The elements of a Morality play in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus

The morality play is a fusion of the medieval allegory and the religious drama of the miracle
plays. It developed at the end of the fourteenth century and gained much popularity in the
fifteenth century. In these plays the characters were generally personified abstractions of vice
or virtues such as Good Deeds, Faith, Mercy, Anger etc. The general theme of the Moralities
was theological and the main one was the struggle between good and evil powers for
capturing man’s soul and the journey of life with its choice of eternal destination and the aim
is to teach ethics and doctrines of Christianity.

“Morality plays were dramatized allegories of a representation .”

If the general theme of Morality plays was theological dealing with the struggle of the forces
of good and evil for the soul of man, and the aim was to teach doctrines and ethics of
Christianity, then Doctor Faustus may be called a religious or Morality play to a very great
extent. The play definitely worked out in a tone of medieval theology. We find Marlowe’s
hero, Faustus, abjuring the scriptures, the Trinity and Christ. He surrenders his soul to the
Devil out of his inordinate ambition to gain super-human power through knowledge by
mastering the unholy art of magic.

“..a world of profit and delight of power, of honour, of Omnipotence.”

The character of Faustus is portrayed as a youthful and arrogant man with a thirst for
knowledge and fame. He wants more and more knowledge than they can provide and he
wants this now. By selling his soul to the Devil, Faustus lives a very blasphemous life full of
vain and sensual pleasures just for twenty four years. Of course, there is a fierce struggle in
his soul between his sky-kissing ambition and conscience, between the Good Angel and the
Evil Angel that externalize this internal conflict. But Faustus ultimately surrenders to the
allurements of Evil Angel, thereby paving the way for eternal damnation.

When final hour approaches, Faustus, to his utmost pain and horror, realizes that his sins are
unpardonable and nothing can save him from eternal damnation. And before the devils snatch
away his soul to burning hell, the excruciating pangs of a deeply agonised soul find the most
poignant expression in Faustus’s final soliloquy:

“My God, my God, look not so fierce to me!

Adders and serpents, let me breath a while!
Ugly hell, gape not: come not Lucifer:
I’ll burn my books: Ah, Mephistophilis!”

Another play Faust by J.W. von Goethe’s shares a common theme, though the main
character, however differ by the way in which both the play deliver their messages. Both are
excellent mediums with which to explore the seven deadly sins. The main motif of these
narratives is that man has the freedom to choose between good and evil but there are
consequences to every decision he makes. In contrast to Faustus, Faust understands that to
gain knowledge, we must have patience and life experience. Faustus is an egotist and a self-
centered Man whereas Faust is more concerned with the welfare of others and was
manipulated in to making a deal with the Devil. Both of them delve into powers beyond their
control or understanding, with predictable results.

The chief aim of a morality play was didactic— it was a dramatized guide to Christian living
and Christian dying. Whoever discards the path of virtue and abjures faith in God and Christ
is destined to despair and eternal damnation— this is also the message of Marlow’s Doctor
Faustus.

In morality plays the characters were personified abstractions of vice or virtues. In

Dr. Faustus also we find the Good and Evil angels, the former stand for the path of virtue and
the latter for sin and damnation, one for conscience and the other for desires. Then we have
the Old Man, symbolizing the forces of righteousness and morality.The seven deadly sins –
Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth and Lechery,
of good old Moralityplays are also very much here in this play in a grand spectacle to cheer
up the dejected soul of Faustus.

The comic scenes of Doctor Faustus also belong to the tradition of old Miracle and Morality
plays, especially the scene I of the third act where Faustus is found playing vile tricks on the
Pope and the scene IV of act IV where the horse-courser is totally outwitted and be-fooled by
Faustus.

“The comic scenes of Dr. Faustus also belong to the tradition of Morality Play.”

The tradition of chorus is also maintained. We find the chorus introducing the story just
before the beginning of the first scene and subsequently filling in the gaps in the narrative and
announcing the end of the play with a very solemn moral.

Though to a very great extent, Dr. Faustus is a morality play yet there are also some other
elements which make it different from morality play. The difference is that in morality plays,
all characters are abstractions, not concrete. But in Dr. Faustus the main character, Faustus is
not an abstraction but as person with desires and high ambitions. Then the element of conflict
is the fountain head of the entire action of the play and the movement of the action defines
the plot of the play. Though Faustus has abjured God and has made his pact with the devil,
yet there is a conflict in his mind between good and evil, he feels the prick of conscience. The
growing sense of loss begins to sting him like a scorpion.

“When I behold the heaven, then I repent,

And curse thee,
Wicked Mephistophilis,
Because thou hast deprived me of those joys”

The inner conflict in Faustus is the element of tragedy not of morality. In a morality, the
moral is always positive and virtue always triumphs over vice. But in Dr. Faustus we find
vice or evil spreading its powerful hands over goodness and then laying it down. Faustus is a
character ideal to be the hero of a tragedy where man alone is maker of his fate. Faustus like
other great tragic heroes was also dominated by some uncontrollable passion or inordinate
ambition and chooses his fate wilfully. There is a conflict in his mind between good and evil.
He falls from high to low and this degradation is clear in his soliloquy, when he says:

“O soul, be changed into little water drops,

And fall into ocean, never be found!”
Such tragic hero cannot be the hero of a morality play. Thus we see that in spite of entire
links with medieval miracle plays or mortalities, Dr. Faustus can never be treated wholly as a
morality play. It is the greatest heroic tragedy before Shakespeare with its enormous stress on
inner conflict in the soul of a towering personality. We may call this play the last of the
Morality plays, and the beginning of tragedy that was developed by Shakespeare. We may
conclude in words of a critic: “Dr. Faustus is both the consummation of the English Morality,
tradition and the last and finest of Marlowe’s heroic plays.”

Works Cited

1. Marlowe, Christopher, and David Wootton. Doctor Faustus. Indianpolis: Hackettpub.Co,

2005. print.
2. Marlowe, Christopher. The Tragical History Of Doctor Faustus. New York: Penguin, 1969.
3. Marlowe, Christopher. “Doctor Faustus: Morality Play Vs Heroic Tragedy.”
www.academia.edu, Accessed on 10 November 2019.
4. “Doctor Faustus as a morality play.” englishstudyhub.blogspot.com, 3 August 2015. Web.
11 November 2019.
5. “Dr Faustus as a Morality Play.” scribd.com, 28 July 2009. Web. 10 November 2019.
6. “Doctor Faustus as a Morality Play | Christopher Marlowe.” www.josbd.com, Web.
Accessed on 21 October 2019.