Christopher Marlowe''s Dr. Faustus is a Christian tale about a person who has an unlimited passion for supernatural power and control. The character of Faustus is probably an irresponsible person who is very educated in terms of the material
world, but has no connection to spirituality and
belief. Faustus seeks his spirituality and belief not through religion but through its opponent, the Devil, and he does it when he asks the Devil for the powers and
knowledge in black magic and in return gives him his soul forever after his death. In the last two scenes, when the time has come, and Faustus need to fill his commitment in the contract between him and the Devil, Faustus feels regret and tries to escape from this awful punishment. Faustus begs for repentance, but he begs for the wrong persons, and finally gets no redemption. In this essay I will focus on the last two scenes (XII and XIII) and will analyze Faustus behavior in great
despair in the end of the play.
We must understand Faustus character to understand why he acts in so much despair in the last scenes and why finally he never got redemption. Being an educated man in a position of a scholar, causes Faustus to be arrogant and in a position where he feels that he conquered all fields of knowledge that exists in the material world, he feels omnipotent and therefore he seeks his belief and spirituality, but turns to the wrong direction. Faustus, being a materialistic man who comes from the world of
science does not believe that hell is so bad or even that hell never exists. Throughout the play we witness Faustus behavior and disrespect toward the characters around him, and especially to the good angel who represents the side of the merciful Christianity and Mephastophilis who represents the Devil side, the wrong belief. They both always try to dissuade him from the world of black magic and the Devil and the good angel also offers him repentance and salvation; but Faustus in his arrogance is confident in himself and rejects their advises. This kind of behavior symbolizes the gap that exists between the world of science which represented by Faustus and the Christian spiritual world that is represented by the angel.
Faustus arrogance and over self confident, as I wrote before, causes him to avoid repentance. His arrogance makes him, in his despair to beg for salvation from all but God. He turns to Mephastophilis with his begging, or to Helen that represents his ancestors. Faustus do not believe in God anyway, and even when the good angel and his scholars tells him that redemption is possible if he decides to change his mind and turn to God, but his pride never lets him. He concludes that God is too angry with him and will never save him; therefore he keeps himself in despair and tries desperately to find salvation in all but God, who he keeps denying. When Faustus enters himself to the world of the Devil he actually blinds himself, and when he opens his eyes in the end he cannot see thing in the right way. Serving the Devil for so long made Faustus to be bound to him in a way that he cannot imagine breaking free; Faustus situation is a symbol for the people of the era of the Renaissance who lost their faith in Christianity and God, and devotes themselves to science and seeks knowledge in a purpose to achieve power (i.e. atheism). These people, like our protagonist, loose their way to salvation.
Faustus spends his last hour with anticipation for miracle that hopefully will save him from hell. He begs for more time until another solution will come, he calls for the mountains to fall on him, to earth to swallow him. Faustus believes that an earthly materialistic power will finally save him, but the only thing he needs is to ask forgiveness from God, but He still has the mind of a scientist that has no spirituality or any belief in God and therefore stays inhe state of despair. The Christian principle that a person can repent for all his sins, even in the moment of his death does not apply on Faustus, who is bound to the Devil with his atheism and pride that prevents him to repent.
The story of Dr. Faustus was written in an era of a clash between Christianity and Atheism. In an era of the renaissance when people left Christianity for science and other beliefs and unlike the medieval time, they started to doubt the existence of God. In Dr. Faustus Marlowe tries to combine between science and material world and Christianity, to show that salvation is still exists and you should never doubt the existence of God. Marlowe probably tried to influence people to go back to religion and to try to combine between science and religion. If you have so much knowledge like Dr. Faustus has, but has no belief, you will never be saved, God is the only savior on earth, and no other belief or knowledge can do it but him.
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