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Morality Play In 'Doctor Fausttus' By Christopher Marlowe

1445 Words6 Pages

This essay on Doctor Faustus will explore the morality and tragic elements embedded in the play’s text as well as represented among the play’s characters. Furthermore, it will serve to highlight how chaos is created in the play and how it is once again restored in a manner that is justly unique for the play’s time of creation.

Doctor Faustus is a play written by Christopher Marlowe, which is based on a popular German narrative. In 1604, just eleven years after Marlowe’s death, the play was finally published. The play consists of a blank verse, primarily used for the main scenes and prose, used mainly for the comic scenes. The chorus functions to narrate the play as it makes use of a prologue to introduce the audience to Faustus and his life story (Worthen 2004: 247). …show more content…

The Doctor Faustus makes use of the morality play elements wit the use of the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins and the presence of the Good and the Bad angels, who attempt to frame what is right and what is wrong in Faustus’ temptations. Faustus is classified as a morality play as it is focused around allegories, which serve to be symbolic of certain moral issues. The presence of allegories and symbolic elements are evident in the Doctor Faustus’ representation of Faustus’ transition and the depiction of the Seven Deadly sins in the Good and Bad angels (Bloom 2004:

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