Motivation and Dynamics in the Life of Doctor Faustus and Bernard Marx - Book Report/Review Example

s the assignment was due Doctor Faustus The mind of a human is the ‘mother’ of all successes and disasters because it is the human mind, which conceives and develops motivations and wishes. So, with mind playing mother in conceiving motivation wishes, the human can use all the resources to achieve his/ her wishes. So it is natural for human beings to wish, work and wean success to them. But, at the same time every humans will have inner wishes or motivations, if correctly said inner urges. This inner urges will carve for attention and implementation and if these urges achieves completion, in most cases it will only explode like a volcano spewing lava like ‘destructibles’ on himself / herself and others. So, all these inner urges or unwanted motivations or forces should be hidden in the deep ‘holes’ in the mind, blocked by likable wishes and positive thoughts. Only good motivations or forces should be ‘watered’ and grown while bad urges should be ‘weeded’ out in the ‘germinating stage’ itself. In real life or in fictional life, there have been many individuals or characters, who had inner urges, eventually succumbing to it. And the novels, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, features characters who have ‘seeded’ their mind with the bad motivations, confirming to the psychoanalytic theory. So, this paper will analyze how Doctor Faustus and Bernard Marx due to inbuilt bad motivations destructed their own lives. Background and Plot Doctor Faustus is the name of the central character of the play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus or Doctor Faustus for short, penned by Christopher Marlowe. Doctor Faustus despite being a scientist goes in search of power and riches depending on a devil. That is, Doctor Faustus is portrayed as a medieval scientist who due to his urges to acquire as much wealth and power, strikes a dangerous deal with Lucifer. According to the deal, Faustus will have Mephistophilis, Lucifer’s sergeant, to serve him for 24 years giving him or actualizing all of his wishes. In exchange for this, Faustus would have to allow Lucifer take his soul after 24 years. So, due to this deal, Faustus wishes and gets many materialistic pleasures and riches, exhibiting his arrogance. But, after a passage of time, he realizes that he has committed mistake, but his wish for salvation doesn’t happen, as he was damned by Lucifer, with his soul captured. Brave New World, a futuristic novel set in London in 2540 AD, features a utopian society of cloned humans, who are slotted into different castes according to their abilities (abilities, skill and knowledge level are also programmed in the initial stages). As, the novel opens, the central character Bernard Marx works as a psychologist in one of the Hatcheries, where humans are cloned and ‘conditioned’. Bernard feels out of place as he shows “human tendencies”. That is, he hates the concept of Utopian World State and its features, and instead wants to enjoy human pleasures like enjoying nature. Then, he along with a female companion, Lenina goes to a Savage Reservation, where people not part of World State live in a normal way like reproducing normally. Even though sexual relationship develops between Bernard and Lenina, it does not continue, as Bernard breaks off. At the Savage Reservation, they meet John, The Savage, who turns out to be the illegitimate son of the Director of the Hatchery, in which Bernard works. Bernard with bad motivations takes John to London, so that he can use him as a trump card against his father and Director, and thereby stop the Director from transferring him for his anti-state activities. The other negative motivation of Bernard, which pushes him to bring John to London, was his wish to use John as a material object and thereby gain popularity. John for his part supports Bernard, his intentions and also helps to elevate him in the social ladder. But, after some time, John stops supporting Bernard’s missteps, destroying all the popularity, Bernard gain. With Bernard finally being exiled for his anti-state activities, John also commits suicide. So, in both the novels, the central characters reach tragic ends due to their wrong motivations or urges. Motivation of the characters Every action, an individual initiates will have a motivation behind it. That is, only after the mind is ‘seeded’ with motivation, the mind along with the physical body of an individual will function to achieve the targets. So, for every action there will be a strong and equal motivation or urge. “In the psychoanalytic theory of motivation, emphasis was on unconscious urges and their relationship to cathected objects, although the volitional ego was given a secondary role in the regulation of the behavior” (Deci and Ryan, 6). The main issues that will be the focus of attention in this paper are, how motivation