Dr.

Faustus as a tragedy
Dr. Faustus is one of the best-known Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe. It takes a
different turn on some points from the Aristotelian tragedy, for instance such as the Elizabethan
tragedy's requisite death of the tragic hero. Dr. Faustus demonstrates the Renaissance philosophy
that pits the dichotomy of good, angelic humanity against evil, depraved humanity. Thus,
Marlowe's play is a model of the Elizabethan tragedy.
Marlowe constructed the character of Dr. Faustus to represent within himself both characteristics
of humanity as divinely good and hellishly evil. First, Dr. Faustus is presented as a scholar of all
things including divinity, the highest Renaissance scholarly discipline. Then, Faustus is shown as
dissatisfied with the limitations of humanity and grasping for unlimited knowledge (which is a
Biblical allusion to Adam and Eve who ate of the Tree of Knowledge.) Throughout the play,
Faustus descends to lower and lower planes of knowledge in his pursuit for the "power" and
"omnipotence" that comes from knowledge. (At the beginning, Mephistopheles answers all
Faustus' questions but draws the line on talk of the universe. Marlowe ultimately shows in Dr.
Faustus the futility of the quest for ultimate knowledge and the inevitable result of abandoning
moral integrity for omnipotent knowledge.)

In further accord with Elizabethan tragedy, the play Dr. Faustus employs comedic relief through
the presence of clowns that also acts as a means of giving information about the characters and the
action of the play. The clowns in Dr. Faustus are Rafe and Robin. In Elizabethan tragedy, the
clowns and fools, generally replace the Greek Chorus that carried the task of moving the story
along with information not performed on stage, but in Dr. Faustus, Marlowe employs both the
Greek-style Chorus and Elizabethan clowns.

It differs from a traditional Greek tragedy, as Faustus doesn't have a high birth status (like a king,
prince etc.). Moreover, as we know, in a Greek tragedy, though the hero suffers, but everything is
brought into restoration by the end. If the person is alive, there is an option of repentance and
forgiveness of his sins by the God. But Doctor Faustus shows some deviations.

Now, though we understand that Faustus doesn't have a high birth status, he still enjoys respect in
the society because of his unmatchable education and intelligence.

Doctor Faustus represents the modern man who is divided between the Christian faith and the
Renaissance spirit. Faustus, like the heroes of Greek tragedies has one fatal error or tragic flaw
(known as Hamartia) that leads to his damnation. It is his hubris or extreme pride (this is
considered as the most severe of all seven deadly sins as it gives rise to the other sins). He is guilty
of being too proud over his intelligence and achievements. Because of his he commits a series of
other mistakes one after the other.

Finally we see that Faustus too realizes his mistakes (all tragic heroes meet revelation of their
faults) and begs for repentance. But it’s too late by then and he meets damnation. Through
his tragic end, he gains the audience’s sympathy and provokes Catharsis. Catharsis is a typical of
any tragedy. In fact, the most obvious and logical conclusions of the Elizabethan tragedy is the
hero’s death.
Doctor Faustus can be, hence, called as a tragedy play.

("The reward of sin is death." That's hard.

..."If we say that we have no sin,

We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us.")

I HAVE ADDED THESE AS ADDITIONAL MATERIAL I LIKED THAT PART😉

Doctor Faustus has elements of both Christian morality and classical tragedy. On the one hand, it
takes place in an explicitly Christian cosmos: God sits on high, as the judge of the world, and every
soul goes either to hell or to heaven. There are devils and angels, with the devils tempting people
into sin and the angels urging them to remain true to God. Faustus’s story is a tragedy in Christian
terms, because he gives in to temptation and is damned to hell. Faustus’s principal sin is his great
pride and ambition, which can be contrasted with the Christian virtue of humility; by letting these
traits rule his life, Faustus allows his soul to be claimed by Lucifer, Christian cosmology’s prince
of devils.

On the other hand, it is a traditional tragic play, where a hero is brought low by an error or series
of errors and realizes his or her mistake only when it is too late. In Christianity, though, as long as
a person is alive, there is always the possibility of repentance—so if a tragic hero realizes his or
her mistake, he or she may still be saved even at the last moment. But though Faustus, in the final,
wrenching scene, comes to his senses and begs for a chance to repent, it is too late, and he is carried
off to hell. Marlowe rejects the Christian idea that it is never too late to repent in order to increase
the dramatic power of his finale, in which Faustus is conscious of his damnation and yet, tragically,
can do nothing about it.
Faustus as a tragic Hero

In the world of theatre, there are many plays in which the central figure is one who harnesses
extreme personality traits above all others. For example, Sophocles’ Oedipus is a fatherly king
with great ambition and strength; and Shakespeare’s Macbeth is evilly ambitious, while Romeo
and Juliet are driven solely by their love for one another. These traits give these characters
unbelievable success ... for a time. In these stories, these attributes bring about each character’s
downfall and death, qualifying each as a tragic hero, one whose strength leads to weakness.
Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus is a definite member of this class of characters, an arrogant yet
impressively ambitious scholar who desires grandiose knowledge without the help and guidance
from the world’s major religion, Christianity. In Dr. Faustus, Marlowe uses tragic irony concerning
Faustus’ misunderstanding and rejection of God to illustrate the downfall of this tragic hero.

