Christopher Marlowe Faustus's Damnation

Trace the various stages of Faustus's damnation. or "This play presents the fall and slow moral disintegration of an ardent, but erring, spirit". Discuss.

As soon as Faustus has decided that necromancy is the only study worth his while, he seeks the aid of Valdes and Cornelius, who, are already proficient in the art. The pair are ready enough to help Faustus, for they have been trying in the past to lead him into forbidden ways. He tells them that their exhortations have won him at last “to practice magic and concealed arts”. At the same time, he is anxious not to appear too pliant, and adds: “Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy”. He makes it plain that he is no humble seeker after instruction, but one who has already earned fame and honor. The two friends are willing to accept him on his own terms. Valdes hints that common efforts deserve common rewards: 

Faustus, these books, thy wit and our experience,
Shall make all nations to canonize us (Act Scene I, Lines 117-118)

He paints a glowing picture of the possibilities before them, the only condition being that Faustus firm in his decision: "If learned Faustus will be resolute." However, it soon appeares that for all their reputation for proficiency in magic, the two friends of Faustus have not yet gone very far. They have certainly called spirits, but they have made no use of success. They have been careful not to sacrifice their salvation for the attainment of supernatural powers. They have never yielded to the temptation of the spirits and never put their powers to test. Even when they agree to guide Faustus in his exploration of magic, they leave us in no doubt of their intention to use Faustus as a tool rather than run into danger themselves. Speaking to his partner, Cornelius says:

Valdes, first let him know the words of art; 

And then, all other ceremonies learned, 

Faustus may try his cunning by himself. (Act I, Scene I, Lines 156-158)

These two men are not perfect magicians welcoming a promising beginner. but merely the devil's decoys luring Faustus along the road to destruction. They serve their purpose in giving a dramatic turn to the scene of his temptation, and except for a passing mention by the students, we hear no more of them.

Faustus goes to conjure alone, and alone he concludes his pact with the devil. As for the use to which he will put his newly-acquired powers, he speaks in a heroic vein about the world of profit and delight, of power, of honour, and omnipotence; all things that move between the quiet poles shall be at his command; his dominion will stretch as far as does the mind of man; he will become a demi-god; he will wall all Germany with brass, and chase the Prince of Parma from his land. Whatever baser elements there may be in his ambition, we should not fail to recognise its nobler elements, even though subsequently Faustus, instead of pursuing ends worthy of his professed ideals, abandons these and appears content to amuse the Emperor with conjuring tricks and play childish branks on the Pope.

Faustus soon lapses into luxury and buffoonery. The reason is that all that happens to Faustus, once the pact has been signed, is the devil's work. Who but a fool would imagine that any power but evil could be won by a bargain with evil, or that truth could be elicited from the father of lies? Marlowe knew the nature of the power his hero had acquired and the inevitable curse it carried with it. Of course, Faustus's deterioration is not an automatic result of his pact with the devil. In spite of his genuine desire to know truth, the seeds of decay existed in his character from the first; otherwise he would not have made his fatal bargain. Besides his passion for knowledge, he has a lust for riches and pleasure and power. He does express patriotic sentiments, but he has an almost vulgar desire to exercise authority over kings and rulers and even reveals his sensual nature by speaking of living "in all voluptuousness". It is not for nothing that Valdes spoke of the spirits who sometimes appear like women or maids possessing greater beauty than is to be seen "in the white breasts of the Queen of Love". Faustus is a man dazzled by the unlimited possibilities of magic, and he shows himself quite aware of his own weakness when he says: "The god thou servest is thine own appetite."

