Salvation and Redemption of Faustus and Dorian - Essay Example

Salvation and Redemption of Faustus and Dorian Christopher Marlowe and Oscar Wilde were separated chronologically by two centuries of time and historical thought yet both treat similar themes of salvation and redemption in two of their greatest works. Dr. Faustus and Dorian Gray are the tragic protagonists of Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray respectively. The essay looks at how these characters function as an indictment of their respective ages, since both are damned for being in one sense the supreme products of that age, as well as authorial intention in the creation of these characters. Critics have different views as to when Marlowe wrote Dr. Faustus. Most stress that it was written after 1592 as it displays a certain maturity in Marlowe's skills. The immediate source for the play is the appearance of an English translation of a German prose narrative called Historia von D. Johann Fausten. This translation by an English translator known only by his initials P.F was titled The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus. Where this English Faust-book served as a cautionary tale to erring Christians, Marlowe's play has a greater depth and force which brings out the dilemma of being a man and a product of the Renaissance. There was also a historical Dr. Faustus who appears to have been the contemporary of Luther as well as Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa. The historical Dr. Faustus was both a physician and astrologer. There are two versions of the account of his death. In one he dies an old man while the latter version has him die with a broken and twisted neck, a commonly attributed manner of death due to devils. Such accounts fed into the Faust legend of an overreaching man who meets his just retribution for blasphemy against God. Marlowe also added elements from morality plays such as the Good and Bad Angels who caution and tempt Faustus respectively. Marlowe also added comic interludes which parody the main play. It is difficult for a reader in present times to understand the angst of Faustus. To an audience in the sixteenth century watching a performance of Dr. Faustus, his moral dilemma though condemmable would have been understood. Though it is correct that history cannot be rigidly divided into different ages, codified, named and thereby to be assumed that historical thought is a structure and not a continuous interflow of different streams of thought, there is however a single idea which divides the medieval ages from its subsequent times. It is the idea of the value of being born a man. Ernst Cassirer in his work, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, analyses the subtle yet significant changes which appeared in Renaissance philosophy that gives a unique status to man. We have only to look at Pico Dela Mirandola's iconic work, "On the Dignity of Man". In this oration, Pico says that of all the creatures given life by God it is man who is the most unique. Everything else, animals, angels have a fixed nature which they cannot transcend. Pico traces the origin of the creation of man to an urge in God to create a being who could appreciate and value the beauty of His creation. We have given you, Adam, no definite place, no form proper only to you, no special inheritance, so that you may have as your own whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may choose, according to your wish and your judgment. All other beings have received a rigidly determined nature, and will be compelled by us to follow strictly determined laws. You alone are bound by no limit, unless it be one prescribed by your will, which I have given you. (Cassirer, 85) The point to be made here is that these ideas about the significance of being born a man did not remain confined in the works of these philosophers. It seeped down and percolated among men in the Renaissance. In conjunction with this has to be seen the influence of Calvin and Luther in the thought of sixteenth century England. When Luther and Calvin attacked the dogmas and ritualism of the Catholic Church they redefined the relationship of man to God. In attacking the corruptness and hypocrisy of the Church and its clergy, Luther and Calvin succeeded in negating the Church as a necessary intermediary between man and God. This is similar to the refutation by Pico of the influence of astrology on the actions of man. Cassires states that unlike other philosophers and theoreticians like Giordano bruno and Marcino Ficino who had come to uneasy terms with the belief in astrological power, Pico was the first to state that astrological causation was a fallacy. The predecessor to Kepler and Newton in establishing the notion of vera causa as the essential and only factor in establishing truth, Pico's attacks against astrology stemmed from his ethics. As Cassirer points out, believing in astrology would subvert the value of man, it would mean making "matter the master of spirit" (118). Similarly Luther and Calvin gave a primacy to the will of man in his relations with God. For Luther, a rift between man's freedom of will and divine foreknowledge does not arise. Milton also takes pains to explain this point in his epic, Paradise Lost. Simply put, the fact that God foresees does not mean that man loses the power of his will. Time is not divided into the past, present and future for God but exists in its entirety. Though a diificult and contentious point Luther argued that man had the power to change his fate through a positive exercise of his will. Calvin however had another theory of predestination and it is a point that plays on any reader of Dr. Faustus. According to Calvin, there were a small number of elect predestined for Heaven while a majority were already damned. This did not mean that the elect could behave impiously for God could forfeit His grace. Similarly the damned could repent and live a life of piety and receive the gift of Heaven. What Calvin stressed was that man simply had no idea or could presume to have any idea about the workings of