How Does Marlowe Present Faustus in the Prologue and in the First Soliloquy of the Play?
By Margaret
Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus’ uses the framework of a typical medieval morality play. However, Marlowe chooses to begin his play by highlighting how it is different from many of the types of plays to which the Elizabethan audience were accustomed. ‘Not marching in the fields of Trasimene’, says the chorus, ‘Nor sporting in the dalliance of love/... /Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds’ will this play be set. Right from the beginning, Marlowe wants his audience to know who Faustus is. He is not a war hero, or a romantic and he is not a prince or king doing noble or brave deeds. Marlow is very clear about his intentions for his character and he wants the audience to understand that.
Marlowe then moves on to describe Faustus in more detail: ‘he is born, of parents base of stock/... within a town call’d Rhode’. Again, this subverts the audience’s expectations by making his protagonist of lower class. Perhaps, initially, this would have made Faustus more likeable to the audience, as he appears as an ordinary commoner. Marlowe chooses to not immediately tell the audience whether Faustus is a noble or evil character. The line ‘we must now perform/The form of Faustus’ fortunes, good or bad’ is similarly ambiguous. This contributes to the overall build-up of this prologue, holding the audience’s interest as they wait for Faustus’ true character to be revealed.
Following this, the audience is told of Faustus’ academic achievements in his later life: ‘So much he profits in divinity/…/That… he was grac’d with doctor’s name’. You can imagine the scene quite vividly, and thus already Faustus’ character is materialising. For an audience, they may even have seen this playing out onstage. Faustus is presented as very intelligent, ‘Excelling all…/In th’ heavenly matters of theology’. This aspect of his character remains at the core of many of the themes in Marlowe’s play and is indeed the aspect on which much of Faustus’ role is built. Faustus is certainly talented, but is that his gift, or his downfall?
However, the Prologue takes a different turn at line 20. Marlowe describes how, ‘swollen with… self-conceit… [he falls] to a devilish exercise… [and] surfeits upon cursed necromancy’. This is a jarring contrast to the ‘heavenly matters’ on which Faustus had supposedly set his mind previously. Marlowe compares the Doctor to the myth of Icarus, stating that ‘His waxen wings did mount above his reach’. Marlowe uses language relating to the idea of greed and gluttony, two of the Seven Deadly Sins: ‘swollen’, ‘glutted’, ‘surfeits’. The light in which Faustus is portrayed has shifted drastically; he is now revealed to be a glutton for ‘learning’s golden gifts’, knowledge. This is another key aspect of Faustus’ character, with which we will become better acquainted later on in the play.
Likewise, the audience is told that Faustus ‘prefers’ ‘magic’ ‘before his chiefest bliss’, meaning his access to God and heaven. Marlowe is telling us that Faustus loves the dark power granted to him by studying black ‘magic’ more than he loves God- ironically, that subject at which he so excelled in studying. At this point, despite how early on in the play it is, Marlowe has already presented Faustus to the audience as an intelligent, ambitious megalomaniac.
This leads us on to Act One, which begins with Faustus in his study. He then gives us the first soliloquy of the play. First, the Doctor considers his philosophical studies and the works of Aristotle: ‘Is to dispute well logic’s chiefest end? Affords this art no greater miracle?’ Faustus questions the integrity of the philosophies he has always known. He then concludes that ‘A greater subject fitteth Faustus’ wit’, saying ‘farewell’ to all his studies of the ‘on kai me on (being and not being)’ nature. This perhaps shows Faustus to be a rather changeable character. However, it is also likely that his pliability is due to his intense lust for power, rather than his innate nature. Marlowe wants us to see Faustus’ pride in these lines- Faustus considers himself above such studies as Aristotle himself engaged in. Pride is another of the Deadly Sins and takes an important role in this play as a whole.