After Faustus has signed the bond with his blood, we can trace the stages of a gradual deterioration. Although he was sceptical regarding hell and heaven in his first interview with Mephistophilis (before he signed the bond), his scepticism now becomes bolder and more jeering. He now tells Mephistophilis that he thinks hell to be a "fable". He refuses to believe that "after this life there is any pain". To Mephistophilis's remark that he (Mephistophilis) is now in hell, Faustus's reply is that if this be hell ("sleeping, eating, walking, and disputing"), he will willingly be damned. Faustus's discussion with Mephistophilis on the subject of astronomy is curiously barren. "These slender trifles Wagner can decide", says Faustus impatiently. The quarrel that follows on Mephistophilis's refusal to say who made the world leads to the intervention of Lucifer and the "pastime" of the Seven Deadly Sins. It is a much shrunken Faustus who, after seeing the parade of the Seven Deadly Sins, exclaims: "O, this feeds my soul." He had felt equally delighted with the dance of the devils who offered him "crowns and rich apparel" just before his signing the bond. At that time he was told that he would be able to conjure up such spirits at will and even perform greater feats. Faustus had thereupon said: "Then there's enough for a thousand souls." We may perhaps infer that Mephistophilis's promise included sensual satisfaction. That inference would accord with Faustus's mood soon afterwards when he demands a wife, "the fairest maid in Germany", and when, instead of providing a suitable wife for him, Mephistophilis offered to bring him a mistress, any woman who attracted him, "be she as chaste as was Penelope......."

So far Faustus has not left Wittenberg, and the emphasis has been on the hollowness of his bargain in respect of any intellectual progress or enlightenment. The actual degradation of his character has not yet received much emphasis. As yet only his childish pleasure in the devil-dance (Act III, Scene I, Lines 82-83) and the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins (Act II, Scene II, Lines 112-172) hints at the vulgar trivialities to which he will world (Act III-the speech of the Chorus). But his flights on the back of a dragon to find the secrets of astronomy and "to prove cosmography" only land him at last in the Pope's private chamber to "take some part of holy Peter's feast" and to view the royal courts of kings, and this only brings out very pointedly the progressive silliness and meaninglessness of Faustus's career.

There is something strange and peculiar, not only in Faustus's situation, but in his nature. Once he has signed the bond, he has of his own free will renounced salvation. But he has brought upon himself another change also. In this connection, we should not neglect the first clause of his agreement. with the devil: "that Faustus may be a spirit in form and substance". This clause has generally been taken to mean merely that Faustus will be free of the bonds of flesh, so that he may be invisible at will, able to change his shape, ride on dragons, and so on. But in this play the word "spirit" has been used in a special sense. Here this word means "devil". When, for instance, Faustus sees the dance of the devils (Act II, Scene I, Lines 82-83), he asks: "But may I raise up spirits when I please?" Later he promises to make his "spirits" pull down the churches of God (Act II, Scene II, Line 101). At one point, speaking to Mephistophilis, he says: "Ay, go, accursed spirit, to ugly hell" (Act II, Scene II. Line 78). Mephistophilis speaks of the devils as "unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer" (Act I, Scene III, Line 71). When Faustus asks what is Lucifer, Mephistophilis replies: "Arch-regent and commander of all spirits" (Act I, Scene III, Line 64) which Faustus at once interprets as "prince of devils". In short, the word "spirit" in this play is persistently used to mean "devil". This throws a new light on the question, debated throughout the play, whether Faustus can be saved by repentance. Faustus, of course, is for ever repenting (and then each time apologising to Mephistophilis for this repentance because of his fear of bodily torture and death). The Good and Bad Angels, who symbolise the two sides of his nature, are for ever disputing the point:

Faustus. Contrition, prayer, repentance-what of them? Good Angel. Oh, they are means to bring thee unto heaven.
Evil Angel. Rather illusions, fruits of lunacy........ (Act II, Scene I, Lines 16-18)
Again:
Good Angel. Never too late, if Faustus will repent. 
Evil Angel. If thou repent, devils will tear thee in pieces.
Good Angel. Repent, and they shall never raze thy skin. (Act II, Scene II, Lines 82-84)

These two passages are particularly significant in this respect. When Faustus calls on Christ to save his distressed soul, Lucifer replies with admirable logic that Christ, being just, will not interfere because Faustus's soul has been pledged to the devil. Thus the possibility of Faustus' salvation is left nicely balanced in doubt. It is only when, back among his students at Wittenberg, he faces the final reckoning that Faustus regains some degree of  heroic dignity. But even so the years have wrought a change. His faithful Wagner is puzzled:

And yet, methinks, if that death were near, 
He would not banquet, and carouse, and swill 
Amongst the students, as even now he doth. (Act V, Scene I, Lines 3-5)

This is a very different Faustus from the fearless teacher his students used to know, whose least absence from the class-room used to cause anxiety. 

