TwentyFour Years in the Life of Dr Faustus

A detailed Summary of TwentyFour Years in the Life of Dr Faustus

Christopher Marlowe's play Doctor Faustus is the story of a selfish Renaissance-era man who sold his soul to the devil in order to further his knowledge of things beyond man's normal state of being. Faustus was a doctor with a degree in divinity who was highly respected among his fellow scholars. Seemingly bored with the way his life was going, Faustus yearned for more knowledge. He gained a new interest in magic, and decided that if he were a magician, he could somehow learn all of the things he wanted to know.

Lines, circles, letters, characters -

Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.

O, what a world of profit and delight,

Is promised to the studious artisan!

All things that move between the quiet poles

Shall be at my command: emperors and kings

Are but obeyed in their several provinces

But his dominion that exceeds in this

Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man:

Faustus proceeds to make a pact with Lucifer in which he "surrenders up to him his soul / So he will spare him four and twenty years." (I

Christopher Marlowe's play Doctor Faustus is about what can happen to a person who becomes greedy. Faustus only wanted more knowledge, but he ended up eternally damned to hell. It is, in effect, a lesson used to scare those who are willing to believe it. Even if it wasn't written in jest, Marlowe's play still stands today a lesson in morality for anyone who reads it.

Toward the end of the play, as his twenty-four years are drawing to a close, Faustus begins to realize that he has wasted all of the time basically "playing around" when he could have been learning. He comes close to repenting though he never actually asks for forgiveness. His soul is carried off to hell by the devils after they have torn his body limb-from-limb and left it for the scholars to find.

During the course of the play, Faustus wastes his magic skills by playing tricks on important figures. In the presence of the Pope, Faustus makes himself invisible and proceeds to make various objects fly through the air to the amazement and awe of the crowd. When visiting the Emperor, he calls forth the spirit of Alexander the Great. Faustus becomes more and more obsessed with the idea of becoming all-powerful as the play wears on. The power he holds causes him t

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Approximate Word count = 836
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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