Faustus as a Tragic Hero

Ami C. Jani

Roll no. – 41

SEM – I

Paper no. – 1

Year – 2010-11

Topic: Doctor Faustus: As a Tragic Hero

Submitted to Mr. Jay Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

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 Christopher Marlow was the greatest of Shakespeare’s predecessors.  He was born in 1564 and he may be regarded as the true founder of English dramas. He wrote four romantic tragedies and Dr. Faustus is considered the best of his four plays. All the four plays of Marlow including “Dr. Faustus”, are character based romantic tragedies. They could be seen as case studies. The titles of one play refer to the protagonist round whom all the event of the revolve. Dr. Faustus is no exception to it. The play could be interpreted from various angles. Some critic regards the moral tragedy of Dr. Faustus.

The tragical history of Dr. Faustus normally known simply as Dr. Faustus, is play by Christopher Marlow, based on the Faustus story, in which a man sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge. Dr. Faustus was first published in 1604.

Faustus is a sort of personage of whom Aristotle would have approved as the hero of the tragedy and at length enumerates the different components of the tragedy. Among them he talks about the attributes about the hero. 

Looking at the requirements mentioned above, the character of Dr. Faustus fulfills all the demands of Aristotle needed for the tragic hero. It is true that Dr. Faustus is not a noble by birth and does not belongs to the royal family but through is hard work and studies nature he has succeeded in gaining dignified social status. 

A brilliant man, who seems to have reached the limits of natural knowledge. Faustus is a scholar of the early 16^th century in German city of Wittenburg. He is arrogant fiery and possesses a thirst for knowledge. As an intellectual, Faustus is familiar with things not, normally considered academic subjects by today’s universities. Faustus decides to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for earthly power and knowledge and additional 24 years of life. He waste this time on self indulgence and law tricks. Faustus is the absolute center of the play which has few truly developed characters.

“Dr. Faustus ” is the tragic hero of Marlow’s famous play and he meets his inevitable doom due to the tragic flaw in his character on the conception of the of the Greek hero of the classical tragedy that is always dignified possessing an important social status. So it is the case with Dr. Faustus as a tragic hero, he feels the compulsion to realize himself fully in the face of all the odes, and test of his heroism is the degree of the risk he is willing to take. Thus the cause of the fear of the all the odes, and test of his heroism is the degree of the risk, he is willing to take. Thus the cause of the fear of the hero does not lie without but it is within. Dr. Faustus’ action is sinful because he has selected the study of necromancy putting aside all other studied with his wrong decision and tragic fall begins. Dr. Faustus represents himself as a man of flesh and blood and takes the risk face the consequences of his action. The meaning of the play refers to the total yield of the situation into which Faustus walks of his own free will. Then onwards in the pursuit of knowledge and power exhibit arrogance and inpatient Marlow free to range forbidden realism. Thus, Dr. Faustus becomes unscrarial or negatively bold and intervenes the design of the almighly God. His risky, lusty nature and his fearlessness could be identified as the cause of his tragedy. He offers his soul to Lucifer for 24 year his heart’s desire and this single error deviates Dr. Faustus from the right path of life. He lives out 24 years as the first modern tragic man part delivered, part undelivered wavering between independence and dependence upon God. Now arrogance and worried justified. All these contradictions found in the personalities of Dr. Faustus lead him to a tragic fall. He is forced constantly to renew his chase between two alternatives.

Through the prologue we come to know that Chorus tell us what type of play Dr. Faustus is, Dr. Faustus is not about war and country love but about Faustus who was born of lower class parents. This can be seen as a departure from the medieval tradition. Faustus holds a lower status man king and saints but his story is still worm telling. It gives an introduction to his wisdom and abilities and during this opening we also get first clue to the scarce of Faustus’s down fall. Faustus who flew too close to the sun melted his waxen wings. This is indeed a hint to Faustus’s end as well as bringing our attention to the idea of bringing our attention to the idea of excessive pride which is represented in the I cures story. 

Faustus comments that he has reached the end of every subject, he has studies. He appreciates logic as being of tool for arguing medicine as being unvalued unless it allowed raising the dead and immortality law as being upstanding as useless because he feels all humans commit sin. Thus to have sins punished by deam complicate the logic of divinity. He dismissed it as.. 

“What doctrine call you this? Que sera, sera..

What will be, shall be”

He calls upon his servant wringer to bring from Valdes and Cornelius, two famous magicians. The good and the bad angle dispense their own perspective of this interest in Satan Valdes and declare that if Faustus devotes himself to magic, he must vow not to study anything else and points out that great things are indeed possible with someone of Faustus standing.