Faustus’ character is established with his first soliloquy in the very first scene. Desiring to acquire
knowledge, he distrusts logic, medicine, and law, claiming that he “hast attained [the] end[s]” and
mastered these areas. When he considers religion, “divinity,” he quotes Romans, which says, “The
reward of sin is death,” and continues with, saying that everyone sins and therefore there is “no
truth in us”. From this, Faustus concludes that there is no reason in believing in a seemingly
hopeless faith where the only outcome is death, and so with a haughty goodbye he says, “What
doctrine call you this? ... Divinity, adieu!”.

Faustus is entirely too quick to form conclusions. If he wants knowledge, the last action he should
take is not learning all about a possible flaw. Modern journalist Lee Strobel says in his faith-
strengthening book The Case for Faith about difficult questions people pose about the Bible,
“[Because someone isn’t] able to answer them [doesn’t] mean there [aren’t] answers”. The
astounding irony of this scene is Faustus’ failure to read the next verse after “If we confess our
sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”.
Faustus’ arrogance and conceit will not let him become fully knowledgeable to see hope, and
therefore he has personally lost all hopes for his dreams by painting Christianity in a negative light.

Faustus further condemns himself by looking to magic in order to be a “demi-god,” but even more
so by believing a pact with the highest devil, Lucifer, will give him his dreams. He gives a message
to Mephistopheles, a devil, that says:

He surrenders up to [Lucifer] his soul, So he will spare him four and twenty years, Letting him
live in all voluptuousness,. To give [him] whatever [he] shall ask.

In his pursuit of knowledge, now believing his soul-selling has proven successful, Faustus asks
Mephistopheles questions about the planet, and the heavens, which are very readily answered.
However, when Faustus asks, “[T]ell me who made the world,” Mephistopheles replies, "I will
not". Now that Faustus believes he has been granted all knowledge, the irony exists in his inability
to discover the answers to the ultimate questions of how the universe came to be, and more
important, who made the universe. If he knew this, his knowing it would lead him directly back to
God the Creator, and therefore to all knowledge whatsoever. But Faustus is now detached from
God, unable to acquire the knowledge he desires.
By the end of the play, Faustus is so far detached from God that he literally has no chance of
salvation. Faustus, of course, doesn’t believe this. Although he recognizes his impending end
(“What art thou, Faustus, but a man / condemned to die?”), he assumes he can have salvation at
the last second, for “Christ did call the thief upon the cross,” alluding to Christ’s forgiving of a
thief the day of Christ’s (and the thief's) crucifixion. But as the sky runs with Christ's blood at
Faustus’ end, and as he cries out,

O, I'll leap up to my God... See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! One drop
would save my soul, half a drop! Ah, my Christ!

It becomes apparent that Faustus is doomed, unworthy of God’s free grace as he is taken to Hell.
His tragic end reiterates his misunderstanding of Christianity by taking out of context the passages
from Romans and 1 John. If Faustus really were knowledgeable, he would have known Jesus’
statement:

I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will acknowledge him before the
angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God. And
everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes
against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. (Luke 12: 8-10)

Faustus lived for twenty-four years completely devoted to Lucifer, the chief opposition to God,
never choosing right, thus signing his eternal death warrant.

Marlowe details the life of someone who misses completely the idea of God. The Christian faith
does not teach a hopeless future that was given to Faustus through his ambition and stubborn
delusion of grandeur. Instead, there is hope and was for Faustus. The Good Angel appears to
Faustus to tell him to return to God, because “if [Faustus] hadst given an ear to [him], / Innumerable
joys [would have] followed [him]”. Also, the Old Man who comes to Faustus near his end urges
him to repent, telling him to “call for mercy and avoid despair”. God’s power is implied to be
frightfully stronger than that which Lucifer gives, as when Faustus is in Rome with the devil
Mephistopheles, who says even he fears the friars’ chants from God. Faustus continually
contemplates his decision to sell his soul, whether it was right or if he has condemned himself,
however, he ultimately chooses to keep his satanic pact. Marlowe emphasizes through his tragic
hero that no matter how condemned and sinful one feels, there is always a chance for salvation if
one is willing to see it.
The Supernatural Imagery in Macbeth

Modern audiences may well see Macbeth’s actions as having psychological roots – he resents
putting his life on the line for Duncan’s benefit; his wife challenges his manhood when he retreats
from his plan to murder the king; the witches play on his egotistical desire for power, rather than
supernaturally engineering an opportunity for his advancement. However, it is simply not tenable
to write off the supernatural elements of Macbeth as mere superstition.

