"The Structure of Doctor Faustus, inherited from the morality form, apparently negates what the play experientially affirms – the heroic aspiration of 'Renaissance man'."
Jonathan Dollimore says the above in his essay Dr. Faustus: Subversion Through Transgression. In this quote he brings together the two most problematic aspects of the play. Critics have tried to resolve the dichotomy by vindicating either Faustus or the morality structure of the play. Dollimore states, "such resolution is what Doctor Faustus as interrogative text resists. It seems always to represent paradox…"
It is true that Christopher Marlowe has set the play in the structure of a morality play and the fact that Faustus represents the aspiration of a Renaissance man is also undeniable. But according to me, we should try to see how many morality conventions Marlowe debunks and how Doctor Faustus' "tragical life and death" is an unmaking of a Renaissance man. Marlowe in his play has appropriated the morality conventions and shown the unmaking rather than making of the Renaissance man.
Doctor Faustus is rightly called a "morality play with a difference". From the very Prologue of the play, Marlowe makes it clear that the play is following the tradition of the morality plays. Marlowe asks the audience for a patient judgment and then to learn from the experience of the protagonist. It should also be kept in mind that the concept of prologue was borrowed from Greek literature and was not a part of the morality tradition. The Prologue refers to the fall of Icarus (and by implication Lucifer's fall also) that hints to the impending fall of Doctor Faustus. Both Icarus and Lucifer represent the figure of an over-reacher and Doctor Faustus, we are told, is also a transgressor. In Faustus, Marlowe shows a Tamburlaine on an intellectual level with ultimate knowledge as his aim. But where Tamburlaine is a successful Renaissance hero, Faustus is an 'errant scholar' who is intoxicated by power and knowledge. He hungers for the 'forbidden fruit' of necromantic knowledge and his story symbolizes the 'Fall of Man'. In showing this, Marlowe has subverted both the Renaissance self-fashioning and the morality play traditions.
We are introduced to Faustus when he is engaged in a soliloquy and his solitariness in his library suggests his isolation from the world (moral as well as physical). By showing Faustus as an isolated man, Marlowe subverts the sense of community and shared belief celebrated by the morality plays. Such is never the case with the hero of a morality play. He never speaks a soliloquy because he is not shown to have any internal conflict. He is a battleground for two forces to compete. But Faustus on the other hand is always in a dilemma, he is constantly in an impasse. Despair is the cardinal sin, so a Christian is always resolute in turning to God but Faustus turns away. In this turning away, he becomes an inversion of the morality hero, an 'outsider'. In a morality play, the central character is finally contained and saved. But Faustus is a rebel against the established order, which leads to his banishment and ultimate unmaking.
In the morality plays, the struggle/conflict is essentially external as in The Castle Of Preservance and Everyman. In Doctor Faustus, the same may appear to be true to begin with because of the presence of the good and the bad angel but in fact in the course of the play the conflict is internalized. Unlike the morality plays in which the theme is the fight between good and evil, Doctor Faustus is about a single soul trying to decide which route to take. The Bad angel is more active than the Good one and voices the innermost desires of Faustus himself while the good angel is passive. (This also shows Marlowe's belief of good being impotent). Hence, the angels become extensions of Faustus' inner conscience.
Another point of departure from the morality framework is the depiction of evil in the play. In the morality plays, the evil is presented as comic whereas in Doctor Faustus, Mephostophilis is a very serious and grave character. He warns Faustus about what lies ahead and tells him about the nature of hell. In one sense he is the arch tempter while in another he is the one who warns Faustus also. When Faustus asks about the nature of Hell, Mephostophilis describes how he fell with Lucifer and now are "for ever damned with Lucifer." ( I.iii.74) Mephostophilis appeals to Faustus for the last time to reconsider his decision and says,
O Faustus! Leave these frivolous demands,
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul. (I.iii.83-84)
The idea of the scene with the seven deadly sins is borrowed from the conventions of the morality plays. But Doctor Faustus is a play which goes beyond the morality play and looks into the mind and the internal conflict of Faustus. The seven sins here are the personifications of human soul – metaphors used to show human traits. Though they are comic, the context is tragic and grave. Gradually, we see echo of this scene when Faustus indulges in all these sins as the play moves forward.
