Faustus, Doctor Faustus There's something Marlowe does…
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Faustus, Doctor Faustus
There's something Marlowe does that I don't rly think gets talked about enough. Faustus never actually enjoys his power? We spend the whole play waiting for this man to do something worthy of the bargain he made, and instead he plays pranks on the Pope, conjures grapes for duchess, and wastes whole 24 years on parlour tricks. But I don't think that's a flaw in the writing. I think that's the whole point. Faustus doesn't want knowledge or power the way he claims to. He wants the wanting of it??The deal with Mephistopheles is the most alive he ever feels, and everything after is just him trying to outrun the realization that the hunger was always the thing, never the feast. There's a reason he keeps almost repenting and never does. Repentance would mean closure, and closure would mean he'd have to sit with who he actually is without the drama of damnation to distract him. Most people I know who've made irreversible decisions, not selling-soul irreversible, just life-irreversible, have that same quality. The mistake becomes the identity.
What gets me every time is the final monologue. "See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament" he can see the way out! he can articulate exactly what grace would require and he still can't do it. Not because he's evil, but because he's spent so long curating a self image built around the transgression that undoing it would mean there was never a self there at all. That's not a medieval cautionary tale. That's just a very precise description of a certain kind of person. Marlowe wrote him four hundred years ago and somehow made him feel like someone you've met.
#entertainment
There's something Marlowe does that I don't rly think gets talked about enough. Faustus never actually enjoys his power? We spend the whole play waiting for this man to do something worthy of the bargain he made, and instead he plays pranks on the Pope, conjures grapes for duchess, and wastes whole 24 years on parlour tricks. But I don't think that's a flaw in the writing. I think that's the whole point. Faustus doesn't want knowledge or power the way he claims to. He wants the wanting of it??The deal with Mephistopheles is the most alive he ever feels, and everything after is just him trying to outrun the realization that the hunger was always the thing, never the feast. There's a reason he keeps almost repenting and never does. Repentance would mean closure, and closure would mean he'd have to sit with who he actually is without the drama of damnation to distract him. Most people I know who've made irreversible decisions, not selling-soul irreversible, just life-irreversible, have that same quality. The mistake becomes the identity.
What gets me every time is the final monologue. "See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament" he can see the way out! he can articulate exactly what grace would require and he still can't do it. Not because he's evil, but because he's spent so long curating a self image built around the transgression that undoing it would mean there was never a self there at all. That's not a medieval cautionary tale. That's just a very precise description of a certain kind of person. Marlowe wrote him four hundred years ago and somehow made him feel like someone you've met.
#entertainment
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