Q. Discuss the salient features of tragic heroism with reference to Marlowe s Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare s-Macbeth. A.

Doctor Faustus written by the literary genius of Christopher Marlowe and Macbeth, magnum opus of Shakespeare are two remarkable tragedies of the Elizabethan era. Both the tragedies embody the spirit of the Renaissance age in the true sense elicited by the tragic heroes of Faustus, the worldly scholar who turns to necromancy and is overthrown under heaven s conspiracy and Macbeth, the thane of Glamis and Cawdor who becomes the King of Scotland and falls down from the power structure. There is a drastic shift from the concept of tragedy prevalent in Greece and the conventionally established norms of tragedy proposed and developed by Aristotle in his famous work Poetics to the renaissance concept of tragedy. According to Aristotle, tragedies must represent a complete, serious and important action that rouges and then purges(by catharsis)the emotions of pity and fear in the spectators depicting the fall of the protagonist from the peak of success and happiness to misery because of some error of judgement or hamartia and his pride or hubris. Tragedy witnesses some vivid changes with the changing aspirations of the age during the renaissance with the rise of humanist faith as the dominant sentiment of the age. Aristotle talks about six parts of a tragedy which are-the story or the plot, character, thought, diction, spectacle and melody.He emphasizes on the fact that plot is more important than the character.He argues that tragedy is an imitation of an action and the character is there only because action involves human agents,not the other way round.Since the plot reveals the action hence he gives the plot the primary place.There is a subversion of this fact in the renaissance tragedies like Doctor Faustus, Othello, Macbeth and so on and so forth.Since Renaissance produced a discernible increase in individualism all these plays are more about the protagonist deciding their course of actions and salvaging their purpose by setting smaller goals and then hitting those then moving ahead rather than the actions constituting the character.Faustus becomes eminent scholar,decides to exercise black magic and signs the devil s pact to enjoy the material world.On the other hand,Macbeth goes for the equivocations made by the three witches and instigated by his wife kills king Duncan to rise in throne and kills everyone who he thinks can come in between.Besides,as Alan Sinfield points out,tragedy is not a single and permanent kind of fact but a series of experiences and conventions and institutions.For example,Macbeth s tragedy is a result of a sequence of wrong doings. Most of the Elizabethan tragedies consciously and absolutely undermine the Greek norms of tragedy as far as the structure of the plot is concerned.Doctor Faustus rejects unity of time,space and action altogether.Twenty four years of his life is depicted in a span of time.There is a huge difference between time depicted on the stage and time embedded into the structure of the plot.The play breaks unity of space.Faustus travels through various parts of the world which is an antithesis of the Greek tragedy.Still Faustus study can be seen as a microcosm of the macrocosmic world,an embodiment of his worldwide experiences.Macbeth also undermines the three unities in its own way.The whole episode of Macbeth s rise as the King of Scotland,the final battle and then his fall is captured in a few hours performance on the stage.In Doctor Faustus the comic and the serious work through two modes1.parrallellism and2.contrast which are embedded into the structure of the play.Two plots moving in

the same direction parallel to each other make a horizontal difference.For example,Faustus exercising black magic and the Robin-Rafe plot both moves on a horizontal plane. Doctor Faustus is continuously deconstructed through these scenes.There are scenes which work under the mode of contrast.There is glorification of Faustus cause unto some extent through the ironic utterances heightening his stature maintaining different levels on a vertical plane.Marlowe contrasts Faustus firstly against Wagner and the devils and secondly against ordinary people. Robert N.Watson rightly points out that English Renaissance tragedies repeatedly portray the struggle of a remarkable individual against implacable,impersonal forces and failure makes this struggle more impressive.Doctor Faustus confronts a tension between Christian orthodoxy and Renaissance aspirations.Faustus goes on breaking the medieval chains by subversion through transgression as Jonathan Dollimore points out although it is difficult to find a salvage point of his Struggle since the play ends up with a morality structure establishing a conventional Christian morality.Faustus is damned in the end and is dragged to the Hell. Macbeth on the other hand confronts literal prophecy and records cyclical nature.He also faces a tension between conventional Christian morality and machinery of power whether social,natural or divine.His initial hesitation to murder King Duncan reminds the readers of some sort of Christian consciousness which resists him from committing that sinful deed.He is further instigated by his wife who is the chief source who arouses the power aspirations and compels him to think big.Very often a number of remarkable tragic heroes are destroyed by some version of this kind of collisions.Tragedy draws its energy from this kind of conflicts and turns agony into extraordinary beauty.Robert N.Watson comments, the most joyous art finds ideal beauty in real things;tragic art shows ideal beauty in collision with real things. Amidst these collisions,both rise up to the peak of success.Faustus becomes a renown scholar,earns name, fame everything although his familial genealogy does not support his scholarship .In that sense he is a self made man.He becomes an embodiment of vast experiences through his travels across various parts of the world.Again Macbeth becomes the Thane of Glamis and Cawdor and then becomes the King of Scotland.But both become over ambitious and transgress the limits.Greed overpowers their mind.Both of them are neither completely good nor completely bad but it is their over ambition,the tragic flaw which leads them astray.It is their pride(hubris) and over confidence because of which they deny heavenly interventions ended up in their damnation.Both make some kind of error of judgement which paved the way of their downfall.Faustus turns to necromancy and sells his soul to the devils for material voluptuousness of twenty four years.On the other hand Macbeth listens to the prediction of the three witches,interpretes them according to his own and kills the King under his wife s compulsion.Both of them symbolize lack of wisdom. External agencies play a vital role in the fall of both the tragic heroes.Both Faustus and Macbeth believe in witchcraft.While Faustus personally practice black magic,Macbeth follows it blindly.Both in their own way rejects the conventional Christianity and follow something negative.They in that sense embody some anti-Christ qualities.Still they reveal the spirit of their age when people in Europe especially in England were obsessed with such superstitions.Faustus sells his soul to the devils after which most of the time he works under devilish influence.Mephastophillis and Lucifer control his actions.Whenever Faustus comes to state of repentance he is checked by the devils with a splendid

