Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus can be read as a
Christian tragedy which dramatizes the conflicts of free will and
pre-destination.
Being written during the time of
Rennaisance in the seventeenth century, Marlowe presents Faustus as an "Every man
figure". And
offers cultural critique of that time by
thematising the topical issues faced by the pan-European society. The play
is structurally based
on the Morality Play
formula.Pyschomachia is a strong feature of it as Faustus spends the play in a state of
ambiguity between repentance
and despair. However, unlike
the other male protagonists, Faustus makes a self conciouss choice rather than his
action being a result of
error in judgement. This makes
him a rennaisance over-reacher just like
'Icarus".
Throughout the play we see him as an ambitious
man who goes beyond his limits in order to satisfy his erge of knowledge. Thus,
it
is the tragic flaw of ' Hubris' (excessive pride) which
leads to the blindness of his limitation leading to his
self-destruction.
As mentioned earlier, Faustus is consistently
presented as an every-man character. Neither wholly good, nor wholly bad both brilliant
and arrogant.
Learned and foolish and consumed
with intellectual curiosity,The end of the Faustus is tragic being a process of
Catharsis for the audience (element
of pity and fear) as
the journey ends in damnation. But the essential message of the play upholds a
protestant belief : People damn themselves through
their
own action but they can repent which is kept pending by
Faustus.
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