gets formed in the human mind and what are the ‘contents’ of a particular motivation. These issues will only decide whether the formed motivation is right or wrong. For example, in the case of Doctor Faustus, his motivation is to dominate the world, which gets formed due to the situations prevailing in his times and due to the profession he practices, which in a way leads to the ‘contents’ of his motivation, which is reshaping Europe, garnering all wealth of the world etc. Bernard Marx’s motivation is to gain as much popularity and stature as possible in the society. This gets formed due to his inferior physical ‘stature’ and status in the World State, which in a way leads to the contents of his motivation, which is gaining popularity in London society (particularly in upper-class society). As, Marlow sets the character of Doctor Faustus to live in the 16th century, he was fully exposed to the events of that period. That is, the character of Doctor Faustus was portrayed as being clearly influenced by the spirit of Renaissance, which questioned the set practices prevailing then. Also, at that time only, the theory of God centered universe was questioned and rejected by many, and Doctor Faustus was one of them. As, Doctor Faustus sometimes showed his magical skills, one can assume, that his mind is full of magical and fantastical thoughts about world domination. Apart from these two factors, his scientific thoughts (created by his profession) also pushed him to question non-scientific aspects including Gods. Then, he also spoke highly of magic and necromantic books and thereby went in the anti-god way to reach the Satan. “These metaphysics of magicians, And necromantic books are heavenly!” (Marlow, 1.40-50). So, Doctor Faustus due to pro-Renaissance thoughts and anti-god theories, aided by his profession and magical abilities starts to explore the possibility of aligning with the anti-god entities to become more powerful. Powerful in the sense, he wanted to be powerful knowledge wise and also wealth wise. Normally, persons with maximum knowledge and wealth are mainly regarded as powerful because of their ability to achieve many other things, using those two main powers. So, Doctor Faustus being a scientist wants to have more knowledge (that too quickly, as he has no patience or mindset to ‘gain’ it slowly) and wants to become as much richer. In the case of Bernard Marx, the futuristic setting with cloned and conditioned humans only forms the basis of his motivation. That is, 2540 London life for Bernard is a restricted life without the right to live on own terms. “He laughed, "Yes, Everybodys happy nowadays. We begin giving children that at five. But wouldnt you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody elses way." (Huxley)”. This clearly leads to frustration and pushes him to hate the World State. Even though, he hates the actions of many people of the World State, it is the setting and the related system that makes him frustrated and at the same time inferior. That is, his short stature, caused by the cloning and conditioning done in the hatchery, is the root behind his inferiority complex. This complex and his other urges only make him to hate the system and form a motivation to gain power and popularity in whatever ways possible. This includes committing the same mistakes of the system, which he himself criticized. Before the deal was finalized, Doctor Faustus was fully motivated to achieve many things to become powerful. “Motivation theories are built on a set of assumptions about the nature of people and about the factors that give impetus to action But, after the deal, the motivation level drops due to his unclear thoughts” (Deci and Ryan, 3). Actually, even before he signed the deal, there were moments which affected his motivational levels, but this time Mephistophilis, Lucifer Sergent’ worked to help him reach his main motivation, which is the motivation of world domination. That is, when he finally decided to give his soul to Lucifer, he was made to sign the deal in his own blood. But, interestingly his blood working as a form of reverse dynamics congeals or clots the blood, preventing him from signing the deal. But, Mephistophilis works in favor of Doctor Faustus original motivation, when Mephistophilis using coal makes the clotted blood to flow and thereby pushes him to sign it. Before the deal, Doctor Faustus only thought about how to dominate the world, without going into the intricacies of his plan. He only had a vague idea of how to dominate the world, so when he tried to dominate it, he doesn’t know how to do it or if correctly said doesn’t know how to motivate himself, in the new situation. Even, with full powers and Mephistophilis by his side, the dynamics in this case did not work in Faustus’ favor. That is, if the dynamics of powers was provided in a calculated way, Doctor Faustus would have got only an adequate amount of power, which could have