Doctor Faustus As A Morality Play
Doctor Faustus As A Morality Play
Doctor Faustus As A Morality Play
There is nothing new about the dramatic story of Doctor Faustus,- the
story of human presumption, temptation, damnation and fall being the
essential narrative of the mystery, miracle and morality p lays. Doctor
Faustus does not deviate either from the narrative or the thematic strain
of the Christian drama preceding it. There is little drama in the divinely
ordered destiny of man excepting the allegorical interplay between the
forces of good and evil. The human situation is a pathetic comedy of evil,
the evil that man, at best, could be tempted to, that all that man is
capable of in his comic impotence is wrath and despair. The comic
imbecility of man however, is a part of the divine totality of purpose as
reflected in the world, the natural universe and history. As such, evil is
not an antagonist but simply a lack or deficiency of being that is taken
care of in the ultimate divine order where all being is ultimately good.
Douglas Cole sums up the Christian dramatic tradition of Marlowe who
chooses to transform the German Faust legend into a tragedy:
The English morality is staged as a homiletic allegory. Within its
transparently didactic framework, the personifications of abstract vices
and virtues contend for the allegiance of the central figure or figures that
represent man. The characteristic plot is a contest, and its characteristic
movement is from the seduction of mankind by vice to the salvation of
mankind by virtue and repentance. The fundamental issue of the morality
play is thus always the same, and it is by definition a serious one. The
fundamental evil involved, sin in one or another of its particular forms, is
always the same, and just as serious. But the dramaturgical expression of
the issue and the evil, drawing from the heritage of the mystery plays,
combined with moral gravity and comic effect; the comedy of evil
persisted along with the allegory of evil; like the allegory, it found its
support and basis in the doctrinal and homiletic formulation which was
responsible for the morality tradition.
For his tragedy, Marlowe had to contend with a comedy and an allegory of
evil, a didactic contest for dramatic conflict and homiletics for dramatic
resolution. The dramatic thrust of the morality play was towards a
slapstick in order to demonstrate human frivolity. The human protagonist
suffers immensely but the suffering is retributive and axiomatic rather
than real. The Faust legend Marlowe uses in the play eminently fits into
the morality comedy form, for the necromancer, Faust, who sells his soul
to the devil for swinish pleasures, effectively illustrates the human
predicament in the morality plays.
Doctor Faustus is an unimpeachable creation by The Central Sun of the
University Wits, Christopher Marlow (1564-1593). Marlow has rightly been
called The Morning Star of the great Elizabethan drama. Doctor Faustus has
been treated as a link between the miracle and morality plays and the illustrious
drama of Elizabethan period. William Hazlitt remarks: “His Doctor Faustus,
though an imperfect and unequal performance, is his greatest work. Faustus
himself is a rude sketch, but it is a gigantic one. The character maybe
considered a personification of the pride of will and eagerness of curiosity,
sublimed beyond the reach of fear and remorse.”
The bad side of his soul did not let him to go with divinity. Then Faustus
compared religious scriptures as “vain trifles” and finally decided to learn
necromancy. From this very point we find a prognosis that what is going to
happen to a man who leaves the path of God and starts to follow the path of
evil. The particular things that intoxicated him to learn this black art are
portrayed in his own voice:
“O what a world of profit and delight,
Of power, of honor, of omnipotence,
Is promis’d to the studious artisan!
All things that move between the quiet poles
Shall be at my command:” (1. 1. 51-55).
Morality play is really a fusion of the medieval allegory. In these plays
the characters were personified abstraction of vice or virtues such as Good
Deeds, Faith, Mercy, Anger. Even the outstanding morality play Everyman has
characters like Wealth, Death, Good Deeds and so on. Very often The Seven
Deadly Sins such as Pride, Envy, Greed, Wrath, Gluttony, Lust and Sloth were
found engaged in physical and verbal battle. In these respects we can
call Doctor Faustus a morality play in spite of its tragic ending.
Even Macbeth is not free from its influence as this play also presents a conflict
between the good and evil.
The general theme of morality play is the struggle of forces of good and
evil of the soul of man, and the aim is to teach doctrines and ethics of
Christianity. In this sense Doctor Faustus is a morality play to a very great
extent. We see Faustus abjuring the scriptures, The Trinity and Christ. He
surrenders his soul to Lucifer for “four and twenty years” out of his ambition to
gain super-human power by mastering the unholy art of magic: “Divinity adieu!
/ These metaphysics of magicians, / And necromantic books are heavenly” (1. 1.
46-48).
By selling his soul to Lucifer, Faustus lives a blasphemous life full of vain
pleasure. There is a fierce struggle in his soul between his ambition and
conscience, between The Good and Evil Angle that externalize his inner
conflict. But Faustus ultimately surrenders to the allurements of The Evil Angle,
thereby paving his way for external damnation. Because of his crime, he must
be punished. When he wants to rue, his heart becomes stiff and he could not do
so, as we find in the case of The Old Mariner in The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner. We find Faustus utters, “My heart’s so harden’d, I cannot repent” (2.
2. 18).
When the final hour approached, Faustus to his utmost pain and horror
hears a fearful echo: “Faustus, thou art damn’d!”. And before the devils snatch
away his soul to the burning Hell, the excruciating pangs of a deeply agonized
soul find the most poignant expression in Faustus’s final soliloquy:
“My God, my God, look not so fierce to me! /
Adders and serpents, let me breath a while! /
Ugly hell, gape not: come not Lucifer: /
I’ll burn my books: Ah, Mephistophilis!” (5. 3. 120-123)
After reaching the marginal extent of the discussion, we can say
that Doctor Faustus is a remarkable morality play. Faustus, who was at center
of the play, tells us a moral story of a man, who seeking for knowledge pledged
his soul to the devil, only to find the misery of a hopeless repentance. His
exaggerated ambitions not only made him a sufferer in this world, but also
damned him eternally in the world to come.