Analysis Of Selling His Soul To Lucifer: The Story Of Doctor Faustus

Selling His Soul to Lucifer: The Story of Doctor Faustus

Explain the personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins as characters and ethical emblems, and their functions in Faustus. Explain how Pride if the “Father” of all the other sins, and how and why this sin is Faustus’s downfall? What power would come with selling one’s soul to the devil? The same question was pondered by Doctor Faustus. Bored of human knowledge, he wondered what else there could be. With a few foolish decisions, Faustus’s life takes a turn he does not expect. Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe shows the importance of decision making and the seven deadly sins in Faustus’s life. Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe starts out with Faustus trying to figure out what he

They show Faustus’s foolishness in lacking to understand what their consequences are. When Faustus begins to doubt, Mephistophilis shows the seven deadly sins in human form. Pride is the first and most important sin that enters. He says, “I am pride. I distain to have any parents” (Marlowe Act 2, Scene 2, Line 79). Pride is making the point that no one can tell him what to do and that he has authority over his own life. This sounds similar to Faustus because he wanted to have all the knowledge he could to control things, however, he had to sell his soul to the devil to get this knowledge. This would mean that Lucifer has control over Doctor Faustus’s life. The contradicting thought shows that Faustus did not fully understand what he was doing when he sold his soul. It is interesting that pride is the first sin listed because the first sin committed was that of being prideful. This, of course, was when Lucifer got kicked out of heaven along with other angels when he thought he could become higher than God. Doctor Faustus is

This is a perfect description of envy, and will later become a perfect description of Faustus. “Faustus envies the Emperor, the Pope, Lucifer and even God for having power and status beyond him. He summons Mephistopheles so that he can use him to have a power he hopes will exceed the power of them all.” (Elizabeth). This quote shows how deep Faustus’s envy has gone. Faustus begins the story with a want of more knowledge than any human, but ends the book with a want of more knowledge than God, which is impossible. This shows the severity of Doctor Faustus’s envy and the slippery slope it comes with. The next sin is wrath, which is