been used with good motivational levels. So, Doctor Faustus acted in an erratic and disorganized manner after the deal because he had no strong and clear motivation at all, and also due to the malfunctioning of the dynamics of the correct power. Likewise, Bernard also, after achieving his original motivation of fame and popularity, through John, starts to deteriorate. That is, when Bernard brings John with him from Savage Reservation, John becomes the center of attraction. John becomes popular in the London society circles because of his strange and adventure life, he lived in the Reservation. Bernard for his part also comes into this picture and also gains maximum popularity, as he was regarded as the discoverer and custodian of the John, The Savage. But, after actualizing his motivation or urge of gaining popularity, Bernard starts to misuse that popularity and becomes an even more negative individual. That is, utilizing that popularity, he starts commit a lot of mistakes like sleeping with many women, which he himself abhorred earlier. He also hosted many dinner parties with important guests, to accentuate his popularity. Even though, his guests are well aware of his opportunism, they don’t want to offend him and thereby disturb their relationships with him, because they think it may damage their chances of meeting John. But one night, the high popularity levels of Bernard collapses, when John refusing to become a tool for Bernard’s popularity levels, refuses to meet the guests in the party, organized by Bernard. But, the crux of this situation is that, Bernard after criticizing, hating and protesting the actions carried out by majority of the people of the World State, does a volte-face and freely indulges in the same action, without any reservations. So, to achieve his motivation, Bernard does a lot of unwanted activities, even while criticizing the same unwanted activities, revealing himself to be a hypocrite. After twenty-four years of unmotivated behavior, Doctor Faustus starts to dread about his impeding death. After he was given the power, he traveled a lot visiting in many places. During all these visits, he did not do any valuable things, but only showed his arrogance and the powers induced superiority complex. As, he continued this form of life for 24 years, Doctor Faustus starts to realize that he did do any thing worthwhile things to himself or to the society, using the powers. Mainly his lack of motivation in the crucial years only led to this situation and as he was controlled by the anti-god entities, dynamics also did not act in his favor. So, as he was on the verge of death, his bad motivations and inner urges dropped to nil. And, when an old man urges Doctor Faustus to repent for his mistakes, it was dynamics working indirectly to minimize some damage, but he drives away him also. So, towards the end of the play, the activity of motivation particularly his wish to dominate was minimal. Likewise, in the case of Brave New World, the character of Bernard after losing his social standing and popularity becomes the same old critic of World State, without any motivation or urge of popularity. Even the other characters did not give any importance to him. John and Bernard’s friend Helmholtz were only sympathetic to him because they thought that the World State needs a criticizer and Bernard fits that bill aptly. Also, his female companion Lenina, use him as a short term companion. So, overall, Bernard’s life starts to destruct, as he has no motivation to gain popularity again, through one action or other. And his last chance to get into the good books of the ruling persons gets ruined, when he reacts wildly to the ruling of deportation by Mustapha Mond, one of the ten World Controllers. So, from the analysis of motivation and the resultant dynamics in the life of Doctor Faustus and Bernard Marx, one gets the feeling that their motivations were basically wrong. Even though, the setting in which both of them lived could be blamed for their bad and negative motivations, their attempt to actualize those negative motivations only lead them to their eventual destructions. Even after both of them achieved their motivations, they do not any worthwhile things, again due to lack of correct selection of motivations. So, because of these wrong motivations and wrong actions only, Doctor Faustus and Bernard Marx dug their own graves. Reference: Deci, Edward L. and Ryan, Richard M. Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. Taylor & Francis. 1985. Retrieved January 22, 2008 from http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=p96Wmn-ER4QC&oi=fnd&pg= PA3&dq=psychoanalytic+theory+motivation&ots=3bEMx3p4ba&sig=qsItyfoiM7hthOI59vBMnPQxeN0#PPA3,M1 Marlow, Christopher. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. A & C Black. 1995. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Retrieved January 22, 2008 from http://www.huxley.net/bnw/six.html Read More