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.
Doctor Faustus has often been criticized as regards its construction or structure. It is said that this play has a beginning and an end, but no "middle". In other words, between the beginning of this play and its end very little of real importance happens. Very early in the play the learned Doctor makes his decision to sell his soul to the devil. At the end, the devil comes to take away Faustus's soul. In the interval between these two events, there seems to be little for Faustus to do except to fill in the time. If the consequence of Faustus's bargain is inevitable, and if nothing can be done to alter it, then it does not much matter how the intervening time is spent. The author may in that case fill the intervening time with as much comedy and farce as the taste of the audience and its patience in sitting through the play will permit. If
Doctor Faustus is a play about knowledge, about the relation of a man's knowledge of the world to his knowledge of himself, or about knowledge of means and its relation to knowledge of ends. It is a play that reflects the interests of the Renaissance (and it even looks forward to the issues of the modern day). Faustus is dissatisfied and even bored with the study of ethics, divinity, and metaphysics.What has
captured his imagination is magic, the kind of knowledge that brings him power and that promises a world of profit, delight, and honour. Faustus's experiments with the knowledge that he acquires through magic bring him, again and again, up against knowledge of a more ultimate kind. For example, as soon as Faustus has signed the contract with the devil and has gained his new knowledge, his first question to Mephistophilis is concerned with the nature of the place to which he has finally to go. He asks Mephistophilis: "where is the place that men call hell? "Mephistophilis explodes any notion of a local hell, and defines hell as a state of mind. Faustus does not believe this information though it comes from the horse's very mouth. Thus he refuses to accept the first fruits of his new i knowledge. He had already come to the conclusion that stories of hell were merely "old wives' tales". Yet when Mephistophilis says that he is "an instance to prove the contrary" adding that "T am damned, and am now in hell", Faustus cannot comprehend this notion and says: "How ? now in hell ! Nay/An this be hell, I'll willingly be damned".
there is a "middle" in this play (and by a "middle" is meant that part of the play in which the character of Faustus becomes something quite different from the man whom we first meet) then that middle has to be sought in those scenes which reveal Faustus's personal self-examination and his inner conflict. A scrutiny of the play will show that the play does have a sufficient "middle". Faustus constantly re-affirms at deeper and deeper levels his original rash surrender of his soul to Lucifer. He suffers deeply while doing so, but his suffering is not meaningless. This suffering leads to knowledge "knowledge which Adam acquires in Milton's Paradise Lost). Early in the play, in reply to Faustus's remark: "I think hell's a fable", Mephistophilis says: "Think so still, till experience change thy mind" (Act II, Scene I, Lines 123-24). Perhaps the best way to describe the middle of the play is to say that the middle consists of the experiences that bring about a change in Faustus's mind so that in the end he knows what hell is and, finding himself truly damned, he feels genuinely terrified.
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.
It may be that Marlowe is not answerable for some of the scenes that were inserted into the middle of the play. Yet to judge only from the scenes admitted to be Marlowe's and from the ending that Marlowe devised for the play, it is inconceivable that Faustus should ever have carried out the grandiose plans which he mentions in the beginning (Act l, Scene IV, Lines 104-09)-such matters as making a bridge through the moving air so that bands of men can pass over the ocean, or joining the hills that bind the African shore to those of Spain. Faustus's basic motivation ensures that the power he has gained will be used for what are finally frivolous purposes. (His basic motivation is his desire for self-aggrandisement).
