Keywords: dr faustus sin and redemption
Marlowe's play "The tragic history of Doctor Faustus" is an interpretations of a popular German legend, in regards to a historical person, a guy who called himself Dr. Johann Faust. Marlowe published a tragic history of the warlock, who sold his spirit to the devil.
Keeping intact all the important shows of the legend, as set out in the translation of the German popular book about Faust, the poet has given the star a completely different meaning. Faust in the tragedy created by Marlow is similar to his literary forerunner, but often the playwright interprets three main problems in the image of Faust: the condition of choosing between "good" and "evil", the challenge of "honest" and "unfair" knowledge, and the situation of "cutting down souls". (Hattaway 1970).
Marlowe in his play gives a new point of view on sin, redemption and faith. This play offers a new way of looking at sin, challenging traditional values of right and wrong, while through the play visitors may wonder whether or not Faust's "sins" are truly incorrect.
The sin of Faustus and his reckoning for offering the spirit to the devil.
At the start of the play the writer demonstrates Faust was disappointed in school of thought and individual thoughts; medicine also was not so powerful, because it could not give people immortality; Rules was filled with contradictions and was nonsensical.
Could'st thou make men to live eternally,
Or being deceased, raise them alive again,
Then this profession were to be esteemed.
Even the theology was not the response to the Faustus questions, and only the magic of the catalogs seduced him.
These metaphysics of magicians,
And necromantic catalogs are heavenly;
Lines, circles, characters, characters.
Ay, these are the ones that Faustus most dreams.
A audio magician is a demi-god.
Here, wheel my brains to obtain a Deity. Enter Wagner. (Marlowe, 1. 1)
Good Angel persuades Faust to not read the damned books full of temptations, which bring after Faust the wrath of god, the father.
Good Angel: O Faustus, place that damned booklet aside,
And gaze not onto it least it tempt thy spirit,
And heap God's heavy wrath upon thy brain.
Read, browse the scriptures: that is blasphemy.
But Evil Angel, by contrast, incites Faust to do special and to understand all the secrets of dynamics:
Evil Angel: Move forward, Faustus, for the reason that famous art
Wherein all nature's treasure is included.
Be thou on the planet as Jove is in the sky,
Lord and Commander of the elements.
Then comes Mephistopheles, and Faustus desires Mephistopheles to serve him and perform all his dreams, but Mephistopheles assists Lucifer only. So Faustus decided to understand the supreme ruler of Lucifer - god, the father of darkness and lord of spirits.
Faustus points out that he chooses black powerful because of:
a world of profit and pleasure,
Of electric power, of honour, of omnipotence,
[that] Is promised to the studious artisan!
All things that move between your quiet poles
Shall be within my demand. Emperors and kings
Are but obeyed in their several provinces.
Nor can they improve the blowing wind or rend the clouds.
But this dominion that exceeds in this
Stretcheth as far as doth your brain of man:
A audio magician is a demi-god.
Here tire, my brains to beget a deity. (Marlowe, 1. 1. )
When Faust hesitates, Good Angel tries to persuade him to leave evil magic, and go back to God, but Evil angel provides him the idea of wealth and fame, and Faustus says:
Wealth? Why the signory of Embden shall be mine.
When Mephistophilis shall stand by me,
What vitality can hurt me? Faustus, thou skill safe.
Cast no more doubts; Mephistophilis. (Marlowe, 2. 1)
And bring pleased tidings from great Lucifer
Stay, Mephistophilis, and inform me,
What good will my soul do thy Lord?
Good Angel advises Faustus to repent and trust in the mercy of god, the father. Evil Angel is positive that God will not take pity on such a great sinner, however, he is assured that Faust won't repent:
Evil Angel: Ay, but Faustus never shall repent.
Faustus: My heart is hardened; I cannot repent.
Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven.
To entertain Faust, Mephistopheles leads Devils to give Faust crown, wealthy clothes and boogie in front of him, and then removed. Faust asks Mephistopheles about hell. Mephistopheles says:
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed,
In one self place, but where we are is hell,
And where hell will there be must we ever before be.
And to be short, when all the entire world dissolves,
And every creature will be purified,
All places shall be hell that's not heaven
Well, Faustus, thou shalt have a better half.
He fetches in a woman devil.
Later Faustus says:
When I behold the heavens i quickly repent
And curse thee wicked Mephistophilis,
Because thou hast deprived me of these joys
If heaven was made for man, "twas designed for me.
I will renounce this magic and repent.
Good Angel: Faustus, repent yet God will pity thee.
Evil Angel: Thou artwork a soul; God cannot pity thee.
Faustus: Ay, go, accursed heart, to unattractive hell.
