What Does 'Dr Faustus' Owe to Traditional Morality Plays and to What Extent Does it Move Beyond the Genre

     Another aspect of morality plays that can be found in Faustus is the focus on dialogue by the evil spirits as a method of persuasion, as opposed to physical torture. I have only commented on the evil and impious temptation offered in the play, however throughout the whole of Faustus’ demise there is an alternative form of temptation being specifically offered to him: redemption by God. In the Castle of Perseverance version of the morality plays, this offer of redemption is offered to mankind several times throughout the course of the play, and finally mankind realises God’s capacity for forgiveness and is saved. This is the case in Dr Faustus, for example in scene 12, the figure of the Old Man (an embodiment of the Good Angel and similar to the representation of Good Counsel in morality plays) is describing to Faustus the contrasts between heaven and hell, and he says ‘I might prevail to guide thy steps unto the way of life, by which sweet path thy may’st attain the goal that shall conduct thee to celestial rest’. Faustus is being given his last chance to repent his sins. In morality plays, Mankind reaches a state of despair but realises he has reached it and then accepts God, yet Faustus has an inverted sense of morality and feels that he would be betraying his word to Lucifer by switching his allegiance to God. Despair was seen one of the worst sins, and is defined in Christianity as losing one’s faith in God’s capacity to forgive, essentially undermining the Lord.

     The example of Faustus losing his belief in God is an illustration of the complexity of the main character of the story, quite unlike anything seen in morality plays of the period. Mankind was often depicted as frail and lost without the grace of God, ultimately unable to function without Him. Marlowe challenged these ideas, first by giving all the characters individual names (instead of collective, group labelling) and secondly by portraying Faustus as a man who challenged the word of God and disputed ideologies that were being disputed at this time in the world, with the emergence of the Renaissance in Europe. Faustus chose not to be saved by God, as his ambition and desire was to be deified. ‘Are not thy bills hung up as monuments, whereby whole cities have escaped the plague’ he says in the opening soliloquy. An Elizabethan audience would have found this shocking that he was failing to accept his limitations of mortality which ultimately led him to magic, yet they would have empathised with his character he came from humble origins to be a master scholar.                               The question of whether the audience would have seen Faustus as an arrogant rejecter of the church or as a tragic hero whose aspirations led him to question the word of God is certainly presented by Marlowe in this play. Mephistopheles is another character that would have intrigued the audience, as he was not just Faustus’ main embodiment of temptation. In my eyes, Marlowe also wants the audience to have slight understanding for this character, a tortured victim of temptation. This had  never been seen in the morality plays. In the fifth scene, line 37, (when Faustus is in a phase of doubt) he even questions Faustus about whether selling his soul is the right thing to do, I think a presentation of the vulnerability of Mephistopheles. In morality plays, all the tempters and bad angels were just a range of lesser devils and demons, such as those who torture the clown in the scene previous to this, nevertheless Mephistopheles has a name and is used mainly to emphasise Faustus’ state of demise, as he is always at his beck and call.