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Unit 11: Doctor Faustus: Plot Construction Including Detailed Analysis of Sub Plot and Theme

to God and their fellow creatures. Instead, they attempt to hide their weak characters with a Notes
megalomaniacal insanity. While Faustus is amused by the seven deadly sins, he does not realize
that he is guilty of every single one, namely avarice and jealousy. In effect, Marlowe presents to the
reader a good soul gone bad-a brilliant scholar who squanders his time with necromancy and is
later courted by the devil himself. Although he is frequently surrounded by powerful heads of
state, beautiful women and servile devils, Faustus is never truly happy. He tries to bury his unrest
with luxury and debauchery, to no avail.

What Faustus does not realize is that he craves happiness and salvation, not wealth
and damnation. Instead, in a tragic cycle of greed and despair, Faustus sadly wallows in
riches up to the time of his miserable death. Keeping this in view, explain that Doctor Faustus
is a tragic hero.

11.3.3 Salvation through Prayer

A third important motif in the play is that of salvation through prayer. While Doctor Faustus is an
example of what happens to a wayward soul, the old man represents the devout Christian soul.
The old man begs Faustus to repent, regardless of the tortures that the devils inflict on him for this.
He clings to his faith to the very end and even Mephostophilis is wary of harming him because of
his good soul. Thus, the old man serves as a foil to Faustus’s misery and damnation.

11.3.4 Tragic Hero

A fourth theme in Doctor Faustus is that of the tragic hero. Despite his unholy soul, Faustus is often
viewed by audiences with pity and compassion. A tragic hero is a character that the audience
sympathizes with despite his/her actions that would indicate the contrary. Faustus is not the mere
shell of a man in the play, existing only to represent the evil in the world. He is a veritable human
being with a range of emotions and thoughts. He displays pride, joy, contrition and self-doubt quite
frequently. At many times, Faustus alternately displays his cowardice and foolish strength against
the devils. Thus, Faustus’s one saving grace with the audience is his identifiable character. Although
the Doctor himself does not care for humanity, many find themselves identifying with his all too
human dreams of power, knowledge and lechery. Unfortunately, Faustus’s humanity was not enough
in the play to make him repent and save him from the depths of hell.

Doctor Faustus has an unholy soul existing only to represent the evil in the world,
but he is often viewed by audiences with pity and compassion—a tragic hero.

11.3.5 Man’s Limitations and Potential

The axis of this theme is the conflict between Greek or Renaissance worldviews, and the Christian
worldview that has held sway throughout the medieval period. As Europe emerged from the Middle
Ages, contact with previously lost Greek learning had a revelatory effect on man’s conception of
himself. While the Christian worldview places man below God, and requires obedience to him, the
Greek worldview places man at the center of the universe. For the Greeks, man defies the gods at
his own peril, but man has nobility that no deity can match.

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