Doctor Faustus and Everyman as modern morality play

Faustus and Everyman

An Analysis of Resemblance: Faustus and Everyman

Marlow's Doctor Faustus can be viewed on various levels, four of which are worth mentioning: First, Doctor Faustus can be considered as "Homiletic tragedy" in which the protagonist incarnates intellectual pride, compared with both Icarus and Lucifer -- existing simply to be punished. Second, it can be interpreted as a new kind of psychological play for the conflict lies entirely within the hero himself (Faustus) who is actually torn between conflicting worldly desires, religious commitments and ethical requirement. Third, it may well be seen as "blasphemous" or a heroic anti-morality play because, according to the humanist view, Faustus rebels against the limitation of medieval knowledge and does not accept the restriction put upon mankind decreeing that he must accept his place in the universe without challenging it. Consequently, he sets up the conflict between the limitation of man's knowledge and his justified desires to go beyond the frontiers of that knowledge to glorify his thirst for gaining more and more. Fourth, Doctor Faustus can be notably regarded as a more developed morality play for the good deal of resemblance it bears to the conventions that determines the morality play. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the fourth level which shows the intimate connection, between Doctor Faustus and Everyman (as a morality play), and in which case Doctor Faustus may be interpreted as a new form of morality play. This paper, therefore, will analyze the resemblance between Faustus and Everyman with regard to character, theme, structure, form and other dramatic conventions, and show Faustus is Marlowe's depiction of morality in the new modern world.

Character

Faustus, the chorus tells us, is not of noble and saintly spheres, but a man of common ancestry -- a man like the medieval Everyman. Yet, unlike Everyman, whose schooling was doubtlessly English (and free of the contamination of the coming Protestantism already rampant throughout the continent), Faustus has studied (like Hamlet) at Wittenberg (a place famous for its connection to Luther). Whether the Lutheran influence has had some effect on Faustus, one can only presume -- but the fact remains that Faustus and Everyman are separated not only by a generation, but also by a theology; the former's is thoroughly Catholic and rooted in medieval ecclesiology; the latter's is already one step more modern -- as is intimated by the various interpretations that can be given Faustus. While Everyman is an obvious morality play, Faustus (by the sheer fact of its historical entry into literature at a point when the new world had definitively broken with the old) is modern and, therefore, lacking certitude. Structurally and characteristically this is so. However, because the resemblance of Faustus to Everyman is nonetheless apparent thematically, one is apt to pursue the analogies even further and examine how Faustus (despite its having modern qualities) corresponds to the formula of the morality play. Like Shakespeare, who had one foot in the old world and one foot in the new, Marlowe's Faustus may be viewed as a similar bridge.

If both Everyman and Faustus are of common stock, it may be concluded that both are, as well, on a spiritual journey. Neither appears to be fully cognizant of this most important fact until it is too late, of course. When the issue is made apparent, Everyman still has access to the sacraments, which assist him in his quest to Heaven; Faustus lives, however, at a time when England had closed the Catholic churches, Calvinist theology was popular among scholars, and access to the sacraments of the Church was only by stealth. In terms of religious practicality, it is easier for Everyman to save his soul than it is for Faustus. In this sense, Faustus is a more complex reflection of the medieval morality play solely because it is modern and not medieval. The medieval avenues to grace are cut off -- Knowledge and Penance are nowhere to be found in Faustus (and Good Deeds is seemingly asleep still lying in a ditch); Faustus is bereft of symbolic friends: on the contrary, Faustus' friends are all too human or else demonic.

Structure and Form

This dethronement is structurally essential to the idea of Faustus, the title character of which deliberately sets the black arts in place of the divine. It may be argued that Everyman also does this (in a sense by, for example, neglecting his duties as a Christian and employing his time with worldly and sinful affairs), but it is with less deliberation that Everyman embarks on a path toward damnation. Faustus, whose wisdom to know better may be compared to Solomon's (another figure of the highest learning who turned away from God out of pride), takes conscious steps to do evil. There is a kind of malice in Faustus that is all but absent in the repentant Everyman: Faustus wants only to amuse himself (just as Augustine said Nature desired to do some millennium before Marlowe) and has no desire to apply himself to grace and work toward his salvation. Only when his desires are thwarted (such as when he attempts to marry), does he feel a pang of conscience. But this pang brings into question a host of new ideas that Everyman (in a less skeptical time) knows well enough to leave alone: for Everyman, whose time has run out, only one thing matters -- and that is finding a friend to intercede for him so that his soul might not be damned; he finds the friend in Good Deeds (who is strengthened to make the journey to the afterlife once Everyman has made a good confession). Faustus, who sees his time also coming to a close, becomes a kind of Hamlet-figure and doubts that he can be forgiven. Faustus' problem is more than a life of misdeeds -- it is a problem of lack of faith. The faith of Everyman may have been lukewarm, but it was not corrupt. The faith in the time of Everyman has been polluted by Lutheran and Calvinist doctrines.