the divine will. The grace of salvation is the prerogative of God and only He could bestow it on whosoever He chooses. This can be seen as a pessimistic and extreme subversion of the importance of man given by the Renaissance philosophers. However in another sense it also gave an immense emphasis on human life as a way to receive the gift of salvation. True, life on earth was only a shadow of the Heavens but nonetheless a pious life on earth was the only way to enter it. An important question to be considered especially in the case of Faustus is whether he was already damned to begin with. Faustus himself seems to support this view. His ignorance of the state of his soul leads him to commit himself in the hands of Mephostopheles. The first act of Dr. Faustus begins with Faustus seated at his study having surfeited himself in all branches of knowledge and study. Law, medicine, logic and mathematics have been insufficient avenues of knowledge for Faustus. The suggestion that the intention to commit blasphemy is already pregnant in Faustus's mind is evident when the Good Angel appears to exhort him to lay aside the book on magic and necromancy. Mephistopheles also later admits that it was he who when Faustus read the scriptures turned the pages so he could not read the portions in which God spoke of forgiveness to sinners. This reminds us of the first act where Faustus after declaring his saturity with the available modes of knowledge turns his attention to the scriptures. He reads cursorily from Jerome's Bible while omitting certain relevant parts. He bases his intention to sin on the declaration in the Bible that sin is to be rewarded with death. He omits to read the consequent parts which speak of mercy towards sinners. Faustus conflates this with the argument that man by virtue of being a man is a sinner. Being already damned Faustus declares that his only option is to commit more sin. However Faustus does not seek more knowledge but knowledge that can bestow power, profit, pleasure and omnipotence upon him. Emperors and kings Are but obey'd in their several provinces. Nor can they raise the wind or rend the clouds. But his dominion that exceeds in this Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man: (56-60) This declaration by Faustus makes us aware of the impending tragedy. Faustus wants to explore and test his full potential. It is the doom of the Renaissance man. Faustus misuses his powers for trivial ends and personal gains. The question remains however whether Faustus was doomed because he sought to explore his potential to the limits or whether he did not know when and where to stop. The first supposition would confirm that Faustus indeed was not one of the elect and so doomed anyways, the second would lead one to assume that Faustus had the power to say no. Marlowe complicates an easy assessment of Faustus through its structure. Based upon the morality plays, Faustus seems to be a helpless man snared by forces too powerful for him to comprehend. Though it is he who summons Mephostopheles and initiates a contract with Satan through the use of magic and necromancy, Mephostopheles makes it clear that the spirits of hell are actually not bound to perform the commands of a man. It is the greed for souls to suffer along with them that leads them to haunt the earth. It was the popular belief in Elizabethan England too that though magicians and sorcerers could tell the spirits to do their will, it is because of the spirits' own volition to do evil that is the real cause. Jonathan Dollimore in his essay titled "Dr. Faustus: Subversion Through Transgression" states that the play cannot simply be seen as an example of the Renaissance man striving to break free from the chains of medievalism. Rather Dollimore sees Faustus's acts as the attempts of a man in acute despair to arrive at some security. Faustus's flippant attempts to repent and seek redemption and his inability to do so can be interpreted as his insecurity over his fate. Dollimore states, Even before he abjures God, Faustus expresses a sense of being isolated and trapped; an insecurity verging on despair pre-exists a damnation which, by a perverse act of free will, he 'chooses' (277). Dollimore goes on to locate Faustus's wilful transgression of boundaries as protestant in origin. He says that unlike the morality plays where the protagonist is blinded by sin of the rightness of divine law, here Faustus's act is a: ...conscious and deliberate transgression of limit. It is a limit which, among other things, renders God remote and insrutable yet subjects the individual to constant surveillance and correction; which holds the individual subject terrifyingly responsible for the fallen human condition while disallowing him or her any subjective power of redemption. (279) It is not a mere technicality that Faustus's soul and body are shown to be divergent and conflicting in the play. When Faustus is about to bequeath his soul to Lucifer in return for twenty four years of pleasure in a contract that is to be written in Faustus's blood, the blood congeals and Faustus is bewildered and suffers a pang of hesitation. It lasts for only a moment however before Faustus in a supreme travesty signs the deed echoing the words of Christ dying on the Cross as a sacrifice for the redemption of all men. Whenever Faustus tries to repent he is prevented through the interruption of Mephostophilis and Lucifer. The appearance of the Old Man to save the soul of Faustus is a futile attempt in this manner. The question that begs to be answered is whether it was Faustus who did not do enough to be able to repent or whether he was made unable to repent by the will of God Himself. Alan Sinfield also deals with the question whether Faustus was damned from the start in his essay "Reading Faustus' God". Sinfield states that Faustus does attempt to repent throughout the text. In Act 3 Scene 2 the two angels again make an appearance before Faustus. The Good Angel exhorts Faustus to repent immediately. But Faustus answers that he cannot because his heart is hardened. Sinfield points out that