After that, Faustus takes up the subject of medicine in the form of the physician Galen for consideration: ‘Be a physician, Faustus, heap up gold/And be eterniz’d for some wondrous cure’. Faustus believes that, if he were to become a doctor, he could be rich and famous. Again, Marlowe presents us with the theme of pride. Faustus asks himself why he has not already become a doctor: ‘Is not thy common talk sound aphorisms?’ He even claims to have found a cure for ‘the plague’, sparing ‘whole cities’. Yet, he reflects, ‘art though still but… a man’? ‘Couldst thou make men to live eternally/Or being dead raise them to life again’? Faustus concedes that, since he is incapable of doing these things, then ‘this profession’ is not worth pursuing. Marlowe wants the audience to see how power-hungry the Doctor is, for he wants to be able to perform acts that only God can do. As we will see more and more in this play, Faustus wants to become God, the very entity on whom he turned his back in the very opening lines of the play.
Furthermore, Faustus calls for Justinian, a man of the law. However, he quickly tosses aside this idea: ‘A petty case of paltry legacies!’ Marlowe is already showing us that Faustus thinks little of the law; he believes that the study of law is ‘[fitting for] a mercenary drudge/Who aims at nothing but external trash’. Faustus hates the idea of living purely for material gain, calling that lifestyle ‘servile’ and ‘illiberal’. The Doctor cannot bear the idea of becoming a common slave to money and in this we see again his intense pride. Marlowe presents Faustus on an even more evil level than those that simply worship wealth; Faustus only cares for wealth if it is achieved as a by-product of ultimate power.
Moreover, Faustus then proclaims that ‘divinity is best’ and turns to the Bible. Again, however, he mockingly rejects it: ‘The reward of sin is death: that’s hard’, for ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves’. Faustus believes that there is no opportunity for redemption in the Scripture, as ‘we must sin, and so consequently die’. Marlowe shows us simultaneously that Faustus holds great value in his reasoning abilities and yet still has only an elementary knowledge of the Bible (evidently, as the chief message of the Bible is that a way has been made for us to be born sinners but not die). Nevertheless, Faustus discards ‘divinity’ as an object of study: ‘What doctrine call you this?... Divinity, adieu!’ Marlowe is again presenting Faustus’ changeability in light of his evil ambitions- Faustus is willing to sacrifice even his scholarly commitments for the love of power.
Finally, Faustus settles on a subject- the subject of subjects indeed, to him: ‘These metaphysics of magicians/And necromantic books are heavenly;/…/Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires’. The Doctor seems to have found his calling, in ‘Lines, circles, letters and characters’, the realm of demons and souls. Faustus goes on to envision his existence after mastering the arts of necromancy: ‘what a world of profit and delight,/Of power, of honour, omnipotence’. Marlowe finally shows us the culmination of the themes we have seen running throughout the opening lines of the play. Faustus’ lust, pride and greed shine clearly through his words; he would give up his very soul for the power and glory he believes it would bring him. ‘All things… /Shall be at my command’, he declares, for ‘A sound magician is a demi-god’. Although this kind of gluttonous hunger for power is typical in many kinds of storytelling, there is something distinctly eerie about the way Marlowe presents Faustus and his desires. The Doctor does not simply want money or power or fame, he wants to become like God, for ‘emperors and kings/Are but obey’d in their several provinces’. Faustus wants to ‘raise the wind’ and ‘rend the clouds’ such as mortal rulers cannot. Marlowe is showing us the intensity and darkness of Faustus’ deepest dreams, presenting him as both logical and rational and yet somehow insane at the same time. This idea of the Doctor’s dual characteristics is reflected in the closing line of his soliloquy: ‘Here tire, my brains, to get a deity!’ or ‘Becoming a god is tiring work!’ The absolute madness of this mentality is both unsettling and appealing. For a real person, this behaviour would be despicable, but as Marlowe’s central character, it is intriguing. This technique engages the audience, making Faustus an object of terrible fascination that we long to know more about. Marlowe presents the Doctor as a man half-obscured in shadow- we can see some of his features clearly but there is a darker part of him that we can hardly understand. Will Faustus achieve his desires? What consequences would that bring? What becomes of him in the end? These questions echo in our head as Marlowe proceeds with the scene.
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