What are the similarities between Macbeth and Doctor Faustus?

Marlow’s character Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare’s Macbeth are famously flawed characters who fall
victim to the vice of hubris. Hubris (excessive pride) is a staple of literary character weakness that
stretches back to the ancient Greek playwrights, like Sophocles and his characters of Oedipus and Creon
from his Theban trilogy.

Each character finds himself involved with the supernatural. Doctor Faustus makes a pact with the devil
in order to secure earthly power. Macbeth witnesses the prophecies of the witches that lure him
(and Lady Macbeth) into a plan to assassinate the king and take the throne for themselves. Both
characters are unsatisfied with their lives and desirous of power, making them ripe for supernatural
influences who then twist fate to their own ends.

Perhaps most poignantly, both characters realize the mistakes they have made and understand the
depth of their own depravity.

After murdering several people, Macbeth says:

I am in blood

stepped so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

In other words, he feels that it is too late to turn back. He is already so guilty that he might as well
continue on his bloody path.

Doctor Faustus, nearing the end of his life and facing an eternity in hell, says:

No Faustus, curse thy self, curse Lucifer,

That have deprived thee of the joys of heaven.

He knows that he is responsible, along with Lucifer, for his own damnation. Although he had numerous
chances to change his mind and turn away from evil, he, like Macbeth, chose not to.