One good, or at least amiable, quality, apart from a genuine tenderness towards his students, Faustus shows throughout: a love of beauty in Nature and in art:

Have not I made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death? 
And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes 
With ravishing sound of his melodious harp, 
Made music-? (Act II, Scene II, Lines 26-30)

The climax of his career is his union with the immortal beauty of Helen. This sensitive appreciation of beauty could be something that has survived uncorrupted from his days of innocence. But there appears no hint of it in the austere student of the early scenes. It would seem to be some strange flowering of moral decay. After all, the builder of Thebes played on his melodious harp and "made music with my Mephistophilis" (Act II, Scene II, Line 30). And who is Helen? Here we come to the central theme of the damnation of Faustus. When the Emperor asks him to summon Alexander and his paramour, Faustus explains the nature of the figures that will appear. He says that the true substantial bodies of Alexander and his paramour will not appear but such as will resemble Alexander and his paramour in that manner that they both lived in, "in their most flourishing estate". The same holds good for Helen, because Faustus warns the students to be silent, "for danger is in words", when he is about to summon Helen. The circumstances in which Helen is summoned for the second time should also be noted. Urged by the Old Man, Faustus has tried for the last time to revolt against the devil. But he has been threatened into submission, and has renewed the blood- bond. He has sunk so low as to ask for revenge upon the Old Man who had tried to save his soul. And it is in the first place as a safeguard against once again trying to desert the devil that he seeks possession of Helen. He wants Helen so that her sweet embraces "may extinguish clean / Those thoughts that do dissuade me from my vow,/ And keep mine oath I made to Lucifer!" Revenge upon the Old Man and the desire to make love to Helen are both sought as guarantees against salvation. Helen then is a "spirit", and in this play a spirit means a "devil". In making her his paramour Faustus commits the sin of demoniality, that is, bodily or sexual intercourse with a demon. The implication of Faustus's action is made plain in the comments of the Old Man after the Helen episode:

Accursed Faustus, miserable man,
That from thy soul excludest the grace of heaven. (Act V, Scene II, Lines 1-2) 

Thus with Faustus's union with Helen the nice balance between possible salvation and imminent damnation is upset, and the Old Man recognises the inevitable in his above-quoted speech. Faustus, in his talk with the Scholars in Act V, Scene II, shows a terrible clarity of vision: "a surfeit of deadly sin, that hath damned both body and soul. Faustus' offence can never be pardoned: the serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus." In the final scene Faustus is still haunted by the idea of a salvation beyond his reach:

See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! 
One drop would save my soul, half a drop: Ah, my Christ! (Act V, Scene III, Lines 79-80)

This play presents the fall and slow moral disintegration of an ardent, but erring, spirit. It depicts not only Faustus's spiritual sin of bartering his soul to the powers of evil, but also the physical counterpart of that sin, the physical counterpart being demoniality (though this sin is disguised in the immortal verse of the apostrophe to the spirit of Helen).

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Christopher Marlowe | The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus | Important Questions With Answers

1. What do you think is the cause of the tragedy in Doctor Faustus?
2. Discuss Doctor Faustus as a Morality play. Or Elaborate the view that Doctor Faustus is a thoroughly "Christian" Document.
3. Discuss Doctor Faustus as an allegory. Or Bring out the symbolic meaning of Doctor Faustus.
4. 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. 
5. Write a note on the Renaissance character of the play, Doctor Faustus. Or Discuss Faustus as a man of Renaissance.
6. Write a note on Faustus's character as revealed in Marlowe's play. Or Show that Marlowe in this play is concerned with recording the mental history of Faustus. "
7. Trace the various stages of Faustus's damnation. Or "This play presents the fall and slow moral disintegration of an ardent, but erring spirit." Discuss. 
8. Discuss the appropriateness or otherwise of the comic and farcical scenes in Doctor Faustus. Write a note on the comic and farcical scenes in Doctor Faustus. Do you think the introduction of these scenes in the play to be justified? Give reasons for your answer. 
9. Conflict is the essence of drama. Illustrate this dictum with reference to Doctor Faustus. Or Trace the mental conflict of Faustus from the beginning till his last hour on this earth.
10. How does Marlowe portray the character of Faustus? Or What estimate of the character of Faustus have you formed?
11. Discuss Doctor Faustus as regards its construction. Do you think that it possesses what is known as organic unity?
12. "If Doctor Faustus is a great work, it is also a flawed one". Discuss