Faustus absence is noted by two scholars who are less accomplished than Faustus himself. They requests that Wagner reveal Faustus’s present to location request which Wagner laughingly denies. The two scholars worry about Faustus feeling deep into the art of magic and leave to inform the king.

Faustus summons or devil in the presence of Lucifer and other devils.  All though Faustus is unaware of it. After treating  a magic circle and speaking an incantation, Faustus sees a devil named Mephistophills appear before him. Faustus is unable to tolerate the hideous look of devil and commands it to change its appearance. He tries to bind the devil to his service. Mephistophills is already serves Lucifer – the prince of devils. Mephistophills also reveals that is way not Faustus’s power that summoned him but rather that if anyone abjures the scriptures it results in the devil coming to claim their soul.

Mephistophills introduce the history or Lucifer and the Other while indirectly feeling Faustus that they has no circumference and is more of a state of mind than a physician location. Faustus inquiries into the nature of hell of Mephistophills saying 

“Oh, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, which striker a terror to my fainting soul”. 

Faustus realize the amount of power that he gain from being a necromancer, so he tells Mephistophills to return to hell and tell Satan that he will sell his soul to him for twenty four years of absolute power. Satan agrees to this, telling Faustus to sign the bargain in blood. Faustus does so even after good angel appears to him trying to convince him not to so and several omens appear which warm him not to make the bound. 

As the play draws to its climax Faustus beginning to realize what he has done and that death, which he once thought didn’t exists, is indeed his ultimate destiny. Several times he is given the hint that he should repent to God. 

For example, 

An old man enters towards the end of the play and informs Faustus that it is not too late to repent because he himself was once a sinner but repented. Faustus still doesn’t listen, finally as the clock strikes twelve upon his hour of destiny. Many ugly devils appeared and drag him off as he finally scrams for mercy.

Faustus died a death that could bear to imagine, much less experience. After knowing for many years when exactly he would die, he reached the stroke of the hour of his destiny in a cowardly, horrid demeanor. Finally, when the devils appeared at his flesh as they draw him into his eternal torment. He screams for mercy without a soul, not even God himself, to help him. However, what to considered Doctor John Faustus from Christopher Marlow’s dramatic masterpiece. The tragical history of the life and death of Doctor Faustus is a very debatable issue. 

For example, 

Therefore, inevitably, the audience in his play should realize that Faustus was a great man who did many great things but because of his hubris and lack of vision, he died the most tragic heroes. 

After finishing reading or seeing this play, one can argue that Faustus was a renaissance hero. In fact, some argues that this play optimizes the ideals of the renaissance : egocentrism and the over – indigence of knowledge. “The lust for power” that led him to the excess of the renaissance. Because Faustus gave his life and soul to Satan himself, for me sake of gaining a greater knowledge is proof that he is a renaissance hero. He rebels against the limitations set forth by medial ideals and makes a contact for knowledge and power. Faustus, like every other renaissance man, tries to prove that man can rise above  the current set of limitations.

Faustus does go to extreme by chamehing damnation in order to gain his knowledge; however, he is considered tragic and God himself is seem as the bad guy because he set forth limitation on knowledge and makes man suffer internal damnation when trying to exceed those limitations. 

Conclusion : 

Faustus was indeed a tragic hero many scholars and liernes experts may debate that, because this play was written in the renaissance , atmosphere in the intended that Dr. Faustus be seen as a martyr trying to attain that which was forbidden to man in a time when doing so was the Nobel thing to do. This is however, Dr. Faustus was a hero through and through, and the way that he presents himself in the play is solid evidence for this. To begin with, he feels that he can justify his turning to witchcraft and necromancy by his gaining of all other knowledge. The irony here is that he never did or he would have realize that even after he had committed blasphemy by conjuring spirits, he could have turned back to God. He also is tragic hero because of his method of using his new power. 

Finally, he proved his tragic nature by certain laws and rules that God set aside for all of mankind. Faustus knew his limitations, and thus by trying to break those he denied himself to eternal torment. Ironically, Faustus could have been the most incredible human being who ever lived. 

If he had repented, the world would have seen that God is truly merciful because her forgave such a blasphemous heainen as Faustus. Faustus could have become an example for all of mankind and proven that is he could be forgiven. However, because he was stubborn, ignorant and blind, he refused to see that he was never truly damned until he was drag by the devil into the heart of hell itself.