It has been suggested that Marlowe's audience would have seen Dr Faustus as a simple morality play. Consider this view using scene 5 as your starting point.

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SHAMIMA SHALLY

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It has been suggested that Marlowe’s audience would have seen Dr Faustus as a simple morality play.

Consider this view using scene 5 as your starting point.

Dr Faustus cannot be seen as a simple morality play but as a play, which deals with and brings into focus complex issues and ethics regarding Elizabethan ideals at that point in time.

Scene 5 has significance to the question of whether or not it is true that ‘Dr Faustus’ is a simple morality play. It is in this particular scene that we find Faustus ready to sell his soul in exchange for what was essentially a servant for 24 years. The Good Angel and the Bad Angel represent Faustus’ conscience and present a dichotomy to him i.e. two opposing views to his dilemma of whether he should sell his soul or “abjure this magic, turn to God again”.  By choosing “that execrable art” of necromancy instead “of heaven, and heavenly things”, Marlowe’s audience would have seen the eventual downfall of Faustus in this play.

When Mephastophilis comes again to Faustus, he asks for Faustus to “write a deed of gift with thine own blood, for that security craves great Lucifer”. As Faustus complies and signs the contract in blood, it seems to refuse and “congeals”. This physical refutation of the contract must have been a very powerful image for Marlowe’s audience to envision and it seems to demonstrate that what Faustus is doing is sinful. This image is a simple but compelling metaphor that seems to be able to resonate throughout the audience and delivers a key point: that dealing with Lucifer will only bring about your own downfall as was in the case of Faustus.    

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Marlowe uses a lot of classical references in his play, ‘Dr Faustus’. Like Icarus, Faustus does not foresee the danger of the extreme belief in his abilities until it is too late. And like Icarus, he too fell, but “to a devilish exercise”. Reaching further and further into forbidden realms, Faustus overlooks the threat of eternal damnation, because blinded by pride and the belief that he cannot be wrong, he rejects even the evidence in front of his own eyes. When presented with Mephastophilis’ depiction of hell, Faustus responds by replying, “Come, I think hell’s a fable” and dismisses ...

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