'Tis thou hast damned distressed Faustus" heart and soul.
Is't not too past due?
Evil Angel: Too later.
Good Angel: Never too past due, if Faustus will repent.
Faustus: My center is solidified; I cannot repent.
Scarce can I name salvation, trust, or heaven.
Swords, poison, halters, and envenomed metallic,
Are laid before me to dispatch my do it yourself,
And long ere this, I will did the deed,
Had not sweet pleasure conquered profound despair.
Faustus: O, Christ my Savior, my Savior,
Help to save distressed Faustus' soul. (Marlowe, 2. 2. )
Lucifer Faustus blames for the actual fact that Faustus violates the word and considers Christ, but Faustus vows that it will not happen again. Lucifer shows Faust seven fatal sins in their true guise: before him are Pleasure, Greed, Wrath, Envy, gluttony, laziness, and profligacy. Faust needs to see hell and back again and Lucifer pledges to show him hell, yet gives Faustus a booklet to read and understand how to adopt any look.
Then following the voyage Faust is on the verge of death and condemned to burn up in hell forever. He was encouraged to keep in mind God and ask him for clemency, but Faust realizes that he is no forgiveness, he sold his heart to the devil and your day of reckoning is in close proximity to. Faust wants to get time and energy to repent and become saved, however the clock attacks, thunder rumbles, lightning flashes, and the Devils led Faust away.
The idea of Faustus sin must show readers take a lessons from the tragic destiny of Faust, rather than to seek the data of the protected areas of science, which tempt man and educate to do evil.
Well, gentlemen, though Faustus' end be such
As every Religious heart laments to think on,
Yet for he was a scholar, once admired
For wondrous knowledge inside our German institutions,
We'll give his mangled limbs scheduled burial.
And all the students clothed in mourning dark-colored,
Shall wait after his heavy funeral. (Marlowe, V)
The image of Faustus as a sinner
Marlow tells the storyline of Faustus, who sacrificed world pleasures with regard to eternal salvation, to be able to get understanding of sciences, and will be offering a fresh way of looking at the thought of sin.
The play is written as some sort of tragedy, where Dr. Faustus is offered as a rebel against an oppressive morality: this is the traditional view of sin, which would condemn Faustus for his deal with the devil in trade for knowledge. Marlowe with great sympathy proved disappointment of Faustus in contemporary science and viewpoint, his desire to learn the deepest secrets of dynamics. He showed despair of the hero's, who started an unequal attack with the indestructible divine authority, and the body of Faust was lit with attraction and tragic courage.
In a dramatic image created by Marlow, Faustus is idealized, more accurately he has those potentials, which were concluded in the tale and were reflection of significant progressive ideological actions of the Renaissance: the emancipation of the human head from the medieval Chapel dogma and the people will and tendencies of the middle ages ascetic morality.
In the first monologue Faustus expresses humanistic idea of the "indomitable spirit": unrestricted personal independence, boundless likelihood of learning about the universe, man's power around the world. Motivated by this ideal, Faust with a feeling of frustration sums up the accomplishments of modern knowledge: they have a small, insignificant aims, filled with selfish nature.
When Faustus turns to the Scriptures he recognizes dogmas that are incompatible with the humanistic ideal, as it belittles the person because of original sin. The ideal of the church is alien to Faustus as it contradicts with his belief in the worthiness of personal rights.
Characteristically for Faust, a guy of the XVI century, which sharply criticizes the Bible and Christian theology, he at exactly the same time wants to become like God, attracts his ideal in the Bible paints.
'If you people could give immortality
Or the lifeless to life again appeal to (Marlowe 1. 1. )
The hero of the play is presented to the audience not as a fairy tale hero, but as an ordinary man, whose remarkable strength is in his mind and senses. The win of flexibility and person's skills on the hostile world - is a dream of the scientist-humanist, but the playwright is not so much focused on Faust's dream of itself, but on its impact on his entire spiritual life.
Excited monologues of Faustus (where he "will not saturated from university scholastic science transforms to magic searching for unearthly wisdom", which he "yearns with all his heart", or talks to the historic image of Helen as the ultimate in sensual, earthy beauty) show personal encounters of the writer and modern top features of that point.
"Dr. Faustus" - is the philosophical and psychological drama, and the author the reaches greatest heights of artistry when portraying the hero in occasions of intense yoga, in moments of ecstasy, despair, question. The image of Faustus lacerations are shown in an excellent picture of conversation with the devil, with remarkable brilliance and significance of interior suppressions of Faustus:
Faustus: Where are you damned?
Mephostophilis: In hell.
Faustus: How comes after that it that thou art work out of Hell?
