So,
remember how I said that I like Faustus before, yeah that no longer applies. I feel
that I can understand why he plays pranks on the Pope, but that is only if his
backstory is one of the ones that we came up with in class on Wednesday. If it’s
not, then he seems like a complete jerk. In act 5, I just couldn’t get past his
last long soliloquy and because of that I don’t feel sorry for him. I feel that
he got what he deserved. I mean come on, it was an hour before he was supposed
to die, and now he’s all sad.
The
way that I am thinking about this is, in his last soliloquy, he talks a lot
about wanting to be saved and wishing that he hadn’t made the deal with the
devil, but it’s like dude you made your bed, now you have to lie in it.
It
reminds me of a Sunday night when I have a paper due on Monday morning and I am
hoping that maybe something will happen so that school is cancelled the next
day and I won’t have to turn in my paper. But it’s completely my fault that I
haven’t started my paper until then and while I was off doing other things, I wasn’t
telling myself that I should be writing this paper. I was enjoying not doing my
paper and now I have to accept that I have to stay up late to write this paper
because I didn’t start it earlier.
Faustus
has been given so many chances to repent. Even in the end, Scholar 2 says “Yet
Faustus, call on God,” (5.2, 56) which I took to mean that he still had time to
be saved, but in classic Faustus way he tells him that he can’t and that it’s
too late. I liked Faustus in the beginning of the play because I thought that
he wasn’t positive of the choices that he made, as evident by the good angel
and the bad angel showing up a lot, but in scene three and four the good angel
and the bad angel were gone, as to show that he was sure that he had chosen the
right side. So, for him to be really sad in the end, I just have no sympathy
for him.
I was not terribly thrilled with Faustus from the start of the play, but I can see where you are coming from. He had good intentions, he just got derailed and decided that he would rather earn his place in hell. If he used the power he was given to do good things and make the lives of everyone so much better then I would feel awful that he was forced to spend eternity in hell. I agree with what you say about consequences though. He chose his path, no one sugar coated what hell was like, and now he needs to face the consequences of his actions. You cannot steal something and then expect to be let off without even a warning when the cops catch you. Actions have consequences, whether they are good or bad, and eventually you will have to face them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact of "too little too late". Everyone told him what was going to happen and he chose to accept it. I keep changing my mind about Faustus. He is human and we all have been tempted by the smallest things. This, I'm going to say, old man, is unsatisfied with his life. This book is something new and exciting for him. The problem is the evil angel in the beginning, putting thoughts in his head of becoming a god. Who wouldn't take that chance to have that type of power. He knew the consequences of his actions and decided to follow through with them anyway. His reaction at the end is not surprising. I think if I had only an hour to live, I would be pretty sad also.
ReplyDelete