The storms and disturbances that are reported over the night of the murder of Duncan are
indicators of disharmony and disorder in the world of man; Shakespeare had already used the same
codes, albeit in a very different context, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream where the conflict
between Titania and Oberon was played out in nature. Similarly, the ghost of Banquo – easily
seen today as Macbeth’s guilt personified, and sometimes not even shown on stage in order to
emphasise this psychological reading – has established literary roots: Hamlet and The Spanish
Tragedy both rely on the very real presence of a ghost to drive the plot forward.

The most important supernatural element in Macbeth is probably found in the witches (or more
properly the Weird Sisters, since they are not termed ‘witches’ in the text). Despite his audience’s
firm belief in witchcraft, Shakespeare is careful to stress the limitations of the witches’ powers:
immediately before Macbeth’s first meeting with them (1, iii) one declares, of the sailor she is
toying with, that ‘his [ship] cannot be lost’. At no point do the witches actually control Macbeth’s
actions; Shakespeare does not want us to be able to ‘excuse’ his actions as a result of Macbeth
being under supernatural control. They may use their powers to concoct an hallucinogenic potion
to allow Macbeth his visions, and they may provide Macbeth with prophecies he desires to hear,
but they are not ever the instigators of events. Macbeth may be a play filled with supernatural
elements, but ultimately it is his own unnatural desires which cause his downfall.

Shakespeare frequently presents images of blood in Macbeth. Sometimes it is the hot blood of lady
Macbeth and Macbeth as they plot murder; sometimes it is the spilled, innocent blood of their
victims. It is also blood of guilt that does not wash away and the blood of kinship that drives
enemies of Macbeth to action. In general, the images of blood–like the images of darkness–bathe
the play in a macabre, nether worldly atmosphere.

Visions and hallucinations recur throughout the play and serve as reminders of Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth’s joint culpability for the growing body count. When he is about to kill Duncan, Macbeth
sees a dagger floating in the air. Covered with blood and pointed toward the king’s chamber, the
dagger represents the bloody course on which Macbeth is about to embark. Later, he sees Banquo’s
ghost sitting in a chair at a feast, pricking his conscience by mutely reminding him that he murdered
his former friend. The seemingly hardheaded Lady Macbeth also eventually gives way to visions,
as she sleepwalks and believes that her hands are stained with blood that cannot be washed away
by any amount of water. In each case, it is ambiguous whether the vision is real or purely
hallucinatory; but, in both cases, the Macbeths read them uniformly as supernatural signs of their
guilt.

Shakespeare casts a pall of darkness over the play to call attention to the evil deeds unfolding and
the foul and supernatural atmosphere in which they are taking place. For instance, at the very
beginning of the play, Shakespeare introduces an image of dark clouds and later on, Lady Macbeth
entreats blackest night to cloak her when she takes part in the murder of Duncan.

In his analysis of the images of darkness in Macbeth, Shakespearean scholar A.C. Bradley writes:
It is remarkable that almost all the scenes which at once recur to memory take place either at night
or in some dark spot. The vision of the dagger, the murder of Duncan, the murder of Banquo, the
sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth, all come in night-scenes. The witches dance in the thick air of a
storm, or, 'black and midnight hags' receive Macbeth in a cavern. The blackness of night [makes]
the hero a thing of fear, even of horror; and that which he feels becomes the spirit of the play.

In Macbeth, the ghost of Banquo act as an instrument of justice and punishment. Macbeth who
sees it immediately after the murder of Banquo is made nervous by it and so it provoked to betray
him to the assembled quests. It is an objectification of externalization of the subjective state of
Macbeth. It is a creation of his guilt, obsessed imagination and as Lady Macbeth reminds him very
much like the dagger he sees just before the murder of Duncan.

There is a notable absence of any Church figures in the play. In a society such as Shakespeare’s,
where attendance at church was a requirement under the law, this would have been a notable
absence. We see no funeral for Duncan, and by not showing the coronation of Macbeth
Shakespeare obviates the need for a token bishop or priest. It seems that he wants to portray
Macbeth’s world as being entire devoid of God – only the forces of darkness are at work in this
Scotland.

Conclusion SUCKS- just read it !!!

