CHRISTOPHER MARLOW’S DR. FAUSTUS: AN ENDORSEMENT OF CHRISTIANITY OR MOCKERY OF IT

With

Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

Drama is an action that reflects   human activities on daily basis, and that daily basis includes every aspect of human life, in any form, physically or mentally. By this, we understand that Drama is meant to educate, enlighten, entertain and teach moral lessons and admonish immoral characters.

In discussing Marlow’s  Dr. Faustus, a play, whether it‘s an endorsement of Christianity or an attempt mockery of it. I feel comfortable to consider the play as an endorsement of Christianity because of the happenings that unfold in the text which later lead to the tragic end of Dr. Faustus, the titular character and tragic hero after all the blasphemy he committed against the religion. To have a synopsis of the text would be helpful in basing the premise of the argument.

The play is an eponym of the major character, Dr. Faustus who at the beginning of the play was a religious personality, but later attracted by the covetous yearning for material and power aggrandizement. The text opens with Dr. Faustus in his study contemplating whether he can continue to be a theologist. As a Dr. of theology, (the study of religion, faith and God’s relation to the world), his mind keeps fluctuating to change his line from that of religiosity to that of occultism, the field that would fetch him fame, money and wealth.

 Oh what a world of profit and delight

            Of power, of honour, of omnipotence.

He wants be a demi-god that will control things that move between the quite poles, to be at his command: emperors and kings.  The excessive ambition for worldly materials and power zoom away his interest off religious path to get what he is hankering for. In the meantime he sends for his friend that would help him to get through his resolution. While he is debating over his choice, Good Angel and Bad Angel appear before him, each preaching his course. Good Angel calls for the God’s faith and contentment while Bad Angel calls for the glisters of the world and the seven deadly sins (pride, covetousness, envy, wrath, gluttony, sloth and lechery), the demons that predominantly reflect his feelings. Dr. Faustus finally resolved to keep terms with the Bad Angel, selling his hereafter for the fleeting joy of the world without regard to the fact that ‘fools that will laugh on earth must weep in hell’. After he duly signed the agreement dogmatically without being careful of the content, entering into the field he thinks would satisfy his crave. The Devil Mephistopheles gives him the book and teaches him how to invoke devils to serve him anytime he wants.

            These metaphysics of magicians

            And the necromantic books are heavenly;

            Lines, circles, letters and characters:

Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.

 The agreement is that Dr. Faustus would abjure and profane heavenly scriptures and have the control of the world in return by the help of Devil and to go anywhere around the world within a blink of an eye. While in return the Devil will come to take his soul after four-and-twenty years of magical performance. In all these years Dr. Faustus would have the power to see the happenings around the world, to control them and to perform other magical wonders including bringing the fruit from far away continent to the Duke and Duchess of Vanholt  during a season where such fruit is no longer obtainable around the immediate continent, a situation that fills the Duchess with surprise to offer such remarks :

“This makes me wonder more than all the rest. That at this time of the year when every tree is barren of this fruit, from whence you had these ripe grapes.”

 In another place she added, “And believe me they are the sweetest grapes that I e’er tasted”.

He becomes famous, powerful and formidable magician well-known all over Europe who has everything at his disposal. He continues to live in superfluous luxury and fame before he received his last laugh at the end of the contract period. 

After the end of twenty-four-year agreement that allows Faustus to exercise reserved power that fetches him fame and power, the Devil comes to take away his soul as contracted in the agreement. He begins to agonize choosing the words of Devil, realizing his mistakes after he enjoys the benefits, which the Devil would never allow him to go unpunished. Scholar I and II come to dissuade him to discard his feeling that he would never be accepted if he repents, for God’s door of mercy and forgiveness is always thrown open to those who are willing to pass through. Knowing full well how blasphemous and sacrilegious he has been to the God, Faustus concludes that no matter the amount of degree he recants, God would not forgive him. He curses and damns himself instead of repenting, and wishes that if the earth will gape and swallow him, or he rather turns into liquid and drop into the vast ocean or turns into dust and flush through the infinite sky – all wishing that he can escape his penalty. At long last he recants but the useless one for it’s too late to cry when the head is already cut off, wishing that if he be taken to the hell to serve for thousand years with the hope only to be forgiven one day,

“Let Faustus live in a hell a thousand years, a hundred thousand and at last be saved.”

In relation to the content of the play we come to believe that it’s an endorsement of Christianity. First the character of Dr. Faustus being theologist implies the reverence and blessing God has given him of moral character and personality.    Sins committed by the common man is something inconsequential but by the religious person like Faustus is a big thing and the punishment huge because of his knowledge of the heavenly scriptures that distinguishes him from ignorant common man. Dr. Faustus enjoys that privilege of being Doctor of Theology but ignores the blessing and went ahead to abjure the religion.

We also have seen that magical limitations, unlike power of God which is infinite and indefinite. Dr. Faustus can only make fame, wield and enjoy power through occultism for only twenty-four years. The play admonishes that whoever chooses magic in favor of religion will sooner or later have tragic end. Another limitation is that while practicing as tremendous magician, Dr. Faustus needs a wife, after he amassed popularity and wealth, reducing him to appear weak and helpless in the face of lechery, one of the seven deadly sins, unlike Heaven that does not need either of the wealth or wife.

Despite the success of the John Faustus as an excellent magician and in achieving his mission he is still defeated. After his late discovery of wrong choice, he recants, he curses himself when the real punishment comes believing that his final abode is unavoidably hell. He loses the battle to the God since he begs for forgiveness not the other way round where the Heaven will finally succumb and concedes the argument to him because of his power or any possible means he possesses. God is indeed the most powerful!

 In conclusion the plays appears to be an endorsement of Christianity for after portraying a character going against religion, at the end it shows that same character in woeful rue and damnation thereby admonishing others to keep away from abjuring Heavenly scriptures. In comparison we can see that Faustus’s damnation is as a result of his disrespect to the religion which leads to his tragic end by defeating his occultism. The play shoves around the axis of admonishing, warning and cautioning people to refrain from abnegating religion and to have respect for it.