Do you agree with the view that Doctor Faustus has a beginning and an end but no "middle”? Or Discuss the structure or construction or design of the play, Doctor Faustus.

Page-2

<Previous Page

The new knowledge of Faustus proves unsatisfactory in other ways also. For instance, when Mephistophilis has given Faustus a book containing all the information about the stars and planets, plants and herbs, and so on, Faustus says: "When I behold the heavens, then I repent... Because thou hast deprived me of those joys." Mephistophilis manages to divert Faustus from ideas of repentance, but soon Faustus is once more making inquiries about the stars and planets; and again Faustus asks a more ultimate question: "Tell me who made the world."
 Thus technical questions about how Nature works have a tendency to raise the larger questions of the Creator and the purpose of the Creation. Faustus cannot be content with the mere workings of the machinery of the universe; he must push on to ask about ultimate purposes. Knowledge of means cannot be isolated from knowledge of ends. And Faustus's newly a acquired knowledge cannot give him answers different from those he already knew before signing the contract with devil. Indeed, his plight is that he cannot find anything to do really worthy of the supernatural powers that he has acquired. He evidently does not want to wall all Germany with brass, or make the swift Rhine circle the fair city of Wittenberg* (Act I, Scene I, Lines 86-87). Nor does he chase the Prince of Parma from Germany.** (Act I, Scene I, Line 91) Instead, he plays tricks on the Pope, or stages magical shows for the Emperor. When he summons, at the Emperor's request, Alexander the Great and his paramour (Thais), Faustus is careful to explain that the Emperor will not be seeing "the true substantial bodies of those two deceased princes which long since are consumed to dust." The illusion is certainly life-like, but even so Alexander and his paramour are no more than apparitions. This magical world lacks substance.

                                                                                     Next Page>

For More Important Questions of Doctor Faustus: CLICK HERE

PK

Previous Post Next Post