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| Sad Panda |
I understand that Marlowe may have wanted relief from the drama and tension of Faustus making the decision to sell his soul to the devil, but tbh je déteste la comédie c'est très ennuyeux! I do understand that what we think is funny nowadays would have been very different back then, butI don't think the comedy has travelled well through time. Personally when I saw Dr Faustus last year they added an extra hour onto the play making it way too long and they didn't add anything to it. For me it wasnt light relief during the dramatic moments it was boredom, in fact I started to watch the lighting guy next to me moving the switchs on the lighting board. I don't think this is what Marlowe intended people to do when they saw this play but he should have thought about that before he wrote these scenes.
Honestly I think that Marlowe may have only written theses scenes to boast to the audience of his genius blank verse being his usual modest self. I know that this is very easily argued against especially the fact that many believe he didn't even write these comic scenes but oh well, I like to be original.
Personally I don't think we need the light relief from Faustus as he is the interesting character in this play, especially at this stage when the audience is wondering whether he is really going to go through with selling his soul to the devil. Therefore I think that these scenes are a bit distracting from him and the story, causing us to become impatient and annoyed. Honestly I think these scenes are an epic fail on Marlowe's part but I will forgive him due to the rest of the play being rather good in my opinion.
To begin with we looked at what we believe to be the elements of the gothic. I feel that in fiction the term gothic can be applied to a novel or play if the story emphasises on that of the grotesque, mysterious and desolate. According to a glossary term of gothic fiction this is what they believe gothiic elements include these:
- Ancient prophecy, especially mysterious, obscure, or hard to understand.
- Mystery and suspense
- High emotion, sentimentalism, but also pronounced anger, surprise, and especially terror
- Supernatural events (e.g. a giant, a sighing portrait, ghosts or their apparent presence, a skeleton)
- Omens, portents, dream visions
- Fainting, frightened, screaming women
- Women threatened by powerful, impetuous male
- Setting in a castle, especially with secret passages
- The metonymy of gloom and horror (wind, rain, doors grating on rusty hinges, howls in the distance, distant sighs, footsteps approaching, lights in abandoned rooms, gusts of wind blowing out lights or blowing suddenly, characters trapped in rooms or imprisoned)
- The vocabulary of the gothic (use of words indicating fear, mystery, etc.: apparition, devil, ghost, haunted, terror, fright)
After discussing what we believed to be the elements of the Gothic we started to look at the character of Mephistopheles who is introduced to us in Act 1 Scene 3. To be honest I was surprised by him as although being a messenger of the devil he didn't appear to be very evil, weird... In fact he was very honest as he tells Faustus how hell is not a nice place and even admits that God is more poweful then Lucifer. He even sounds quite human especially compared to Faustus who is so self-absorbed he doesn't see why there is a problem with him wanting to sell his soul to the devil, how dumb can you get?? I think that in all this is a nice little twist Marlowe has going on as it's not a cliche and is very unexpected, I aprove. On the other hand I suppose that Mephistopheles could just be cunning and trying to set the audience on edge creating the atmosphere of suspense and terror. Although this may be the case I have always tried to see the good and people and hope that Mephistopheles is what he appears, I suppose we will just have to read on to find out for certain.
Before I begin to write my thoughts on the lesson, first I feel that I must congratulate Mr Francis on making a lemon cake which is actually better then edible, as I believe that lemons must be one of the worst fruits in the world! Therefore I greatly encourage you to make more cake in the future *hint* *hint*.
Anyway, on being introduced to the character of Dr Faustus I personally feel that he is a bit up himself and needs to take a reality check. His dreams of usurping God and taking over the world I feel to be a little selfish, especially as he only seems to want to have that much power because he is bored. I believe that being bored and sick of being cleverer then everyone else is no excuse to think that you have the right to world domination.
I also feel that unlike a lot of main characters in plays or novels you would never ever want to meet him at a party. Due to the fact that he would stand in a corner all night, thinking he is better then everybody and when you try to talk to him you walk away feeling very stupid, pathetic and what is the point to your life. All in all, not a nice guy.
Possibly a reason why he intends to become God is the fact that he drove everybody away by his arrogance and pride and therefore has no friends.Billy no mates. Ok if this is true I do feel a little sorry for him, especially if he was one of those kids writing to agongy Aunt 'ahhh' but to be honest if he feels he can get and keep friends by spontaneously speaking latin, reciting Aristotle and constantly boasting of how clever he is, he has a lot to learn and therefore I am not suprised he may be a lonely person.
Just food for thought x