there were several examples in the scriptures where God hardened the hearts of sinners so they could not repent and ask for forgiveness. In Exodus God hardened the heart of the Pharoah so that he could not let the Israelites leave. Both Calvin and Luther pointed out this text when they stressed that the divine will was not to be questioned but meekly accepted. The ability to repent, seemingly was also a divine gift. Sinfield states that the exhortations of the Good Angel then are a subtle ploy by which Faustus could not claim ignorance as his defence when judged later by God. Sinfield states that such doctrine was a regular feature of sermons delivered to the people. Another example of Faustus's repentance would be the magnificent scene towards the end of the play. There is but an hour to Faustus's life on earth. Faustus cries out in passion: O I'll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah my Christ Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ; Yet will I call on him - O spare me, Lucifer! Where is it now 'Tis gone: and see where God Strecheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows! Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me, And hide me from the heavy wrath of God. (169) The overwhelming sadness is that even God closes all doors on Faustus. What this means for critics such as Sinfield and Dollimore is that Dr. Faustus is an ambiguous play that is indeterminate and resists any one interpretation. It is not a simple tale with a moral in the end. So too can be read Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. It first appeared in novella form in Lippincott's Magazine in 1890. However adverse criticism on grounds of morality in England led Wilde to publish it again in 1891 where he presented his ideas in a less direct manner along with a Preface containing aphorisms on the nature and purpose of art itself. Dorian Gray asks questions about the relation of art to morality as well as the received wisdoms of the Victorian age. Similarly it is not simply a fin de siecle novel that explores in exquisite detail the hedonism and moral depravity prevalent among the dandies of the age. Michael Patrick Gillespie in the Norton edition of the novel states that: His representations of the major characters show a keen sensitivity to human appetites, human needs, and most of all human weaknesses. At the same time, Wilde refuses to recapitulate the standard pieties or received wisdoms of his Victorian contemporaries. Instead , The Picture of Dorian Gray shows an author determined to explore the contradictory elements of human nature without falling back on conventional pieties. (xi) The three main characters in the novel, Basil Hallward, Lord Henry and Dorian Gray himself are reflections of the diverse states of feelings within Wilde. However they are not to be read as personifications of the author entirely. Gillespie in an essay titled "Picturing Dorian Gray: Resistant Readings in Wilde's Novel" states that: The real antinomies within the discourse emerge when one examines the metaphysical assumptions behind the social institutions that define the Victorian world of the novel. In particular, the ability of characters to sustain a multitude of conflicting moral values without any sense of disruption or contradiction within their consciousnesses enforces the idea that to understand these individuals one must come to grips with the concept that a breadth of contending principles guides their behavior without anyone holding primacy. (389) Certainly some critics see Wilde's novel as the precursor of the modernist texts that begin to appear only a few decades later. Dorian is introduced in the novel as a hellenistic ideal of the male form. He is a Narcissus in form and becomes a Narcissus in mind when Lord Henry's subtle evocations of the power and transcience of youth and beauty. Basil Hallward states that Dorian has a pure mind as well as purity in beauty. This is negated when Dorian though untouched by any thoughts of sin turns out to be a wilful and petulant boy. The question again arises as in the case of Faustus whether Dorian's sinning was to be only a matter of time and come to event at any rate. Troubled by Lord Henry's remarks on his own transient beauty of form Dorian flings a rash wish that the portrait bear the ravages of time instead of his own physical self. The night he callously rejects Sibyl Vane the alterations begin in the portrait. The portrait assumes the visible and exterior facade of Dorian's hidden soul. It is a measuring scale which weighs and depicts the degradation in the soul of Dorian. The diverse states of mind and feeling in Dorian are brought into play by Wilde when we see the effect his changing portrait has on the personality of Dorian. If at one time Dorian loathes his portrait, at other times he enjoys the degradation that is evinced in the portrait without leaving a single mark on his own face. Though Faustus lacked such a device to make visible his tortured soul, Dorian can be said to possess in the manner of the morality plays his own version of the Good and the Bad Angel. Basil Hallward who has not simply painted Dorian's portrait but executed a vision and philosophy of art in his portrait attempts to play the part of the Good Angel. It is his portrait however that takes away Dorian's power to repent and lead a moral life. By fantastically taking upon itself the power of aging and metamorphosis, it binds Dorian's hands while at the same time giving him a sense of power and invincibility which is only a sham. Lord Henry who stokes Dorian's vanity and sense of power while manipulating his desires and wants seems to play the part of the Bad Angel and also the part of Mephostopheles in Dr. Faustus. It is he who gives to Dorian a book by written in the manner of the Symbolists. Like the books on magic and necromancy which tempt Faustus, Dorian is tempted to live a hedonistic life of aesthetic pleasure. As Faustus surfeits himself with all the branches of knowledge available to him so too Dorian begins the aesthete's study of the properties and powers of