Doctor Faustus – a great work,
also a flawed one
Introduction: Critics and
scholars are one in their opinions that Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is one of the
masterpieces of British Drama. It was Marlowe who brought the medieval
concept of a magician, who sold his soul to the Devil and caused his
destruction himself, into a magnificent and superb masterpiece. Even Goethe was
inspired by its grandeur and he used the concept of Doctor Faustus in his play.
Despite the excellence of the play, it falls short of meeting a regularestablished
play like any one of those of Shakespeare. It looks more like a novel of
detached scenes instead of a regular play.
Merits of the play: One
of the most superb things about Doctor Faustus is the delineation of
the tragic hero revealing the intense spiritual struggle and inner conflict in
his soul. …short summary… Another chief quality of his play is the tragic
conflict which dives deep into the depth of human heart. … short synopsis of
conflict… Some of its outstanding scenes are of magnificent quality which
reveals the genius of Marlowe: the summoning of Mephistopheles, the
sighing of the contract and the second episode of Helen are the soul-stirring
events of the playwhich rank Marlowe as a Dramatist next to Shakespeare.
Doubtless, He was the greatest playwright before Shakespeare. His surpassing poetry is
another merit of the play. His ravishing descriptions, the
emotional utterances from Faustus for Helen have eternal significance and will
only die with the English language as complimented by Edward Thomas.
Structural Weaknesses: Despite
his stupendous achievements in the realm of Dramatic Literature, Marlowe had
some limitations and drawbacks. His first drawback being the one-man show. His
character, Faustus has towered higher above the other characters rendering them
pale into insignificance. The second drawback being: One of the greatest
drawbacks is that the plot is not well-knit. It has only two parts: the first
being the presence of Faustus and his desires to gain the deity and signing the
contract with the Devil to attain his voluptuous desires. The second part
being: his gradual travel onto the path of damnation and final doom. Goethe
might have been impressed by the beginning and the end because the play has
no middle. R.S. Knox has remarked: “The play is a series of scenes, some
splendid, some petty, loosely related in a time-sequence; and rounded off by
the foreseen catastrophe.” Anti-climax: the new world in which Faustus finds
himself is nothing but a world of illusions and buffoonery. He forgets his aim
and becomes a play-toy in the hands of his self-imposed doom. He is no more the
same Faustus who was aspirant of knowledge; he falls into buffoonery and
becomes a magic entertainer. Comic scenes irrelevantly exist in the
play. Though critics believe that they are later interpolations, however as
long as they exist in the play, cause a drawback in the structure and plot
of the play. Most of these scenes are crude and meaningless. There is
hardly any female character in the play. The lack of female character
is another drawback. Though we have a glimpse of the peerless dame of Greece,
but she is nothing but a visual apparition and a dream seen with eyes wide open.
The Duchess, too, falls short of being a female character. She
doesn’t play any role.
Catastrophe: --- The last
scene of catastrophe---
Conclusion: To conclude with
the words of Ronald M., Frye: “The rejection of humanity which constituted the
character of Faustus is complete and the plot closes, as it had opened, with
this. It is in these terms that Marlowe achieves aesthetically powerful an
understanding of the human condition which has never been more central to the
plight of man than it is in our own time.” J.A. Symonds on Marlowe observes: “About
him, there is nothing small or trivial. His verse is mighty, his passion is
intense; the outlines of his plot are large, his characters are Titanic, his
fancy is extravagant in richness, insolence and pomp.”
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