Dr. Faustus

1 Pages 349 Words

DOCTOR FAUSTUS AS A MORALITY PLAY

Doctor Faustus has many features of a morality play: the conflict
between good and evil, the creation of Good and Bad Angels, the
Old Man as Good Counsel, the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins
and the appearance of Faustus’ enemies to ambush and kill him.

The conflict between Good and Evil was a recurring theme in the
medieval morality plays. From this point of view, Marlowe’s play
is a dramatization of the medieval morality play, Everyman.
Doctor Faustus becomes a morality play in which heaven struggles
for the soul of a Renaissance Everyman, namely Doctor Faustus.

The Good Angel and the Bad Angel are characters derived from
the medieval morality plays like The Castle of Perseverance. They
are sometimes regarded as an externalization of the thoughts of
Faustus. This is a twentieth-century view. The Angels are
independent absolutes, one wholly good and one wholly evil. They
appear in Doctor Faustus like allegorical figures of a morality
play. They reflect the possibility of both damnation and
redemption being open to Faustus. A close examination shows that
the Evil Angel declines in importance as the play advances. The
angles work by suggestion, as allegorical characters in morality
plays do.
The audience also observes the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins
in Doctor Faustus. This is another feature borrowed by Marlowe
from the tradition of the morality play. In Marlowe’s play, to divert
Faustus’ attention from Christ, his savior, Lucifer, comes with his
attendant devils to rebuke him for invoking Christ and then
presents the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins as a diversion.

Benvolio’s attempts to ambush and take revenge on Faustus is also
a device taken from the medieval morality play. Faustus loses his
head, only for it to be revealed as a false one. This theatrical device
was originally used in the medieval morality play, Mankin...