What does the play tell us about 16th century attitudes to ambition, pride and defiance to God?

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What does the play tell us about 16th century attitudes to ambition, pride and defiance to God?

Doctor Faustus was written in the Renaissance period where there was a shift from Christian ideals. People wanted to achieve their potential. At that time society was God-fearing, they believed that God gives the world purpose and the church at the time was extremely powerful. There were church laws and atheists were hung. The 16th century brought about a high level of paranoia that Satan was everywhere and God was no longer a guardian angel saving us from evil but that we had to defend ourselves from him. However with new discoveries, people began to look beyond religion and God, towards science and magic. Marlowe was quite ahead of the people of his time and was an atheist. He uses Faustus to represent the new ambitious intellects that wanted to test their abilities and turn away from religious theories. With the strict laws of the time, Marlowe wouldn’t have been able to express his ideas openly and so he depicts the Christian idea of the time that the individual is responsible for his own fate, and in this story Faustus’ own attitude represents the changing attitudes of the people of his time. There were many advances in this period and they came about because of the ambitions of the people to gain a deeper knowledge in all the different studies but Faustus’ damnation is almost a warning to the 16th century audience that this ambition and proud attitude can lead to the defiance of God and being damned which was most feared in that time. The character of Dr. Faustus is, in conception, an ideal of humanism, but Marlowe has taken him and shown him to be damned nonetheless, demonstrating the ideals of Renaissance Humanism.

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The audience views Faustus as a very ambitious character who strives to reach his potential and we know this when he in the first scene we gain an understanding of his many achievements which have been acknowledged by many when he says, “Is not thy common talk found aphorisms? Are not thy bills hung up as monuments, Whereby whole cities have escaped the plague…” Ambition to accomplish things like this was admired as new cures and discoveries helped people to live better lives. It is when Faustus’ ambitions turn selfish, are no longer generous and defy God that good ...

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