If we assume that Faustus is doomed once he has signed the contract with the devil, then there is no further significant action that he can perform and the rest of the play will not have any dramatic quality. Whether the case of Faustus becomes hopeless early in the play (that is, immediately after the bond has been signed) is then a matter of real importance. On a purely legalistic basis of course, Faustus's case is certainly hopeless. He has signed a contract and must abide by it. This is the point that the devils insist on most firmly. Yet there are plenty of indications that Faustus was not the prisoner of one fatal act, namely his signing the contract. For instance, after Faustus has signed the bond, the Good Angel reappears and urges Faustus to repent. The Evil Angel, it is true, appears along with him to insist that repentance will be of no avail. But then the Evil Angel has appeared along with the Good in the earlier appearance also. This is not all. The devils, in spite of the contract, are evidently not at all sure of the soul of Faustus. They find it again and again necessary to argue with him to bully him, and to threaten him. Mephistophilis considers it very important to distract Faustus from his depressing thoughts. There is never any assumption in the play that the bond itself is quite sufficient to ensure Faustus's damnation. At least once, Lucifer himself has to be called to make sure that Faustus will not escape. When Faustus in a state of despair, is ready to commit suicide with the dagger offered to him by Mephistopholis (who feels happy to make sure in this way, of Faustus’s damnation), the Old Man persuades Faustus to desist from such a course.
the Old Man has faith that Faustus can still be saved and points to the presence of an angel waiting with a vial full of precious grace "ready to pour" it into Faustus's soul. Faustus, indeed, desists from committing suicide though he continuous to be in a state of despair and says: "Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast", whereupon Mephistophilis calls him a traitor for being disobedient to Lucifer and threatens to tear his flesh piece-meal. The threat serves its purpose. A moment before, Faustus had addressed the old Man as "my sweet friend" . Now in a sudden reversal, he addresses the devil as " sweet Mephistophillis" and asks him to inflict on the old Man the "greatest torments that our hell affords." Faustus now thinks of hell a "our hell". This and his desire to see the Old Man suffer, surely mark a new stage in the moral deterioration of Faustus who has now become a member of the devil's party.
Furthermore he now seeks greater distractions and more powerful narcotics than he had required before. On a previous occasion, it was enough for Faustus to call up the vision of Helen. Now he needs to possess her. And if this final abandonment to sensual delight becomes the occasion for the most celebrated poetry in the play, that poetry thoroughly suggests the desperation of Faustus's plight. If the two opening lines of Faustus's famous speech here describe the transcendent power of a beauty that could command the allegiance of thousands, they also refer to the destructive fie that she set alight, and perhaps hint at the hell-fire that now burns for Faustus.
Faustus is the prisoner of his own conceptions and indeed preconceptions. He trapped in his own legalism. If the devils insist that a promise is a promise and a bond is a bond that has to be honored, Faustus himself is convinced that this is true (even though the devils themselves are far from sure that the bond has effectively put Faustus's soul in their possession). Apparently, Faustus can believe in and understand a God of justice, but not a God of mercy. If Faustus's self-knowledge makes him say (in Act II, Scene II, Line 18): "My heart's so hardened, I cannot repent", his sense of legal obligation makes him say (Act V, Scene I, Lines 50-52): "Hell calls for right and with a roaring voice/Says, "Faustus come, thine hour is almost come/And Faustus now will come to do thee right". Even at this point the Old Man thinks that Faustus can still be saved. (An Angel has come with a "vial full of precious grace"). The devils themselves would seem to fear that Faustus even at the last moment might escape them: but Faustus himself is convinced that he cannot be saved and his despair effectively prevents any action which would allow him a way out. (Thus in one sense, this play is a study in despair. But the despair does not paralyse the imagination of Faustus. He knows constantly what is happening to him).
We may therefore ask whether the changes that occur in Faustus's soul between the singing of the the bond and his final damnation are sufficient to constitute a middle. The answer to this question would be "yes".
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Christopher Marlowe | The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus | Important Questions With Answers
- What do you think is the cause of the tragedy in Doctor Faustus?
- Discuss Doctor Faustus as a Morality play. Or Elaborate the view that Doctor Faustus is a thoroughly "Christian" Document.
- Discuss Doctor Faustus as an allegory. Or Bring out the symbolic meaning of Doctor Faustus.
- 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.
- Write a note on the Renaissance character of the play, Doctor Faustus. Or Discuss Faustus as a man of Renaissance.
- 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. "
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- How does Marlowe portray the character of Faustus? Or What estimate of the character of Faustus have you formed?
- Discuss Doctor Faustus as regards its construction. Do you think that it possesses what is known as organic unity?
- "If Doctor Faustus is a great work, it is also a flawed one". Discuss
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