From what Faustus has tasted of desire, Faustus holds with those who favor fire

Anyone who knows me or who had the misfortune of being in honors with me last semester, has probably heard me rant about death and more specifically, the afterlife. It's a creepy, eery subject that gives me anxiety and chills just thinking about it, but I think it's something we all ought to wonder about. Sure, we spend a 100 or so years on earth and it shouldn't be filled with worrying about whatever comes next, but after those decades on earth, what happens to us and our souls for the rest of eternity? I find anything that mentions heaven, hell, limbo, purgatory, the great beyond, etc. absolutely fascinating so I was really excited about this book, but I'm disappointed in the character of Faustus himself.

Dr. MB told us that we should try to sympathize with Faustus if we hadn't while we read, and I did sympathize with him to a point. I often have those Thoureau feelings where I wonder what life really is all about and if we're living the right way and sometimes wish I could remove myself from society and write poetry in the woods somewhere. So, I definitely understand Faustus growing tired of his life and his careers and hobbies and wanting to venture out and do something new. For me, this was doing everything in my power to get out of my hometown and go to college in another state. But for Faustus, his boredom and tiredness doesn't bring him to journey around or to pick a new career path or hobby. He turns to dark magic.

I agree with Dr. MB that this magic isn't really magic at all. I think that the so-called "magic" is symbolic for religious and philosophical thoughts and feelings that were frowned upon at the time of this book being written. Faustus making a deal with the devil, well several little devils, is less of a mid-life crisis, and more of a cry for help. I want to slap him across the face for being so arrogant and self-absorbed that he doesn't even believe that hell and evil are real when there is proof all around him and a contract signed in his own blood. Sometimes you just really want to shake a character and tell them how stupid they are.

On a more symbolic note, I am really intrigued by motifs and themes in this book. Especially, hell itself. In act 2, scene 1, line 125, Mephostophilis says, "Within the bowels of these elements where we are tortured and remain forever. Hell hath no limits nor is circumscribed in one self place, but where we are is hell and where hell is there must we ever be...all places shall be be hell that is not heaven!". Isn't it such a bold thought to say that we are in hell right now? That living your life on earth is hell and that maybe you can escape it in death, but maybe you will go on living in hell. Throw away the images of fire, swampy waters filled with skeletons and Satan sitting on a throne of thorns and imagine that instead of life, we call it hell and the only way to get out of hell is to die. And here, faustus has signed an agreement to never escape the hell that he's already in. I think Marlowe has made every reader stop and say, "wait, what?" in just a few lines of a play.

Besides flying dragons, ripping people's legs off and having the seven deadly sins dancing around, I do think that Marlowe is trying to send his readers a message. Yes, Faustus grew bored and signed away his soul and his freedom for greed, but it was of his own doing. I think Marlowe is continuing with that old message that we make our own fate. We need to appreciate life and follow a path, or we'll end up free falling into the depths of hell where we sign away to make bad decisions in order to feel good for just a while. I think this play was a moral lesson on what happens when we stray from our work and our religion, but on some level, it's still relevant today.


(thanks Robert Frost for letting me butcher your poem and use it to title my blogpost)