show of their power like the dance of the seven deadly sins.He becomes a puppet of their hands.Macbeth meets the three witches by chance although many critics want to say this is pre ordained.He is initially surprised at what they predict but he further realizes his goal under the influence of his wife,Lady Macbeth who is often termed as the fourth witch in the play.She compels him at every moment to do which can be materially beneficial in return.It is under her compulsion he commits the first murder.She questions his masculinity initially when he hesitates to commit that sin.The witches and Lady Macbeth together form a cocoon of perverted femininity which is in conflict with the legitimacy of the ruling elite. Faustus urges for a wider domain to establish material control and uses necromancy as an instrument to achieve that control.He does not gain real control.He holds power only for namesake because the actual power holder is Lucifer.Faustus breaks the natural laws in order to gain that power but ends up producing more claustrophobia.Faustus aspirations are closely related to his class origins.His urge for material control and urge for security both are closely related to each other.Macbeth urges for monarchy.He wants to be the King.He breaks the societal norms in order to attain more political control . The Christian notions of Heaven and Hell play a vital role in both the plays.Very often it is seen that the tragic hero dwell in between Heaven and Hell.tThe tragic hero suffers due to some sort of inner conflict which arises out of confusion.He is perplexed in between good and bad.If we consider heaven as the thesis,then hell will be its antithesis and synthesis of both is earth.Faustus seems to represent that synthesis.Faustus initially believes that hell exists only in fable but in the end he goes to hell.He turns to devilish exercises yet does not deny the existence of God.His tragedy is based on misreasoning and misinterpretation of the Christian doctrines.He defends himself by saying, If we say we have no sin,we deceive ourselves, .we must sin and so consequently die. He is seemingly aware of what is going to happen after twenty four years.Overwhelming obsessions with the afterlife leads to negligence of the present life.But Faustus seems to reconcile the two. Both Faustus and Macbeth question the conventional authority.Faustus questions conventional ethical standards and Macbeth questions the existing body politic.Both subverts those in their own way.Faustus embodies sinful wordliness while Macbeth up to some extent embodies a typical Machiavellian attitude.Faustus wants worldwide fame and recognition and Macbeth wants to be the monarch.Their aspirations are product of their age which gave rise to a discernible increase in individualism and identity formation.Faustus urge for material security somehow leads to skepticism and strong individuality while realization of individuality and skepticism on Macbeth s part leads to his insecurity.Both the tragic heroes form their identity in close relation to physical geography.Faustus is widely travelled.He travels through various parts of the world and becomes a part of all that he experience.He moves out of his study at Wittenberg,travel across various parts of the globe and in the end comes back to Wittenberg.He completes a circular path in terms of physical geography.Macbeth s power equation has two variables,geographical space and political power..Extension of his political power is in direct proportion to extension of geographical boundary.Robert N.Watson rightly points out that both Faustus and Macbeth were over determined by the destructive tendencies of their surrounding culture.Both the tragic heroes are cultural icons of their own culture.Faustus is worthy of

several professions divinity, medicine, law and actually rejects each in turn.He is still an archetype of renaissance figure more intricately than Macbeth even comparable to Leonardo da Vinci.

Written by, Debasish Parashar