jewels, perfumes, embroidered textiles and ecclesiastical vestments. As Faustus's nemesis was his urge for omnipotence, to be a demi-god so too Dorian's unchecked impulse is to live a life of eternal unblemished youth, a life given over to the dominance of the senses. The search for ever new sensations while at the same time practising a detachment from the responsibilities of life leads Dorian further and further into sin. Wilde however prevents the tale from becoming a simple moral tale. After committing the murder of Hallward, Dorian is surprised by the equanimity of his feelings. He cannot bear to look at the corpse or dispose of it himself yet to think calmly and devise a solution is within his capability. Dorian calmly blackmails his erstwhile friend, alan Campbell, to perform the deed. Wilde's purpose is to show the myriad feelings and emotions that arise in the human breast. Dorian has pangs of regret, conscience yet he also evinces pride, satisfaction and equanimity in the heinous deeds committed by him. Though his passions are stoked by Lord Henry's advice to indulge his senses, he never becomes a mirror self of Lord Henry himself. Lord Henry is a disspassionate observer of life, in reality only an "escapist" according to Sheldon W. Liebman in his essay "Character Design in The Picture of Dorian Gray" (441). What Dorian on the other hand never loses is his ability to feel pangs of guilt and remorse that alternate with bouts of equanimity and supreme confidence. He determines to do his duty by Sibyl Vane not realising his rash actions have already led to her death. This is the tragedy of Dorian Gray. This is also what elevates him above a character like Lord Henry. As Lord Henry declares to Dorian in the nineteenth chapter of the novel, death and vulgarity are the two things that cannot be explained by him. In committing murder and blackmail Dorian has outreached even his mentor, Lord Henry who feels that murder is a dross sensation that disturbs the mind, an act of which Dorian is simply not capable. Though Gillespie points out that all the characters defy a single point of reference as to their characterisation, Lord Henry's ultimate refusal of Dorian's ability to commit a crime is symptomatic of the particular class that he and Dorian belong to. Lord Henry as the impassioned spectator of life has set his protege on a path, the ends of which even he cannot comprehend. This is evident when before he leads Hallward to his death Dorian states that "Each of us has Heaven and Hell in him" (131). Faustus similarly had asked Mehostophilis the wherabouts of Hell only to be returned an answer that Hell existed wherever its denizens existed. Far from being a fixed and confined place, Hell could exist among men. So too in Dorian existed the awareness of his dual nature. However an awareness that one could do good as well as commit sin is not a sufficient cause for either. What Wilde tries to portray is not the morality of Dorian's actions but the existence of this profound duality in all men. Not just theology but art and conversely society had to recognise that such a duality not only existed but was pivotal to being human. Where Hallward is limited by his moralising and Lord Henry by his dispassionate detachment from the consequences of his actions, Dorian commits himself to life. Dorian's complicity in the suicide of Sibyl Vane, his murder of Hallward, the rumored destruction of the futures of his once close friends, none of these episodes test Dorian's nerves to the point where he can repent. His decision to lead a reformed life comes after the accidental and fortunate death of his enemy, Sibyl Vane's brother. Dorian has decided not to ruin the life of a young country girl who has become enamoured of him. Without a need to look at the portrait and observe if his reform has brought about any changes in it, Lord Henry's dissection of the real effects of Dorian's reform is sufficient to inform the readers that it is insufficient, misplaced and actually injurious to the concerned girl. As Dorian realises himself later on, Lord Henry truly said that it was Dorian's vanity as well as the desire for a new sensation that produced his belated conscience. In the last chapter to the novel, Dorian is brought to a crisis. He desires to live a reformed life but intentions are not enough. Salvation and redemption are impossible for him not only because of his own actions but because it has been made impossible or rather unpalatable for him. The portrait itself was a constant reminder of his past. In the questions that arise in Dorian's mind one particularly reverberates. Is it not possible to wipe one's slate clean Dorian's desire is for annihilation of his past so that he could renew himself. One interpretation of his death in his attempt to destroy the picture would seem to suggest that the remote and distant God that exists in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus is the same that persists into Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Redemption appears to be an impossibility for either Faustus or Dorian. This denial of the possibility of redemption is the schism that explodes the orthodox definitions of a pious and benevolent God whose actions can only seem to be incomprehensible to people like Faustus and Dorian Gray. Works Cited Cassirer, Ernst. The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. Trans. Mario Domandi. New York: Harper, 1963. Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy, Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries. Brighton: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Gillespie, M.P. "Picturing Dorian Gray: Resistant Readings in Wilde's Novel." The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Norton, 2007. Liebman, Sheldon W. "Character Design in The Picture of Dorian Gray." The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Norton, 2007. Sinfield, Alan. Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissent Reading. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Read More

 

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