Through the figure of the Old Man, Marlowe brings in the voice of the morality from the morality plays. Unlike the Good and the Bad angels who are abstractions, he represents experience and wisdom. But the tone of the Old Man is didactic, scolding and admonishing. Instead of providing strength to Faustus, the old man throws him in deep despair from which he never recovers. The impact of the old man brought from morality plays is quite the reverse – instead of leading Faustus to the path of redemption, he pushes him further to damnation.
Tragedy is impossible in a morality play because it ends in redemption irrespective of the sin indulged in by the protagonist. But Doctor Faustus is possible only when the story of man's redemption is interpolated with tragic elements. So, Marlowe is playing with the age-old structure of morality play and subverting it in the process. It also leads to the greatest deviance Marlowe has undertaken – the ending when Faustus is dismembered by the devils. This may also lead us to wonder – why is Faustus damned? Is it because his "heart so harden'd (he) cannot repent" ( II.ii.18)? But he does repent when he says "One drop (of Christ's blood) would save my soul . . ." (V.ii.149). Faustus is damned because of his irresolution. He says, "I do repent, and yet I do despair" (V.i.70). It is because of the cardinal sin of despair that Faustus is damned eternally.
Doctor Faustus also shows the unmaking of the Renaissance man. But it should be kept in mind that he is not just an ordinary man living in the Renaissance England, he is a scholar. The scholar figure was very important in the Renaissance period and it is this fact that makes tragedy possible for Faustus. Marlowe shows both, negative and positive, aspects of the scholarly talent. Renaissance was the celebration of self-assertion and self-fashioning but Faustus has self-conceit.
Faustus is a typical Renaissance man. We notice how he 'fashions' himself by raising himself from the "base of stock" ( prologue.11) to scholarly heights. For him, the point of reference is always himself. He is a typical Renaissance Humanist scholar with classical education behind him. Like a man of his own age, Faustus insists on believing only that which he can experience. He calls Hell and Heaven fables because they are abstract. What he CAN experience is the 24 years of voluptuousness. Like a typical Renaissance man who wants more from everything, Faustus wants to have the good of both the worlds. He wants to experience Hell but wants to keep the option of Heaven open. This is the ultimate dilemma of Faustus, the Renaissance Humanist.
Faustus feels stifled and laments on the limits that God has imposed on man. In trying to overcome these limits he is a typical Renaissance hero. He expresses his feeling by saying,
"Knew you not, traitors, I was limited
For four-and-twenty years to breathe on earth?"
(IV.iii.70-71)
The question, "How does Faustus spend his 24 years?" will help us understand how is Faustus' story the story of the unmaking of a Renaissance man. In these 24 years does he learn something or does he waste time in trivialities. Surely, he does get some rare experiences of traveling to impossible realms. He steps out of his library, engages with the world at large and celebrates the spirit of Renaissance Humanism. Through this Marlowe suggests that the experience of the world at large is very important. But definitely we get to see the other side of the picture also. Robert N. Watson remarks, " Doctor Faustus is a parable about spiritual loss in the modern world, a warning, not only about damnation in the conventional sense, but about the fatal corruption awaiting all Renaissance aspirations." We see this clearly in the course of the play. The early vision of Faustus is to glorify the human race with a benevolent empire, but it quickly fades away and he tries to please Emperors with out-of-season grapes and dumb charades. He uses his magic, not to turn men into gods but instead to turn his hecklers into beasts. This becomes a larger comment on how magic doesn't become a tool to ascend the chain of beings but to descend.
The unmaking of Faustus is shown and ridiculed in the comic scenes between the Wagner and Robin. Wagner says that Robin "would give his soul to the devil for a shoulder of mutton" but Robin insists on getting it "well roasted" and with "a good sauce" ( I.iv.8-12). This makes us wonder whether Faustus appears any cleverer than Robin when he steals food from Pope's table? These parallels appear throughout the text. Robin conjures to steal a cup from a tavern while Faustus cheats a horse-trader. The clown's wish to enchant the kitchen-wench into dancing for him naked and Faustus' wish to have a beautiful spouse are also shown to be parallel.
