Comparative discussions between the First and Last soliloquies in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.

Comparative discussions between the First and Last soliloquies in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.

Ans.: The two soliloquies, namely the first and last ones by Dr. Faustus in the beginning and in the end respectively, are for their structure and unmatched brilliance of poetry, extraordinary superb.

These two, as considered by the critics, are instances of some of the most mature verses of Marlowe. These two soliloquies, in Aristotle’s words, capture the man Faustus “in action.” Especially in the last scene of the play the drama with the aid of the brilliant speech rendered by Faustus, marks the climax of the play. This is a soliloquy in the profoundest sense, since it isolates the speaker.

These two soliloquies have considerable structural similarities. Both the soliloquies contain lines of iambic pentameter. Marlowe has used blank verse in both of these soliloquies.

The first soliloquy contains sixty-three lines. The last one, in the other hand, contains fifty-five lines.

The first soliloquy justifies the speech of the chorus made earlier depicting Doctor Faustus as a scholar. We find in the first soliloquy the Renaissance spirit in Doctor Faustus. Faustus, the legendary scholar, who has mastered over the disciplines of philosophy, astronomy, medicine, jurisprudence, etc. with all his attempts to expand his knowledge and power beyond the limits imposed by the medieval religion, proves to be the epitome of a Renaissance man.

From the first soliloquy we see that the traditional branches of knowledge seem quite unworthy. Eventually Doctor Faustus embarks on his Promethean quest for knowledge and confirms with considerable pride his position as pre-eminent among the intelligentsia. But, later in the play, precisely in the last soliloquy, we find that such exalted feature of Faustus is short-lived.

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In the first soliloquy we find Doctor Faustus drawing a list of options and systematically rejecting them. In the last soliloquy also Faustus is discovered considering a series of options and rejecting them. But the difference lies in the fact that whereas in the first he contemplates a career of life, in the last he ardently looks for a way to escape from an everlasting death and perpetual damnation. And if the tone of the first soliloquy was one of rational debate, the tone of the last is one of the utter desperation.

We may remember the first step that Faustus took twenty-four years back to sell his soul to the devils so as to spend his life in “all voluptuousness”, the step that leads him where he is now.

Having made himself proud about his self-reliance, striven to be more than man and thus displayed an overreaching pride, Faustus in his last soliloquy longs whole-heartedly to be less than a man: “a creature wanting soul”, or “some brutish beast”, which at death would face mere extinction and not eternal damnation.

That time plays an interesting role in the intellectual life of Faustus, which in passes through a gradual degeneration, is notable. The last soliloquy records his hopeless attempt to put to the constant of the working universe: “that time may cease and midnight never seems.” The grim dramatic irony in Faustus’s utterance unfolds itself, as we hear, with Faustus, time contracting: “a year, a month, a week, a natural day.” This predicament of Faustus reminds us of the first scene where he had the prospect of being granted endless time. But now the span of time, quite contrary to his expectation, gradually diminishes even when he talks or soliloquizes! This indicates the limitation of the individual man in this universe. Faustus urges the “ugly hell” to “gape not”, but things are no more in his control as they were in the first scene.

Thus in the last phase of his life, Faustus becomes completely alone, just as he was in the beginning. The difference, in the context, is, in the first scene, Faustus was alone but not lonely, and now none is beside to accompany him to hell. Henry Levin’s saying, “Tragedy is an isolating experience” can aptly be quoted here to describe Faustus’s predicament.

Even in the end Faustus, the great scholar thinks – “I’ll burn my books”, which may be a means to save him. To our utter astonishment we thus hear how pathetically this great scholar rejects the pursuit of knowledge.

In the first soliloquy, in the last line, Faustus wanted to be something like “a mighty god”. But in the last soliloquy, he wishes to be changed into mere water drops: “fall into ocean, never to be found.”

Faustus’s desire to be a demi-god in the first soliloquy and now to turn into water drops in the last soliloquy indicates the difference between aspiration and achievement of a human being.

There is also another difference between Faustus’s first and last soliloquy. The first soliloquy is made by a man for whom aspiration is the guiding force and whose vision is not colored by reality but dyed with optimism. But, to the contrary, the last soliloquy is that of a man to whom crude reality is grimly exposed at the fag end of his life and for whom frustration is the only possibility.

In spite of all these, Faustus maintains to the end the individuality of mind. This retention of individuality is at once, as we have observed, in the first and last soliloquies, Faustus’s glory and damnation. In the first soliloquy, Faustus was full of optimism. In the last soliloquy, he is all despair. If we judge from the Christian point of view, the reason of Faustus’s damnation is despair, which is a Christian sin. But if we judge by a human and secular point of view, the damnation of Faustus is the dilemma of a heretic who tried to the limitations of mankind.

The two soliloquies are in fact the microcosmic reflection of the whole play.