Considering the form of the narrative, this is not surprising: Faustus is obsessed with fame and renown. Everyman has no name proper -- and neither does his author. That the author of the medieval morality play should be anonymous is nothing out of the ordinary, and indeed seems all the more fitting when one considers that the second most printed book after the Bible was The Imitation of Christ, a work whose author never put his name on the original (and which was only later attributed to Thomas a Kempis).

Like Everyman, the Imitation (which preceded it by a century) contains the fundamentals of a theology that shaped Western civilization from the adoption of Christianity by the kings and Emperors of the West to the wholesale rejection of Christianity by the Age of Enlightenment that followed Protestantism. Both works view life not as an end in itself, but as having its end in God: Christians who fail to pursue this end (through good works, and -- most importantly -- good use of the sacraments, such as penance) set themselves in danger of dying without the life of grace in the soul. This life, better known as sanctifying grace -- or the life of God in the soul -- was all that mattered: as Everyman learns, not riches, nor fellowship, nor strength, beauty or knowledge can secure eternal salvation: but rather it is only those good deeds which lead one to contrition and penance that gain Everyman his eternal reward with God. The medieval world saw in death the moment of judgment: therefore, death was the final reckoning -- and one's life ought to be lived with death ever in mind.

Death, in fact, was considered to be one of the four last things (Heaven, Hell, Death, Judgment), made a significant portion of the Spiritual Exercises of the Counter-Reformation priest and founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius would have been a contemporary of Everyman and no doubt of spiritual affinity. Everyman was first published in 1529 and may be supposed to have circulated the countryside stages of England for some time prior to that date. Henry VIII was not excommunicated until the 1530s (and before that had in fact been given the title of Defender of the Faith for his attack on Luther's treatise against the sacraments), and so Everyman's England was a Catholic England. Thus, it is no stretch to imagine that Everyman would not have understood the four last things: they were part and parcel of Christian doctrine. Both Everyman and the Spiritual Exercises were reminders of the necessity of putting Christian doctrine into practice -- nothing more nor less. Christ had redeemed mankind -- Everyman who believed in Christ was to be held accountable.

Faustus, however, has not had the same education: he rationalizes religion to the point of absurdity so that he may abandon it without compunction. " 'The reward of sin is death.' That's hard… 'If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us.' Why then, belike we must sin and so consequently die. / Ay, we must die an everlasting death. / What doctrine call you this… 'What will be shall be?'"

Faustus, at this point, is playing only an intellectual game -- his is no serious examination of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. His is, rather, an excuse to sin: all must die, therefore, all are sinful; therefore, go sin -- have fun. That is what Faustus gleans from his spiritual reading: it is a willful disregard for the same spiritual commentators' admonitions to flee sin. Faustus, like Everyman, strays from the path of righteousness. Unlike Everyman, he sacrifices spiritual assistance for intellectual pride -- and in doing so gets a spiritual devil in the form of Mephistopheles.

The Way to Salvation

While Death serves as the messenger of God, who summons Everyman to render an accounting for his life, Everyman turns to look for someone to accompany him into the afterlife, to help give a good accounting: but it is only Good Deeds who offers to go with him. Of course, Good Deeds, the personification of the scant good works actually effected by Everyman throughout the course of his life, is so weak and cold that he speaks from a ditch on the side of the road in which he lies. Good Deeds does, however, point Everyman to Knowledge who in turn points him to Penance. Penance restores Everyman to a life of sanctifying grace -- as medieval Church doctrine teaches -- and Everyman is fit to come before God. Death, therefore, is viewed as a reminder of the primacy of importance of the spiritual life in Everyman. Death performs the same function in Faustus -- and as the moments tick off Faustus' life at the end, he repeatedly cries to Heaven -- yet doubts Heaven's ability to save him. Instead, he pleads to Lucifer: "Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ! / Yet will I call on him: O. spare me, Lucifer!"

Faustus resorts not to Penance, but to Hell and it is to Hell that he departs. The Chorus then arrives to extol the audience not to follow after Faustus' bad example. Thus, we may view Faustus as an anti-Everyman, even as the drama finds its roots in the medieval morality play of that same name.

Hardin Craig illustrates this fundamental principle of the medieval morality play: "The doctrine of man's salvation is the oldest and most clearly defined of all Christian doctrines, and is the oldest morality theme."

