I've Got The World on a String

Milton continues to confuse me with his winding staircase sentences that lead to nowhere. I love the language and creativity he has, but just write a simple sentence once in a while to get your point across, you know? I do like where the story is headed though, and I wish we had time to trip over the words in all ten of the books, but my end of semester brain thanks Dr.MB for only making us tackle two.

All seems to be well in hell. We've now taken a look around and in addition to the expected molten fire, we've also found a surprising frozen tundra. Satan has asked his little devils to keep house and tidy things up to make hell a more suitable place to live. And now, because no good story begins and ends by staying in one place where you've been banished, Satan has taken it upon himself to go exploring. He journeys to the gates of hell, which I am actually surprised exist/he is not in charge of them. Part of me has always pictured Satan having some sort of docking station upon a lake of skulls or fire and only he has access to let people in or out. Anyway, he comes across two figures by these gates: a half woman-serpent and something shapeless and terrible. We find out that this woman is Sin and that her son, who Satan is the father of is death. Interesting, right? Sin and Satan have worked together to produce death.

I really like this theory behind the existence of death. Whenever someone dies from an illness, suddenly or just too soon, people are so quick to say something like, "How could God let such a terrible thing happen to such an innocent soul?" But is it God? If death was produced by satan and sin, it isn't really God at all. The embodiment of rule-breaking and cruelty has teamed up with a fallen angel that wanted God's powers. We don't know why death exists, but it's more of a chain of events than something God just thought up. If Satan had never betrayed God and fallen, then maybe death wouldn't exist. But then again, God knew that Satan would do this and it would eventually result in death. Beyond this, Satan actually bribes death and sin and says Hey, if you let me out of this gate, I'll let you roam earth with me. Satan literally brings death and sin to earth.

The chaos part confuses me, which I guess it should. I really thought chaos would be one with the earth, but I guess its more of a messy limbo. Chaos is described as a potpourri of miscellaneous tasks and objects that Satan must get through and I think that might be symbolic of the chaos a person on earth would have to go through to get either to heaven or to hell. Chaos sparks people to make decisions that can lean in either a positive or a negative way, but we have to make it through the chaos to make a decision. I also like that Satan sees earth is dangling from heaven by a string. In fact, I think that's my favorite symbol so far. We are dangling from a single tie to heaven. It's so much easier to fall into the depths of chaos or hell, but heaven is barely holding on to us and seems so out of grasp. The ties between heaven and earth are slim and few, showing that maybe good is not as common on earth and that if the earth is truly all evil, it would be quite easy to cut the string and let it all fall to chaos.

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)