Hamlet by Williams Shakespeare

Here, Mephistopheles explains the remorse he feels of being deprived from the joys of heaven. Faustus ignores Mephistopheles warning, due to his egotistical nature. Bypassing the urgency of this message, Faustus is given the opportunity to elaborate on this line giving him the impression that hell is where God isn’t, therefore concluding that “Hell’s a fable”. This conclusion precludes Faustus from repenting, allowing him to irresponsibly sign his soul to the devil.

At the start of the play Faustus hadn’t taken into account the consequences his actions would bring, because of his narcissistic nature to reach and occupy the same position as God. Ike Shakespeare, Marlowe uses words like “tormented”, “eternal joys”, “deprived” and “everlasting bliss” to create a huge contrast emphasising the intensity of Mephistopheles’s suffering. This is achieved by comparing it to the privilege he once had to be in the presence of God’s grace.

Doctor Faustus could theoretically be referring to Lucifer’s damnation, when he was cast out of heaven trying to occupy the same position of God. Showing that any man, even the most highly educated, could engage in this eternal sin of blasphemy. Perhaps Marlowe was influenced by this story, preserving key themes of religion, deception, sin and arrogance (Hubris).

Both Hamlet and Faustus’s soliloquies show their mental conflict and how they deal with them. They both argue with themselves perhaps a method used to establish their isolation. But I think Hamlet and Faustus’ soliloquies were written in verse to lift their level of intelligence into a philosophical point, establishing their high social status. Utilising their rich lexis to emphasis the characters mental conflicts making it more euphoric and cre...

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... as sins.

Hamlet is not a play based on religion but it utilises religious belies of the 16th century. Hamlet’s procrastination and the internal conflicts he faces, portrayed through his soliloquies, are catalysed by his religious beliefs. The play is set in Denmark a protestant nation, but this might not affect the plot because it is set at a time period before the protestant reformation. However both Faustus and Hamlet attended the University of Wittenberg, where Martin Luther wrote the Ninety-five theses in 1527(considered to be the catalyst of the protestant reformation). Therefore we can assume that Faustus is a protestant, however the same cannot be said for Hamlet. It has been argued that Marlowe made this protestant connection in order to cease all allegations of him being a practicing catholic, hence the scene where Faustus appears to be mocking the pope.