All these elements serve to intensify the already accumulated dark atmosphere of the play and also
show that supernatural in Macbeth is brought into closest harmony with the character of the
protagonist in the drama. The supernatural is here presented both in outward and inward from and
incorporates with the dark atmosphere prevailing throughout the drama.
Symbolism in Macbeth

In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, symbolism is abundantly used in exemplifying the overall

theme of murder. There are several prominent forms of symbolism throughout the play. The
contrast of light and dark representing good and evil plays a major role in the advancement of
events in the play. Blood symbolizes murder and guilt. The archetypal pattern of purification by
water is used several times in the play, particularly in the murder scenes. Symbolism is widely
displayed in order to achieve the general topic of evil.

Blood is everywhere in Macbeth, beginning with the opening battle between the Scots and the
Norwegian invaders, which is described in harrowing terms by the wounded captain. Blood as a
result of actual wounds is almost omnipresent, from the bleeding Captain in the beginning to
Macbeth's bleeding head at the end. But it's the imagined blood that arguably has the biggest
impact as a symbol. When Macbeth considers murdering Duncan, he sees a floating "dagger of the
mind" that points him in the direction of the sleeping king's room. As Macbeth wonders if his mind
is playing tricks on him, the dagger becomes covered in imaginary blood, which anticipates the
way that very real daggers will be soiled when Macbeth murders King Duncan.

Eventually, once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth embark upon their murderous journey, blood comes
to symbolize their guilt, and they begin to feel that their crimes have stained them in a way that
cannot be washed clean. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?”
Macbeth cries after he has killed Duncan, even as his wife scolds him and says that a little water
will do the job. Later, though, she comes to share his horrified sense of being stained: “Out,
damned spot; out, I say . . . who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in
him?” she asks as she wanders through the halls of their castle near the close of the play. Blood
symbolizes the guilt that sits like a permanent stain on the consciences of both Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth, one that hounds them to their graves.

Macbeth’s grotesque murder spree is accompanied by a number of unnatural occurrences in the

natural realm. From the thunder and lightning that accompany the witches’ appearances to the
terrible storms that rage on the night of Duncan’s murder, these violations of the natural order and
terrible weather reflect corruption in the moral and political orders. Also, the play begins with a
terrible storm (likely conjured by the witches) that's associated with dark forces and also the
rebellion against King Duncan.

After King Duncan is murdered by Macbeth, we learn from the Old Man and Ross that some
strange and "unnatural" things have been going on. Even though it's the middle of the day, the
"dark night strangles the traveling lamp," which literally means that darkness fills the sky and
chokes out the sun. This could be another allusion to the way the king's life has been extinguished
(kings are often associated with the sun's power) and his power usurped by "darkness" (Macbeth)?
This interpretation seems likely.
Macbeth is full of imagery of light and darkness. From the first, the cover of night is invoked
whenever anything terrible is going to happen. Lady Macbeth, for example, asks "thick night" to
come with the "smoke of hell," so her knife might not see the wound it makes in the peacefully
sleeping King. The literal darkness Lady Macbeth calls for seems to correspond to the evil or
"dark" act she plans to commit. Also, when Lady Macbeth calls for the murderous spirits to prevent
"heaven" from "peep[ing] through the blanket of the dark to cry 'Hold, Hold!'" she implies that
light (here associated with God, heaven, and goodness) offers protection from evil and is the only
thing that could stop her from murdering Duncan. Later on, Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene
is the epitome of the light and darkness symbol. She once craved the darkness but now carries a
candle to dispel it. The line, “She has light by her continually; ’tis her command.”, symbolizes
Lady Macbeth’s fear of darkness or evil.
The play is full of dead babies and slain children. The witches throw into their cauldron a "finger
of birth-strangled babe" and then conjure an apparition of a bloody child that says Macbeth will
not be harmed by any man "of woman born". The play seems fixated on what happens when family
lines are extinguished, which is exactly what Macbeth has in mind when he orders the murders of
his enemies' children. His willingness to kill kids, by the way, clearly symbolizes that he's passed
the point of no return.

The archetypal pattern of purification by water is prominent in the play. It symbolizes the removal
of guilt. Following the murder of Duncan, Lady Macbeth reassures her husband by telling him, “A
little water clears us of the deed”; (I. ii. 67) Later in the play, Lady Macbeth repeatedly rubs her
hands together, representing washing her hands. She hopes to clear her conscience by removing
the “spot” from her hand, as she says, “Out, damned spot! out, I say! . . . “(V. i. 31) Water
symbolizes the purification of a guilty conscience.

CONCLUDE ON YOUR OWN- BUT READ IT IS NOT GOOD THOUGH

Symbolism plays an important role in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It is used in numerous forms to

relate the overall theme of murder to the actions of Macbeth. Light and darkness represent good
and evil respectively. Blood represents Macbeth’s and his wife’s guilt about Duncan’s murder.
Water symbolizes purification of the conscience. These symbols effectively portray the ominous
theme of murder in Macbeth.