Doctor Faustus
The play Doctor Faustus represents the conflict between good and evil inside everyone and how people can be influenced into doing things through religion and spiritual beliefs. This play illustrates the influences that people can have when met with promises of wealth, power and ultimate knowledge. Faustus is torn throughout the play on whether to repent and turn towards God or to sell his soul and indulge in earthly pleasures. Just like today, people can use religion and spiritual beliefs to motivate others into performing unspeakable acts with temptations of wealth and power. The play shows how people can change their way of life at any point and still find their way into heaven in the afterlife. This play shows the inner conflict people have between both good and evil. People can be manipulated into doing things that they never thought of doing before with nothing more than a promise of eternal happiness. In the play, Faustus is constantly second guessing himself and can not seem to make his mind up. “Now, Faustus, must thou needs be damned; Canst thou not be saved!” (Doctor Faustus II. i. 1-2) Here we see Faustus thinking that he is eternally damned and that he can not be saved by God. He is tempted with the idea that he can have ultimate knowledge, power, and riches if only he sell his body, flesh and soul to the devil. After mastering most of the trades of the world and knowing everything there is to know, Faustus’ thirst for knowledge brought him into the exploration of the dark art of magic. Throughout the play, the good angel is constantly reminding Faustus that all he has to do is repent and his soul will be saved. At the beginning of Act II we see the good angel saying “Sweet Faustus, leave that execrable art.” When Faustus asks about prayer and repentance, the good angel replies to him “O, they are means to bring thee unto heaven.” However, Faustus dismisses this as something he doesn’t believe in.