Mephostophilis: Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I who saw the facial skin of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
O Faustus, leave these frivolous needs,
Which attacks a terror to my fainting heart. (Marlowe, 1. 2. )
Faustus wants to have the opportunity to do it again the biblical wonders, and by signing a contract with the devil, Faustus compares himself to Christ. Inside the tragedy of Faust's journey in to the "demonic" the writer shows the levels of emotional development of the hero, and it is not a true story. Once the 'black magic' passes in to the real life, loving pathos of narrative disappears, giving spot to the irony, farce playfulness, where in fact the only magic is a strategy. Faustus spells don't have any intrinsic sensational electric power, and "wonders" that Faust makes, after he sold his spirit to the devil, are depicted with deliberate irony.
Faustus: What art thou, Faustus, but a man condemn'd to die?
Thy fatal time pulls to a final end;
Despair doth drive distrust into my thoughts:
Confound these passions with a silent sleep:
Tush, Christ does call the thief upon the Combination;
Then relax thee, Faustus, tranquil in conceit.
Regardless of magic, spells and curses, even before meeting with Mephistopheles Faustus was shown as a rebel, the adversary of God. Curses, the have difficulty of good and bad angels for the heart and soul of Faust's, contract with Lucifer and ending up in Mephistopheles - all this is a subconscious dilemma of Faust, the progressive realization of the depth of the discontinuity of his ideals to the prevailing "divine" power, to the consecrated religious moral code, and so with contemporary society, where religious beliefs was considered a floor of condition and was deeply rooted in the imagination of the vast majority of people.
The frame of mind towards sin in the play
The main case of the writer is the fact that seeking knowledge is not really a sin.
The publisher shows a new morality, and the idea of sin in this morality will not coincide with attempts to attain the knowledge. (Davidson, 1996)
This new morality is a man does and should search for knowledge, but without sacrifices and sin. Faustus can seek out new knowledge in the restrictions of traditional principles and assumptions, but should not be regarded as a sinner. But when Faustus reaches the finish of intellectual thought and do not know where to go next.
It is important to notice the actual fact that Faustus struggles with the idea of being truly a metaphysical being: "if men cannot become as God, cannot hold the superior knowledge that God has, just how can God forgive the sins of such wicked people"?
Faustus was warned and asked to confess:
O, mild Faustus, leave this damned skill,
This magic, that will appeal thy spirit to hell,
And quite bereave thee of salvation.
Though thou hast now offended like a man,
Do not persever in it like a devil.
Yet, yet, thou hast an amiable heart and soul,
If sin by custom grow not into aspect;
Then, Faustus, will repentance come too past due,
Then thou artwork banished from the eyesight of heaven;
No mortal can express the aches of hell.
There is a view that a sin can only just be redeemed with confession and penance, and by requesting God for his mercy, every man will see the forgiveness he needs in order to be redeemed. As Redemption is a deliverance from one's sins, mercy and forgiveness can be achieved through Confession and Penance. But Faustus feels his soul belongs to him, and he sells it, having sinned against God, that is why he is not unredeemable as he himself feels. He says:
"If we say that people have no sin
We deceive ourselves, and there is absolutely no fact in us.
Why then, belike, we must sin,
And consequently perish.
Ay, we must die an everlasting fatality. "
Faustus realizes that he cannot be saved as he does not believe in God as a God of love; rather, he views God as a Deity of power. He cannot understand the energy of God's forgiveness and mercy:
O, if my soul must undergo for my sin,
Impose some end to my incessant pain.
Let Faustus are in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and finally be saved.
No end is bound to damned souls
Redemption in the play practices the Renaissance opinion that salvation comes through beliefs. Faustus retains the God's offer of forgiveness until the very end, and every time he considers repenting, he is stopped either by himself or by the devil, convinced his sin was too great. (Davidson, 1996)
The lessons of the importance of faith is simple: for the redeem Faustus needs trust, and opinion that God will forgive him of his sin then he is able to be preserved. But Faustus does not repent, so he will go to hell, and joins the other lost souls in Hell.
The conclusion is that because Faustus has lack of beliefs in God, it keeps him from being redeemed and heading to Heaven.
Conclusion
"The Tragedy of Dr. Faustus" troubles the traditional idea of sin and implies that redemption comes only through trust. The image of Faustus as a sinner can be an example of the process search for the truth, that all person undergoes, as readers see in Faustus' struggle to accept God, or even to reject God.
Marlow shows the viewers two important ideas: the foremost is that going over the limits of an authoritarian contemporary society and looking for knowledge is not sinful; and the second is a view that redemption is gained through faith, so that it is important never to lose trust in God.
