Michael “Ben” Burton Doctor Faustus

Christopher Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus” is one of the famous playwright’s Elizabethan tragedies.

The main character “Faustus” is a German scholar who sells his soul to “Lucifer” the devil for 24 years

of power, black magic, and the services of “Mephastophilis” a demon. The story gave me two ideas:

1) The price to pay for a sin is higher than its reward.

2) Possession of one’s soul is more important than unlimited earthly knowledge.

I have read many stories on the subject of making a deal with the devil. I can’t recall any of them

having positive endings. The soul trader always loses and the devil gains power by receiving their soul.

The human’s wish will have greedy qualities and will be a hasty decision made without thinking of the

long term results they will have to face. These stories contain strong moral messages that warn the

reader about the dangers of excess.

“Doctor Faustus” is in my opinion the blue print for the “making a deal with the devil” storyline

and one of my reactions I had while reading the text was that both the topic matter and the style of

writing are impressive. The large amount of books and films that are similar to “Doctor Faustus” are

the reason I formed the opinion.

At the very beginning of the story, I found the large amount of foot notes to be distracting and

annoying. After the first five pages I adapted to going from the text to the foot notes (up and down)

over and over each page. I have very little to criticize about “Doctor Faustus”. I would like the acts

of magic to have more details about how the spells work. Sometimes the comedy interludes can

take out to much of the darkness in the story