There was a Renaissance thirst for unraveling the best of the classics and there was a celebration of body. Both these aspects of Renaissance come together in the Helen scene. She not only represents the quintessential best of classical culture but also war and destruction. Just like knowledge and power is a potent combination, the ravishing power of beauty is also dangerous. Faustus is not oblivious to this danger. He says,
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss:
Her lips suck forth my soul, see where it flies. (V.I.101-102)
This also reminds us (may be Faustus himself doesn't!) the first time when the image of soul flying away is used. Immediately after signing the deal with Mephostophilis, Faustus says,
Homo Fuge! Whither should I flie?
We see Faustus' loss of humanity as a loss of self (as opposed to Renaissance self-assertion). The comic disillusion of the self is shown through Faustus' invisibility when he visits Rome in Act III. Also the comic dismemberment in Act IV, where Faustus' body parts are removed and the healed, becomes a larger metaphor for the loss of self. In his last words, Faustus wishes his body to "turn to air" ( V.ii.187) and seeks total self-annihilation when he says,
O soul, be changed into little water drops
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found. (V.ii.188-189)
Through these scenes Marlowe is revisiting the Humanist notion of man as a unified subject and shows the disintegration of a Renaissance over-reacher.
Faustus is also a man with a spirit of enterprise and risk taking and this is shown by his bargain with Mephostophilis. The idea of signing deeds was also a notion of Renaissance age which was a capitalist world in its nascent stage. This association with capitalism makes the signing of the deed very problematic. Capitalism works on the principle of creating a desire where there is none. The more difficult it is to attain something, the more luring it becomes. And there is no satisfaction at achieving it as well. In the play, we observe that same is the case with Faustus who gets nothing from Necromancy even after bargaining it for his soul. It shows how subtly the play embodies and critiques the cultural contradictions of its age. Not only this, the signing of the deed also shows how Faustus is being fooled by Devils. Not only that the terms of deed are all from Mephostophilis's point of view but also the Devil party does not sign it! So Faustus' scholarly "cleverness" is somewhat undercut in this scene.
Humanism was a scholarly activity and knowledge can become power – not only scholarly but political as well. Faustus is curious about the nature of universe, about the rules of the cosmos, experiences of Hell and Heaven. These were the shared curiosities of the Renaissance scholars and Marlowe being a 'University Wit' himself shared Faustus' curiosity and excitement. Here it is possible that Marlowe is speaking in Faustus' voice. But what goes wrong with Faustus' ambition is that his desire for knowledge becomes a desire for power and he, drunk with power, indulges in voluptuousness for 24 years.
Even Mephostophilis uses Humanistic ideas to tempt Faustus. He says that Earth is made for man so man is better than Earth. Pico della Mirandola is also of the same opinion. Pico believes that man is a combination of the beast and the divine, so he is free and flexible. Man can mould himself in whatever fashion, but then why does a character like Faustus feel so bounded? This question is at the heart of the play and the philosophy of Humanism. Despite all the bragging, there was a sense of limit even in the arrogant times of Humanism. Even for Pico the freedom of will is not limitless. He feels even though man is indeterminate, he should follow the divine side of himself. So, Faustus' freedom of will is a dead end. Hence he laments,
"Yet art thou still but Faustus and a man" (I.i.23)
According to Calvin, man's nature is essentially sinful because of Adam's original sin. Since man thinks he is sinful, he sits back and does not pursue a path of righteousness. Is this the sin of Faustus also? Probably yes, because from the beginning he feels that God doesn't love him. Calvin thinks that alienation from God is inbuilt in man's condition. But Faustus feels it as a personal crisis, as an individual predicament. The final question still remains to be answered – Does Faustus choose Necromancy because he is damned? Or is he damned because he chose Necromancy? This question makes us realize that at a larger level Doctor Faustus as a text is also a battleground between two philosophies – Pico's theory of indeterminate man where the man can ascend up the chain of beings and Calvin's Fatalism where man has no agency at all. I feel that the only logical conclusion that we can draw is that Faustus is Pico's "Indeterminate Man" caught in Calvin's Fatalistic world. This also makes the fall of Faustus inevitable.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.Dr. Faustus: Subversion Through Transgression By Jonathan Dollimore
2.A Theory Of Renaissance Tragedy: Dr Faustus By Robert N. Watson
All the quotations are from the Worldview Critical Edition. Edited by Dr. Suroopa Mukherjee
