Dr. Faustus

Dr. Faustus was another hard read. This Medieval stuff is really hard for me to read, and I’m not sure why. I love Shakespeare and it is not far from it in some of its style and conventions. Though I must say that this story was more interesting than some of our previous stories, so it was a lot easier to get through. I thought that Dr. Faustus was an interesting man. He gives up his soul to the devil as to gain magical powers, and uses these magical powers to impress people. You would think if you got magical powers you would use it to make yourself invincible, or make it so that you can fly, or that you’re the richest person in the world. But it seemed to me like Dr. Faustus just wanted everyone to find him interesting and to be liked by his colleagues and the upper class. I found this pretty different. Nowadays if someone received magical powers, they would most certainly use them more destructively; whether it is self destructive or dangerous to others. A modern day tale would more likely be Dr. Faustus wishing to be the richest person in the world, or to have superpowers. Another thing about Dr. Faustus that I found interesting, and I didn’t necessarily like, was his indecisiveness. He kept changing his mind about whether he should be doing what he was doing. I mean, his indecisiveness before selling his soul makes sense, but afterwards, there’s really nothing you can do. He keeps thinking that he should pray to God and hope that he can be saved, when instead he should be enjoying his powers. You’ve already sold your soul Faustus, stop whining! Although I do feel sorry for him because Mephistopheles does push him towards selling his soul, and he didn’t really get a good chance to make a decision on his own.

Also, I found the play that Mrs. Pierce had us watch pretty amazing. The fact that when the director read this play, he imagined that in his head, that’s pretty incredible, especially seeing the his final image come to life on stage. When most people think of plays they don’t imagine things like that. I certainly didn’t and neither did anyone else in the class. Seeing this play, in any form and produced by anyone, seems as though it would be much easier to follow that when simply reading it.