Discuss how Marlowe presents Faustus at the beginning of the play
by
clono (student)
Discuss how Marlowe presents Faustus at the beginning of the play.
In the opening of the play ‘Doctor Faustus’ Marlowe uses a range of techniques to introduce his protagonist character, Faustus. Marlowe’s primary technique is the prologue of the play which through performance by the chorus gives the audience a foresight into Faustus’ traits and glooming downfall. Throughout the initial scenes of the play Marlowe builds on the characterisation of Faustus through the dialect and significance differences to his fellow characters.
Marlowe’s primary description of Faustus ‘his parents born of stock’ allows the audience to immediately relate to Faustus; as the use of ‘stock’ suggests an ordinary individual as the majority of Marlowe’s audience would have been, this would therefore have created an immediate empathy within the audience as they would have felt they could relate to Faustus themselves. In addition to this the use of Marlow highlighting the Faustus was ‘born of stock’ may be a device used to link ‘Doctor Faustus’ to a mystery/morality play, which within the Medieval period were extremely common and Marlowe’s audience would have been aware that the protagonist characters in such plays was an everyman a like Faustus. The association with such plays would also have created expectations within the audience for later features in the play, such as the profound emphasis on religion and good angel vs. bad angel.
The use of ‘grac’d with doctors name’ within the prologue gives an immediate indication of Faustus’ education and this supported with ‘excelling all’ highlights his genius, showing him primarily in a positive light. However, Marlowe soon reveals Faustus’ faults through the description ‘glutted with learning’s golden gifts’. The choice of ‘glutted’ immediately forecasts Faustus’ downfall as it is one of the seven deadly sins and thus conveys Faustus’ greed of learning to be his underlying weakness and sin. Marlowe’s use of alliteration of the consonant G, highlights the significance of ‘golden gifts’, the choice of word ‘golden’ may be considered a juxtaposition as it has positive connotations yet is being used to describe magic which contextually within the play is the work of the devil. Marlowe also uses a metaphorical reference to the Greek myth of Icarus to highlight Faustus’ downfall, ‘his waxen wings did mount above his reach’. It may be interpreted that ‘waxen wings’ is metaphorical for Faustus’ later powers, as like the wings they were only temporary and similarly as experienced by Icarus were not in Faustus’ control. Moreover, the use of ‘mount above his reach’ conveys Faustus as an arrogant character, perhaps foreshadowing that like Icarus, Faustus’ fatal flaw will be his arrogance to the warnings of others.
