Doctor Faustus as a Religious Play

Taylor Allbritton Lightsey Block 5B 2/28/07 Doctor Faustus as a Religious Play Doctor Faustus is a play about a renaissance man who sells his soul to the devil for twenty-four years of worldly power. Faustus rejects Christian morals and becomes in a sense a demonic magician. The author Christopher Marlowe portrays the typical renaissance man of the time as a buffoon. Faustus uses his demonic power only to entertain rather than to accomplish any great deeds. As a whole the play is basically about what happens to a man if he rejects God. Christopher Marlowe’s play, Doctor Faustus, has an underlying theme of evil while still portraying Christianity. Although at the time the play was written, it did not receive much attention. Doctor Faustus is considered to be Marlowe’s most impacting play. I would have to agree with this widespread idea. Growing up hundreds of years after this play was written there are still the themes of Doctor Faustus in works of literature today. The story of someone selling their soul to the devil for whatever they wish to gain can be found not only in the play Doctor Faustus but also in works of literature that followed. It is a theme in literature based around evil but it furthermore advances the Christian idea that fraternizing with evil and demons will eventually have you placed in the fiery pits of hell. The play Doctor Faustus is centered around the idea evil. The whole plot in itself is evil. A man who fraternizes with witchcraft, spirits, demons, and Lucifer, eventually gives his soul to them instead of worshiping God is bases itself around what happens when evil forces enter your life. The play Doctor Faustus is the exact portrayal of this. “Mehpistophilis defines hell not as physical but psychological, not as a place but state of mind. Although Faustus receives this information from and authority (devil of