BUSHRA RAHEEM

BS 5TH
SUBMMITTED TO: MISS SHAZIA
DR. FUSTUS AS A MORALITY PLAY;Christopher Marlowe was an Actor, Poet,
and playwright during the reign of Britain’s queen Elizabeth. “Dr. Faustus
“is the most famous of Marlow’s plays, and its hero, who sells his soul to
the devil in return for twenty-four years of power and pleasure, is by far the
best known of his rebellious protagonist.
Marlowe based the plot of his play
, “The History if The Damnable life and Deserved Death of doctor John
Faustus (1592).
Play is based on Christopher Marlowe’s stories about Scholar and
magician. The play is a tragic comedy and only I learn that it’s widely
believed that Marlowe only constructed it is beginning and conclusion. It’s
said that he wrote the tragic elements, whereas two other collaborates
wrote the dialogue in the middle. Really. Christopher Marlowe is one of the
greatest classical playwrights.
While the miracle plays were still going strong, another medieval dramatic
form emerged in the 14th century and flourished in the 15th-16th centuries,
a form which has more direct links with Elizabethan drama. This is the
morality play, which differs from the miracle play in that it does not deal with
a biblical or pseudo-biblical story but with personified abstractions of virtues
and vices that struggle for man’s soul. Marlow’s most celebrated play
‘Doctor Faustus’ fulfill all the essential qualities of a morality play. It is
regarded as one of the prominent moralities plays in English literature.
The Morality Play were most famous in Europe during the 15th and 16th
centuries. The Morality Play developed during the Medieval period. Morality
Plays typically contain for a protagonist, who represents either humanity as
a whole or smaller social structure, and other supporting characters are
personifications of “Good and evil “.
In Morality plays uses allegorical characters to teach the audience moral
lessons, typical Christian nature. In Dr. Faustus play central characters are
falls into evil ways. The presence of evil and virtuous adviser is also
reminiscent of the Morality Plays. According to M. H. Abrams.,
“Morality plays were dramatized allegories of a representation.”
In this play the characters were personified abstractions of vice or virtues
such as Good deeds, Faith, Mercy, Anger, Truth, Pride etc. The general
theme of the moralities was theological and the main one was the struggle
between the good and evil powers for capturing the man’s soul and good
always won. The story of whole morality play centers round the single
towering figure.
Morality plays always portrait vice characters. Mephostophilis and Lucifer
are clearly reminiscent of the Vice character, taking the role of the tempter
in a manner both sinister and comic. . In Doctor Faustus, the evil is shown
very appealing in beginning. The Lucifer is shown as a great force. Doctor
Faustus sells his soul to devil in return of services of spirit for twenty-four
years. He wants to become most powerful in the world. He is controlled by
inordinate desires. There are heaven, hell and God in the play, which are
characters of the Morality plays. Seven deadly sins are presented in
personified form. Marlow moves towards damnation by and by. In the end
he is left alone, he put blame to his parents who born him but then he put
blame on Lucifer and on himself. Now he says “My God, My God look not
so fierce to me Ugly hell gape not come not Lucifer” Under the
circumstances Doctor Faustus gives up his morality and proceeds to anti
Christianity. Marlowe diverges from the morality tradition by ending
Faustus’ journey in damnation.
The play can be said to be structurally based on a Morality Play. Faustus
spends the play in a state of ambiguity between repentance and despair.
Mephistopheles also creates conflict by doing whatever Faustus asks. This
means that Dr Faustus is able to commit any sin that he wants. The people
in the society around him give him knowledge of what will happen to him if
he does not repent, yet he won't repent through fear of punishment. So
even though Dr Faustus turns to worldly delights to put off confrontation of
the real problem, the problem is always there. This means that the conflict
in Dr Faustus mind hasn't gone away, he is just trying to forget that he has
a dilemma.
The seven deadly sins were found engaged in physical and verbal battle
with cardinal virtues. The antics of vices and devils etc. offered a
considerable opportunity for low comedy or buffoonery. The morality plays
often ended with a solemn moral. In the light of these points we may call
Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus” a belated morality play in spite of its tragic ending.