If the author of Everyman had anything to say of Death, it was said succinctly by God, who sends Death to Earth so that His doctrine of salvation might be put into practice: after all, it is Death who brings Everyman back to himself, who compels him to make a journey wherein he realizes that no accounting may be made that does not first began with sacramental grace. Death kindly gives Everyman some time to sort out his affairs -- that is to say, Everyman is afforded time enough to quickly figure out what is most valuable before he must finally crawl into his grave to die.

Like the Doomsday play, Everyman gives no immediate sense of time nor place: but the eschatology of the drama certainly dates it to the time when such eschatology was commonly held and believed. David J. Leigh notes how the medieval morality plays (like Everyman) easily "represent an event which is beyond historical time and space, on the margin of eternity."

What is interesting to note, however, is that whoever wrote Everyman was providing an artistic and dramatic window into the soul of England just prior to the Protestant Revolution that turned England from a Catholic country into a Protestant. The significance of death to Catholic England would have been no different from Death's significance in Everyman: a prelude to judgment by God -- a cause for much greater concern than mere death, which was nothing more than a mere passing from the finite world to the infinite. To Marlowe's England, it something much more gothic -- much more haunted. If Everyman could escape his ghosts through Penance, Faustus could not.

David Kaula writes that "Everyman is undoubtedly the most skillful example of the morality play that has survived T.S. Eliot claims that is perhaps the one play in which 'we have a drama within the limitations of art' -- meaning, I gather, that nothing in the play is extraneous to the central homiletic purpose, that all elements of style, structure, and theme are governed by the conventions of allegory."

That Everyman acts as a kind of homily -- or sermon -- on one of the four last things (Death) makes perfect sense: the medieval mystery plays were, after all, deeply connected to religious service -- just as the stage in ancient Greece was rooted in divine worship. If the author's purpose may be divined (and the fallacy of authorial intent not be ascribed to our divination), we might support the thesis that the author's view of death as medieval Christendom viewed it -- as a precursor to Judgment -- is more than evident in the work itself. Death Itself speaks to Everyman thus: "Everyman…whither art thou going… Has thou thy Maker forgot? & #8230;A reckoning he will needs have…"

Everyman is, of course, taken back by the unexpected visitation. But Death is not to be put off and proceeds with the essence of Christian doctrine: "Before God thou shalt answer and show / Thy many bad deeds, and good but a few, / How thou hast spent thy life, and in what wise, / Before the chief lord of paradise."

In the same manner does Faustus' conscience speak to him at the hour of his death: Faustus knows the way to salvation and appears to be on the verge of calling on the Savior -- but, instead of Christ, Faustus calls on Lucifer -- attempting to hide from the eye of God just as Adam and Eve attempted to hide after they fell. Faustus recalls the initial punishment of the original sin -- and is too ashamed to beg for clemency.

Indeed, it is to the episode related in the Book of Genesis that Death owes his very existence, which he relays to Everyman in time (and which, it is presupposed, Faustus already knows): "In the world each living creature / For Adam's sin must die of nature."

The Old Testament reference is essential to Christian eschatology, and Death is apparently aware of it: his purpose is part of the Divine Plan (of Providence) to bring all souls to God. Faustus' bargain with the devil to stave off death is merely an example of his lack of faith in Providence.

Thomas F. Van Laan builds on Kaula's thesis regarding the religious drama. Turning, like Kaula, to Eliot's essay, Van Laan asserts that "religious drama, to be successful, must combine its doctrine with 'ordinary dramatic interest'."

The unification of the ordinary with the extraordinary -- or the natural with the supernatural (a union epitomized by the Christian religion's doctrine of grace) -- is essentially the medieval worldview. Both Faustus and Everyman may be considered artistic expressions of the nature of the relationship between man and God (with Death serving as a punishment for sin and a reminder that we are not our own but God's).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the resemblance of Faustus to Everyman is thematically stronger than it is characteristically. The character of the common man of the medieval morality play is far more Catholic in spiritual outlook than is Faustus, who essentially renounces his baptism and fails to call on Christ to save him, though he knows it is Christ he's offended. Everyman's entry into the literary canon of England a decade before England itself would break from Christendom and become a Protestant nation shows the immediacy with which the religious questions of the day were being felt and treated at the end of the medieval world. The old world would itself die shortly thereafter, with Marlowe ringing in the bells of the new. Everyman lived long enough to remind England of its Catholic heritage, but England itself did not take the lesson to heart anymore than Faustus did: the morality play was of medieval origin -- and the modern world was scrapping the past for a new sort of doctrine, of which Faustus can be called its precursor. The meaning of life for Everyman was God -- God was every man's end, and getting to God was by receiving the sacraments the man-God Christ had given to the world through the Church. By the time Marlowe penned Faustus, those same Church doors had been closed, and the new theology was modern and Protestant. Faustus fails to save his soul, because his theology (which he received at Wittenberg) is essentially a Protestant theology.