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Unit 10: Doctor Faustus: Morality Play

10.3 Summary Notes

• Liturgical Drama in the beginning had three forms, Mystery, Miracle and Morality.
• The morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personification of
various moral attributes, who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil.
• Morality play flourished in the middle ages, was at its height in the first half of the 15 century,
disappeared after the second half, but reappeared in Elizabethan drama.
• In the play, Doctor Faustus, the characters were personified abstractions of vice or virtues
such as Good deeds, Faith, Mercy, Anger, Truth, Pride, etc.
• The general theme of the moralities was theological and the main one was the struggle between
the good and evil powers for capturing the man’s soul and good always won.
• The story of whole morality play centres round the single towering figure.
• The seven deadly sins were found engaged in physical and verbal battle with cardinal virtues.
The antics of vices and devils, etc. offered a considerable opportunity for low comedy or
buffoonery. The morality play often ended with a solemn moral.
• The main theme of the morality play is: Man begins in innocence, man falls into temptation,
man repents and is saved or killed.
• Morality plays help the audience understand the greater concepts of sin and virtue.
• There are many ways in which Doctor Faustus resembles medieval morality plays.
• In the story of Doctor Faustus we see how his trend with his sin of excessive pride, which led
him to become a greedy person, obsess with knowing everything about life. In this story we
also see how a good angel, a bad angel and an old man try to tell Doctor Faustus what type of
decision to make.
• In the light of the theme and characteristics of morality play, we may call “Doctor Faustus” a
belated morality play in spite of its tragic ending.
• Faustus follows the path told by evil angel and ultimately is ruined. He cannot repent and
devil is successful in getting hold of his soul. This moral is negative which is not in accordance
with morality plays.
• Faustus is a character ideal to be the hero of a tragedy where man alone is the maker of his
fate,good or bad.
• We conclude that how Doctor Faustus came from a respected and admired person by society
to a corrupted person. He embarked on this path due to his temptations.
• Doctor Faustus has many features of a morality play: the conflict between good and evil, the
conflict between medieval and renaissance values, power as a corrupting influence, magic
and the supernatural, the creation of good and bad angels, the old man as good counsel, the
pageant of the seven deadly sins and the appearance of Faustus’ enemies to ambush and kill
him.

10.4 Keywords

Morality Play : An allegorical form of the drama current from the 14th to 16th centuries and
employing such personified abstractions as Virtue, vice, Greed, Gluttony, etc.
Angels : One of a class of spiritual beings; a celestial attendant of God. In medieval
angelology, angels constituted the lowest of the nine celestial orders.

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