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Doctor Faustus Essay on Punishment
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An A-Level essay from an A* student responding to the statement: 'Faustus never fully understands his punishment in the play'
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‘Faustus never fully understands his punishment in the play.’Throughout the play, Marlowe makes it clear that Faustus has misconceptions about religion,
especially relating to the afterlife, be that in heaven or hell, which makes it seem as though he
doesn’t understand his punishment for selling his soul to Lucifer. However, this could also be
interpreted as a deliberate pretence so that he can justify his unholy actions – as the well-
educated image of the Renaissance Man he should have a good understanding of religion.
Marlowe includes this ambiguity to both warn of the dangers of misconceptions but also to
show how the punishment remains the same regardless of the offender’s claimed ignorance.
Marlowe uses Faustus’ misconceptions about hell to show how he never fully understood his
punishment. In Scene 3 Faustus asks Mephastophilis ‘How comes it then that you are out of
hell?’. This question highlights one of Faustus’ main misconceptions about hell, that it is a
physical place when in reality it is a spiritual one. By believing this, Faustus believes that
Mephastophilis and, by extension, his future self is free to do as he pleases. Whilst this may
seem like a warning about the dangers of misconceptions, it ends up being a warning about
the dangers of arrogance. When Mephastophilis explains the harsh truth, that ‘being deprived
of everlasting bliss’ is the torment of hell, Faustus responds arrogantly with a rhetorical
question and then saying he will ‘scorn those says’. The use of ‘scorn’ here shows that
Faustus is not lacking in an understanding of his punishment, but is rather disregarding it due
to his arrogance and pride. However, Scene 5 suggests that maybe his arrogance is actually a
result of his lack of understanding as he says ‘I think hell’s a fable’ and asks ‘thinks thou then
that Faustus shall be damned?’. The irony of him asking a demon, who is damned, this
question is somewhat comical, but also frightening as it shows a dangerous lack of
understanding. Faustus has just damned himself by selling his soul to Lucifer, yet he still
seems to not understand the consequences. His third misconception about hell is time. He
recognises that hell is ‘eternal’, a contrast to the ‘everlasting bliss of heaven’, yet he still
pleads to ‘live in hell a thousand years… and at last be saved’ in Scene 13. Marlowe uses the
duality of him both knowing but not understanding the eternal nature of his punishment to
highlight the difference between knowledge and understanding, perhaps suggesting that
knowledge is useless without proper understanding.
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