It has been mentioned that in morality plays the characters were
personified abstractions of vice or virtues. In “Dr.Faustus” also we find the
Good and Evil angels, the former stand for the path of virtue and the latter
for sin and damnation, one for conscience and the other for desires. Then
we have the old man appearing, telling Faustus that he is there “To guide’
thy steps unto the way of life”. He symbolizes the forces of righteousness
and morality. The seven deadly sins are also there in a grand spectacle to
cheer up the despairing soul of Faustus. If the, general theme of morality
plays was theological dealing with the struggle of forces of good and evil for
man’s soul, then “Dr. Faustus” may be called a religious or morality play to
a very great extent. We find Marlowe’s hero, Faustus, abjuring the
scriptures, the Trinity and Christ. He surrenders his soul to the Devil out of
his inordinate ambition to gain: “-----a world of profit and delight ‘Of power,
of honor, of omnipotence. “Through knowledge by mastering the unholy art
of magic. About the books of magic, he declares: “This metaphysics of
magicians, and necromantic books are heavenly. “By selling his soul to the
Devil he lives a blasphemous life full of vain and sensual pleasures just for
only twenty-four years. There is struggle between his overwhelming
ambition and conscience which are externalized by good angel and evil
angel. But Faustus has already accepted the opinion of Evil Angel, who
says: “Be thou on earth as Jove in the sky.” Faustus is also fascinated by
the thought: “A sound magician is a mighty god, Here, Faustus, tire thy
brains to gain a deity. “When the final hours approach, Faustus find himself
at the edge of eternal damnation and cries with deep sorrow: “My God, my
God, look not so fierce to me! “Through this story Marlowe gives the lesson
that the man, who desires to be God, is doomed to eternal damnation. The
chief aim of morality play was didactic. It was a dramatized guide to
Christian living and Christian dying.
We find the chorus introducing the story just before the beginning of the
first scene and subsequently filling in the gaps in the narrative and
announcing the end of the play with a very solemn moral. The appearance
of seven deadly sins shows that Marlowe in “Dr. Faustus” adopted some of
the conventions of the old Morality plays. The seven Deadly sins- pride,
Covetousness, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth and Lechery of good old
Morality plays are also very much here in this play in a grand spectacle to
cheer up the dejected soul of Faustus. And the old favorite and familiar
figure of the devil is also not missing. Mephistopheles, an assistant to
Lucifer, appears as a servile slave of Faustus in many scenes. The comic
scenes of “Dr. Faustus” also belong to the tradition of old Morality plays.
The comic scenes were not integral part of those plays but were introduced
to entertain. In “Dr. Faustus” many comic scenes are depicted especially
his pranks on the Pope, the planting of a pair of horns on the head ofa
knight and the cheating of a greedy horse-dealer. They throw light on the
nature of the tragedy of Dr.Faustus. The comic episodes underline the fact
that Faustus has sunk to the low level of a sordid fun-loving sorcerer. In
“Dr. Faustus” there is only one towering figure all the action and incidents
Centre round him. Then just like the earlier Morality plays, it also suffers
from looseness of construction especially in the middle part of the play.
Though to a great extent, “Dr. Faustus” is a morality play yet there are also
some other elements which make it different from morality play. The
difference is that in morality plays, all characters are abstractions, not
concrete. But in “Dr. Faustus” the main character, Faustus is not an
abstraction but as person with desires and high ambitions He is a living
person like other human beings. Then the element of conflict is the fountain
head of the entire action in the play and the movement of the action defines
the plot of the play. Faustus heart and soul is the greatest battle field for the
internal or spiritual conflict. Though Faustus has abjured God and has
made his pact with the devil, yet there is a conflict in his mind between
good and evil, he feels the pricks of conscience. The growing sense of loss
and of the wages of “damnation” begins to sting him like a scorpion. “When
I behold the heaven, then I repent, and curse thee, Wicked
Mephistopheles, because thou hast deprived me of those joys” This inner
conflict in Faustus is the element of tragedy not of morality, on the basis of
which we sometimes think that it is not a morality play. In a morality play,
the moral is always positive and goodness always triumphs over evil, truth
over lie and virtue over vice. Virtue is always rewarded. But in “Dr. Faustus”
we find evil spreading its powerful hands over goodness and then laying it
down. Faustus follows the path told by evil angel and ultimately is ruined.
He cannot repent and devil is successful in getting hold of his soul. This
moral is negative which is not in accordance with morality plays. Moreover,
in this play, Faustus plays pranks with pope and knight and makes fun of
them. Unlike morality plays the butt of this low comedy is Pope instead of
devil. Faustus is a character ideal to be the hero of a tragedy where man
alone is the maker of his fate, good or bad. He falls not by the fickleness of
fortune or the decree of fate, or because he has been corrupted by
Mephistopheles, the agent of Lucifer; the devil, but because of his own will.
Faustus, being a tragic hero was dominated by some uncontrollable
passion or inordinate ambition. There is a conflict in his mind between good
and evil. He falls from high to low and this degradation is clear in his
soliloquy, when he says: “O soul, be changed into little water drops, and fall
into ocean, never to be found! “Such a tragic hero cannot be the hero of a
morality play. Thus, we see that in spite of its entire links with medieval
miracle plays or moralities, Dr. Faustus can never be treated wholly as a
morality play. It is the greatest heroic tragedy before Shakespeare with its
enormous stress on characterization and inner conflict in the soul of a
towering personality. We may call this play the last of the Morality plays
and the beginning of tragedy that was developed by Shakespeare. We may
conclude in the words of a critic: “Dr. Faustus is both the consummation of
the English Morality, tradition and the last and the finest of Marlowe’s
heroic plays.”