus
THE RENAISSANCE INDIVIDUAL
Marlowe lived and wrote during the English Renaissance, and his play has much to say about the transition from a more medieval society to the Renaissance. Greatly simplified, this means a shift in various ways from reliance on some kind of authority figure to reliance on one’s own individual self. Humanist scholars of the Renaissance refocused their studies on the individual human subject, while the Protestant reformation affirmed the individual’s prerogative to interpret scripture instead of relying on the pope and the hierarchical Catholic Church. A flourishing of education and other social changes made it more and more possible for people to rise up through society through their own hard work and ambition.
Faustus embodies many of these changes: he is a self-made man, from humble origins, who has risen through education. He is ambitious and constantly desires to learn and know more about the world through various forms of scholarly inquiry. But Faustus also demonstrates some possible dangers in the Renaissance stress on one’s own individual self. His self-reliance shades into selfishness and excessive pride. After making his deal with Lucifer, Faustus is too proud to admit that he was wrong and repent. He rejects the authority (and the help) of God and tries to handle things himself. While some resistance to authority and celebration of the individual may be a good thing (the play has no problems poking fun at the pope and the Catholic church, for example), Marlowe demonstrates the pitfalls of excessive individualism.
Not only does Faustus serve as an example of excessive individualism. So does Lucifer himself, who originally rebelled against the authority of God. The tension between the Renaissance notion of the power and importance of the individual and the Christian stress on obeying God fills and animates Doctor Faustus. Although Faustus suffers for erring too far in the direction of the individual, Marlowe’s tragedy leaves the question of how to balance these opposing values unresolved (some may, after all, sympathize with the fiercely ambitious Faustus), forcing readers to come to their own answers.
EDUCATION, KNOWLEDGE, AND POWER
Faustus is identified as a character by his status as a doctor (that is, someone with a doctoral degree), and the backdrop of much of the play is the university environment in which Doctor Faustus lives. It is thus no surprise that issues of formal education are of great importance to the play, in which even magic spells are learned from a kind of textbook. Systems of education obviously exist to help people learn, but Marlowe also explores the associations of formal education with power and social hierarchy. Education helps people position themselves in higher social classes. It is through education that Faustus rises from his humble origins and that the play’s scholars differentiate themselves from lowly clowns like Robin and Rafe. And when Wagner promises to teach a clown magic, he uses his superior knowledge as a way to gain power over the clown, getting him to agree to be his servant.
But not everything can be learned in school and from books. In his opening soliloquy, Faustus rejects traditional areas of study and, although his magic does rely on a spell-book, what he seeks from Mephastop is the knowledge that he can’t attain in traditional ways. For the ambitious Faustus, even beyond the implications of education’s effect on social hierarchy, knowledge means power. He desires limitless knowledge largely because of the massive riches and power that come with it. And indeed whatever power Faustus possesses with his magic is due entirely to his knowledge of certain magic incantations. This close connection between knowledge and power can be contrasted with the idea of knowledge for its own sake, which ideally characterizes learning in universities.
Analysis and Themes of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus
Ultimately, Marlowe’s play suggests that there are limits to proper knowledge and education. The desire to learn is not inherently bad, but Faustus goes too far and seeks to know too much. He himself seems to recognize this, as his last line in the play contains a promise to burn his books (XIII, 113) and thus repudiate his ambition for learning. The chorus that delivers the final lines of the play sums up the moral of Faustus’ story: “Regard his hellish fall, / whose mindful fortune may exhort the wise / Only to wonder at [i.e. be amazed at but don’t seek to understand] unlawful things,” (Epilogue, 4-6). But even if this moral is clear-cut, where to draw the line between appropriate subjects of study and “unlawful things” that we shouldn’t seek to know is unclear. Knowledge is power, but how much is too much?
FATE VS. FREE WILL
In addition to the Renaissance more generally, the Protestant reformation and questions surrounding the changing nature of European Christianity in Marlowe’s time have a profound influence on Doctor Faustus. One such question that the play tackles is the issue of predestination. According to Calvinism (a branch of protestant Christianity started by John Calvin), people are predestined to be either saved in heaven or damned in hell. In other words, they are born fated to go to one or the other and there’s nothing they can do to change that.
One overarching question in Marlowe’s play is whether Faustus’ fall from grace is his own fault or whether he is fated to be damned. (The question can be extended also to Lucifer and his renegade angels-turned-devils: were they fated to fall from heaven to hell?) Faustus seems to choose his own path, voluntarily agreeing to his deal with Lucifer. And he appears to have the choice to repent at any moment in the play. But, according to a Calvinist interpretation, such free will is an illusion, as these “choices” are already predetermined by God.
Even the two versions of the play can’t seem to agree on an answer. In a crucial line, the A-text has the Good Angel tell Faustus it is “Never too late if Faustus will repent,” (V, 253). The B-text reads, “Never too late, if Faustus can repent.” In one version, the only question is whether Faustus “will” or will not repent. On the other, it is questionable whether Faustus even has the option (“can” or can’t he repent?). Regardless, that the play engages in this kind of questioning at all suggests that there may be limits to and constraints upon free will.
Analysis and Themes of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus