1

CHAPTER – I

Introduction
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The concept of alienation has a popular place in the

analysis of contemporary life. In one form or another, the theme

of alienation dominates both the contemporary literature and the

history of sociological thought. It is a central theme in the

classical sociological works of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim,

Weber and Simmel; and in the contemporary work, the concept

of alienation has emerged as having divergent opinions and

consequences. G. Petrovic writes: “In law it usually refers to the

transfer of property from one person to another, either by sale or

as a gift. In Psychiatry alienation usually means deviation from

normality; that is, insanity. In contemporary psychology and

sociology it is often used to name an individual’s feeling of

alienation towards society, nature, other people, or himself.”1

In short, the idea of alienation is a popular vehicle for

virtually every kind of analysis. No doubt, the phenomenon of

alienation is most conspicuous in the economic, political and

social spheres of life, its significance in the literary field,

although unexplored yet, cannot be overlooked. In fact, the term

alienation is not a recent coinage. It is as old as the society.

Erich Kahler is right in his observation: “The history of man

could well be written as the history of the alienation of man.”2

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Origin of the term Alienation

The English word “alienation” has got its origin in “the

Latin alienatio or (abalienatio).”3 It was frequently employed by

many non-communist theologians, philosophers, psychologists

and sociologists in the past.

In the 18th century, the term was used to indicate the self

denial of property rights. But, now a days, the term is being

used in English and French literature to convey a pronounced

psychological inference. The Latin word ‘alienatio’ appears to

have both a legal and a medical sense. Legally speaking, it

meant the transmittal of property whereas it was used to

indicate mental derangement in its medical sense.

The true origin of the concept of alienation is found in the

central ideas of German idealism. “For Fichte all ideas which

are accompanied by the feeling of necessitation, and thereby

seem to threaten the freedom of ego and self consciousness, are

to be understood as contractions of the self (self consciousness)

which the ego freely, though unconsciously, impose on itself.”4

The threat to ego, unconsciously, causes an inherent conflict

which ultimately leads to the process of alienation and

dealienation. Fichte is of the opinion that the ego, in postulating

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its own existence, necessarily assumes the existence of a non

ego. Fichte further feels, that it is wrong to look upon the things

– in – themselves as entities existing independently of thought,

unknownable in themselves. They rather represent ideal limits

or goals of our thinking set by the activity of thought itself.

However, the distinction between subject and object (Subject =

Ego; Object = Non-Ego) is still a distinction with experience. If

there were no ego to do the experiencing, there would be no

non-ego to be experienced and the vice-versa. So, ego and non-

ego are interdependent. But a conflict arises within an

individual between his own self (or ego) and his creations (or

non-ego), when non-ego tries to master his ego, and this leads to

the process of alienation and dealienation. The above

description about the term alienation explains how complex the

phenomenon of alienation is.

The concept of alienation is employed by psychologists

to indicate the experience of not feeling at home. It has been

very nicely elaborated by Marx too. The sociologists use the

term to deal with the impossibility of successfully controlling

complex social developments. Alienation is used in sociology to

indicate a sort of social-estrangement on the part of the

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individual. A social system itself, is a complex one which

consists in a plurality of individual actors interacting upon one

another in a situation which has at least a physical or

environmental aspect, actors who are motivated in terms of a

tendency to the optimization of gratification. If the optimization

and gratification are deranged, the process of alienation, in the

individual starts. The term alienation has theological

implications too as “possible interpretation in the sense of the

Christian concept of sin, which here becomes accessible to

empirical investigations.”5

Evidently, the meaning of the term differs radically from

discipline to discipline and so it causes confusion in the mind of

the analyst. “The concept embodies the confusion, characteristic

of the vocabulary of German idealism, between epistemological

and psychological considerations on one hand and sociological

description on the other.”6 Robert A Nisbet is right in his

estimate: “At the present time, in all the social sciences, the

various synonyms of alienation have a foremost place in studies

of human relations. Investigations of the ‘unattached’, the

‘marginal’, the ‘obsessive’, the ‘normless’, and the ‘isolated’

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individual all testify to the central place occupied by the

hypothesis of alienation in contemporary social science.”7

History of the Concept of Alienation

Howsoever divergent the opinions may be regarding the

terminology of alienation, philosophically the concept of

alienation was widely discussed by Hegel. Hegel, Feuerbach

and Marx were the three thinkers who gave a clear cut

explanation of the concept of alienation and dealienation. All

the further discussions will be determined by the interpretations

of Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Durkheim, Freud and Sartre.

George William Frederick Hegel

Although Hegel was slow in arriving at his philosophic

maturity, his system was destined to dominate the nineteenth

century. And thus, Hegel was regarded as the most brilliant

thinker of that epoch. He observes: “It is an essential

characteristic of finite mind (man) to produce things, to express

itself in objects, to objectify itself in physical things, social

institutions and cultural products; and every objectification is,

of necessity, an instance of alienation: the produced objects

become alien to the producer.”8 Moreover, he recognizes that

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the seeds of alienation are rooted in the nature of man’s

existence in the world because of cosmic reasons. Hegel

considered soul as the Absolute. Cosmic reason operates within

the soul of man, whose consciousness is the area of subjective

spirit, while the cultural and social institutions are the

manifestations of the objective spirit of the soul. He further

mentions that there is always a dissociation between man as a

subject and man as an object. He finds and notices a sort of

conflict between man as a creative subject trying to realize

himself and man as an object influenced by his own creations.

This conflict causes man’s own creation to stand outside him as

alien objects. Not only that one can be alienated from self also.

Hegel utilizes the term, ‘Absolute Idea’ which simply denotes

Absolute Mind or Absolute Spirit or God. Absolute Idea is

“neither a set of fixed things nor a sum of static properties but a

dynamic self, engaged in a circular process of alienation and

dealienation.”9 He considers nature as a self-alienated form of

Absolute Mind and man as the Absolute in the process of

dealienation.
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Ludwig Feuerbach

Feuerbach’s concept of alienation is limited to the

religious alienation. He has criticized and opposed Hegel’s

Idealism. He has advocated materialistic views. Feuerbach does

not ascribe any objective reference to the concept of God. He

mentions: “God, therefore, is nothing but the picture of an ideal

human being to whom we attribute all the qualities that we

value, such as personality, love, sympathy, willingness to share

our sufferings, and the like. But there is no objective reality in

the external world corresponding to the picture.”10

Feuerbach has not accepted the view that nature is a self

alienated form of Absolute Mind. Instead, he mentions that

“Man is alienated from himself when he creates and puts above

himself an imagined alien higher being and bows before that

being as a slave. The dealienation of man consists in the

abolition of that estranged picture of man which is God.”11

Religions are sacred because they are the traditions of the

primitive self consciousness otherwise God has been put at the

second place by Feuerbach because he has observed God as the

nature of man regarded objectively. Hence, “man must be

constituted and declared the first.”12 God is nothing but self

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alienated man. He did not deny the existence of God, but

explained the formation of the idea of God as the result of the

longing of sensual man to reconcile the apparent contradictions

of life. He accused the idealist philosophers of having deprived

man of his feelings of existence. He further explained that man

was nothing without the world of objects with which he was

connected. He disliked the idea of self-alienation and he

enjoined his fellow man not to ignore the contradictions of life,

and to concentrate upon the tasks of the present day. He

considered self- alienation as an escape from the reality.

Karl Marx

The concept of alienation and dealienation were worked

out in detail by Karl Marx in the year 1844. The description was

first published in 1932 in his Economic and Philosophic

Manuscripts. Throughout the civilized world the teachings of

Marx evoke the utmost hostility and hatred of all bourgeois

science (both official and liberal), which regards Marxism as a

kind of pernicious sect. And no other attitude is to be expected,

for there can be no impartial social science based on class

struggle.
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To the impact of Marx’s doctrine on economic, political

and social ideas there is no parallel in the whole history of

philosophy. His teachings had a direct impact on the mind of

the masses of working people in various nations. He not only

appealed to their material interests but also affected the mind of

the masses “by imbuing them with an apparently imperturbable

confidence in the absolute truth of his statements and

predictions.”13

Marx did not disagree with Feuerbach’s criticism of

religious alienation, but he was of the view that the religious

alienation is a narrow and limited phenomenon. He divided

man’s alienation from self in different groups depending upon

the fields of his activities namely religious sphere, philosophical

sphere, economic sphere, and social sphere. In religious sphere,

Marx supported the view of Feuerbach that God is the self

alienated form of man. If an individual loses interest in his own

activities, creation, he becomes estranged from the self and he

turns to be God. In the philosophical sphere, man alienates

various products of his philosophical activities in the form of

his principles, commonsense, literature, art, morals, humour,

ridicule etc. In the economic sphere, the products of main

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economic activity are alienated in the form of commodities,

money, capital etc., whereas the individual alienates products of

his social activity in the form of the state, law, social

organizations, social institutions etc. in the social sphere.

Thus, there are various spheres in which man alienates

from himself the products of his own activity. These alienated

products, obviously, make a separate, independent, and

powerful world of objects to which man becomes a slave. For

Marx alienation is the projection of human experience in

thought or social institutions which falsely separate man in

abstract speculation from himself and his fellow man, so that he

is never truly whole and never truly “at home.”14

David Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim founder of the Science of Sociology,

stated that society formed and enlightened the individual; that it

was impossible to alienate the individual from society or to

regard society as the mere dealienation of individuals. This

view of the alienation is the clearest. “It implies rampant

individualism, disintegration of binding social norms.”15

Durkheim’s view about alienation is in the sense of

normlesssness. He has not used the term alienation but

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developed the concept of anomie. This word has its origin in

Greek anomia, which means ‘No Laws.’ Durkheim used the

concept in two senses. Whenever the traditional moral norms

are destroyed a relative normlessness arises in society to which

Durkheim gave the term anomie. A man who lacks norms of

conduct also lives a life which lacks purpose or meaning.

Evidently, the anomie conveys meaninglessness which is one of

the variants of alienation. In the second sense, Durkheim has

used the term to express ‘Social Deviance.’ A man who rejects

the conventional norms of society is said to be alienated.

Durkheim retained his belief in moral values. He established the

priority of group consciousness (society) over individual self-

consciousness. A mind of the group is always more

fundamental and more compelling than individual’s minds and

it is impossible to separate the individual from society. But

alienated persons develop as independent slaves, because of the

detached minds of their own. But the mind of the society is still

dominant in them and it reasserts itself on all occasions. Thus,

he believed that a society controls every one of its members,

and from that control there is no escape. Thus, an alienated

individual is also under the influence of society.

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Sigmund Freud

Freud used the term, alienation, to express a mode of

experience in which the person feels himself as the creator of

his own acts but his acts and their consequences have become

masters, whom he obeys or whom he may even worship.

Freud’s discussion on the concept of alienation is indirect.

According to Freud, alienation is rooted in man’s psyche and

not in society. “Within the confines of the human psyche, Freud

argues, there are two diametrically opposing forces: “Eros”, the

instinct of love and “Thanatos,” the instinct of death”.16 This

causes a conflict in human psyche and man is pulled in opposite

directions by these instincts. The effect of this pull is that man

becomes aggressive and the fear of death incites man to

withdraw from society and its institutions. Hence, Freud is of

the opinion that alienation will never cease to exist because it

originates from human impulses. Consequently, alienation can

only be tranquillized through self-realisation.

Jean Paul Sartre

Jean Paul Sartre, an orphan at an early age, was a

professor of philosophy at one of the greatest colleges of Paris.

After having studied at the Sorbonne and at the German

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University of Gottingen where he was a student of Husserl,

Sartre put forth the view that it is the nature of human being to

feel himself essential in relation to his creations. But

unfortunately, it is the created object which escapes him. Thus,

self-estrangement is a natural state of affairs in a meaningless

and purposeless world. He believes that with each of our acts

the world reveals to us a new face. Although we are directors of

being, we are not its producers. Therefore, our own creations

become master and they will annihilate us. The creations will

never be lost but we shall be lost. Therefore, he considers self-

estrangement a natural state of affairs.

One of the chief motives of man’s creations is the need of

feeling that is essential in relation to the world. Sartre observes:

“If I fix on canvas or in writing a certain aspect of the fields or

the sea or a look on someone’s face which I have disclosed. I

am conscious of having produced them by condensing

relationship, by introducing order where there was none, by

imposing the unity of mind on the diversity of things. That is, I

feel myself essential in relation to my creation. But this time it

is the created object which escapes me; I cannot reveal and

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produce at the same time.”17 Thus, man’s created objects

become alien to him

Present day writers have used the term alienation

differently in various ways. Grodzins defines alienation as

“…the state in which individuals feel no sense of ‘belonging’ to

their community or nation. Personal contacts are neither stable

nor satisfactory.”18

Grodzins sees the alienated person as the ‘Potentially

disloyal citizen’ and suggests that alienation will more probably

occur in certain levels of society. According to Gwynn Nettler,

“alienation is a certain psychological state of a normal person,

and an alienated person is “one who has been estranged from,

made unfriendly towards, his society and the culture it

carries.’”19 Many writers regard alienation as a purely

psychological concept. Others insist that alienation is also an

economic, or political, or sociological, or ethical concept.

Causes of Alienation

(a) Economic

Human history has been fundamentally a struggle

for wealth, and wealth has tended to become more and

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more concentrated in the hands of few to such a point that

many are left with a pittance barely sufficient to enable

them to subsist, and often, without that. Furthermore, the

advantages that the possession of wealth bestows enable

the few to dominate many, to keep them in a condition of

economic slavery, to oppose successfully any attempts

that many may make to obtain a larger share of wealth,

and to induce in them the very feeling of alienation. Marx

contented that the increasing alienation of man from his

environment and from himself was the price of

technological process and of complex division of labour.

According to him the system of private ownership causes

a conflict between workers and owners. This conflict

leads to a serious social tension which, in turn, may give

rise to the process of alienation and dealienation. He saw

alienation as a result of an historical process which would

successively pass through the stages of advanced

capitalism, socialism, communism and so on. In this

historical process man paradoxically gained mastery over

his physical environment only by becoming a slave to

himself and to other men.

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Till today humanity, in total, has not been really

conscious of the economic situation. It has not

sufficiently grasped the character of the conflict which is

simply because of economic differences. But now, with

the shift from agriculture to industry and the substitution

of machinery for handicraft, the class warfare has become

so acute that human beings no longer suffer dumbly its

consequences. They have become conscious of the fact

that there exists a clear cut opposition between the

labouring class and the owner of the capital. This

opposition is the fundamental cause of alienation and

dealienation.

(b) Technological

Modern technological scenario has a great impact

on the individual. When there is conflict between the

heart and the brain, man becomes alienated. His attempt

to adjust himself to machines has completely disrupted

his emotional life. This lack of emotional awareness,

integrity, sincerity, truth and purity makes the individual

feel that the whole universe is opposed to him. In

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contemporary times the individual lacks emotional

environment, sympathy, pity and therefore he is least

worried about the suffering and pain of other individuals

who automatically develop the feeling of alienation in

themselves. This is the adverse effect of the present day

industrialisation.

(c) Sociological

Society has to be treated as a fundamental unit

irreducible to terms of the individuals composing it. In its

collective mind, not in individual mind, the basis of social

values is to be found. Morality is one expression of group

consciousness. Since the collective mind of one group

may differ from that of another, different communities do

not subscribe to the same moral standards. Moreover, the

collective mind is an evolving, changing thing. The

ethical point of view of one and the same community

may alter with time and circumstances. This results in a

complex process of alienation at one time and

dealienation at another. This sense of alienation results in

a wide variety of disorders “…including political apathy,

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intergroup hostility and volatile social movements

seeking direct influence on the political process.”20

Alienation, in one of its aspects, is a social product,

resulting from the conflict between the crowd

consciousness and the individual mind detached from

society. It is the social group which determines the

relations and activities of its parts. This determination is

manifested in the form of power exercised over the

individual by multiple forces of social habits and duties.

(d) Philosophical

Fichte, the great German idealist, has elaborated

the philosophical aspect of alienation. When an

individual is acted upon and determined by the external

world, he is a receptive and passive being, a mere

spectator of existence. He is known as a Theoretic. On

the other hand, if the individual’s behaviour and

experience are not simply reactions to external

surroundings and circumstances determined by their

nature but are his own actions determined only by his

own self, he is an active and practical being. The conflict

between the passive and the active aspects of the

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individual leads to the phenomenon of maladjustment and

ultimately to alienation.

The Absolute Ego divides its experience into an

ego and a non-ego, reciprocally conditioning each other’s

existence in order to become self-conscious. Schelling

has very nicely elaborated the term Absolute: “The

Absolute is an infinite and eternal Reason, in which the

conscious and the unconscious, the subject and the object,

the ego and the non-ego are identical. The Absolute

Reason is one.”21 So it is clear that the distinction and

opposition between the conscious and the unconscious,

spirit and matter, the self and no self, are an illusion. If

we take the law of attraction and repulsion, “…the

Absolute is the point of indifference or absolute

equilibrium in which the expansion and the contraction

underlying the ego and the non-ego exactly balance and

cancel each other.”22 Here is a Reality transcending the

opposition between idealism and realism. If the

individual does not attain the ‘Absolute’, he is in the

process of attaining it and during the process he may miss

the balance or equilibrium. The confusion in his thoughts

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may lead to a sort of depression from which he may never

recover. This permanency of depression lying in his own

self may cause his alienation from the self.

(e) Psychological

Unsuccessfully repressed conflicts are considered

significant causes. Generally speaking, the conflict is

between the individual’s instinctual desires, motives or

wishes on the one hand, and conditioned disposition to

adhere to customs and conventions, laid down by the

social group to which he belongs, on the other. When his

efforts to reconcile these conflicting strivings fail, tension

and anxiety is the result. His behaviour becomes

abnormal, characterized in the beginning by the violent

outbursts of temper. He shows no repentance or remorse

even if he commits murder. The personality, in order to

avoid various painful situations, may resort to such

mental activities as make him estranged from the self, the

society, the civilization, the culture etc.

Variants of Alienation

Alienation has the following six variants:

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i) Meaninglessness

ii) Powerlessness

iii) Self-alienation

iv) Social alienation

v) Cultural Estrangement

vi) Alienation from work or Alienated Labour.

i) Meaninglessness

Melvin Seeman observes that meaninglessness

results. “When the individual is unclear as to what he

ought to believe when the individual’s minimal standards

for clarity in decision-making are not met.”23 Every man

thinks that his method is the best and meaningful. But what

appears meaningful to one may not be necessarily so to

others.

This variant of alienation depends on the individual

and his circumstances. The individual does not find any

interest in his surroundings. He sees no purpose in life. He

becomes apathetic and refuses to mix with other members

of society. He develops in himself the ideas of self-

depreciation which may lead to delusions, hopelessness,

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worthlessness, poverty and sin. Suicidal tendencies are

common, though the individual may develop homicidal

tendency.

The idea of meaninglessness refers, “either to the

lack of comprehensibility or consistent meaning in any

domain of action (such as world affairs or interpersonal

relations) or to a generalized sense of purposelessness in

life.”24

ii) Powerlessness

Power can be defined as the essential effort of

individual to resist annihilation and to defy morality. It is

with the help of power that the individuals evolve all sorts

of devices of offense and defence with which they want to

cling to life. Thus, we have the Darwinian struggle for

existence and survival of the fittest.

Power does not accept the role of external agents in

life. Since each human being is a manifestation of the will

for power, his fundamental necessity and desire is to be

strong and to exert and exhibit power in all its

manifestations. The greatest exhibit of power lies in the

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spiritual strength of the individual to accept the very

phenomenon of reality. Everyman loves the possession of

body, passions, beauty and to achieve these he exerts

power and thus imposes a struggle and a conflict upon

him. This struggle for existence is a struggle against the

environment, a struggle to adjust not the organism to the

exigencies of its surroundings but those surroundings to

the exigencies of the organism. And the fittest to survive

are those, who are strong enough to cope with the

environment and submit it to their desires and needs. For

that matter, survival is not an automatic affair. Nietzsche

German Philosopher, (1844–1900) clears the conception of

power saying, “Nothing survives that does not actively

want to survive, and the fittest are those in whom the Will

to Live is most powerful.”25 But the power expresses itself

in passion, emotion, deep feeling, action and a fighting

spirit. Man is a spectator as well as an actor. He yearns for

peace and tranquillity in a world better, more beautiful,

more orderly and more rational than the actual world. So it

is that he dreams and sees vision in which he pretends that

existence is not what it is and thus in his imagination,

humanizes the inhumanity of the universe. He tries to

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falsify life in the interest of strength and in doing so, he

himself becomes powerless. Melvin Seeman has rightly

defined powerlessness as a variant of alienation which can

be conceived as the’ “Expectancy or probability held by

the individual that his own behaviour cannot determine the

occurrence of the outcome, or reinforcement, he seeks.”26

Powerlessness makes man feel that his destiny is not under

control of his power but is definitely affected by various

external agents like facts, families, social institutions,

cultural activities, illnesses, live affairs, etc.

iii) Self–Alienation

In self-alienation the person experiences himself as

an alien. He becomes estranged from self. The term self -

alienation expresses the following characteristics:

1. An action of the self may result in the division of the

self into two conflicting parts which become alien to

each other.

2 The division into two conflicting parts does not

destroy the unity of the self.

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Man is alienated from self in all the four functions

– thinking, feeling, instinctive and moving. It is in the

nature of man to identify himself with everything, with

what he says, what he feels, what he wishes, what he does

not wish. Everything absorbs him and he cannot separate

himself from the idea, the feeling or the object that

absorbed him. But in one state man constantly worries

about what other people think of him, whether they give

him his due, they admire him enough and so on and so

forth. In some people this type of identification becomes an

obsession. All their lives are filled with considering – that

is, worry, doubt and suspicion and there remain no place

for anything else. Gradually the process deepens and man

becomes alienated even from self.

iv) Social Alienation

The socially alienated person feels lonely even in the

presence of others. Hegel opines: “Still, in its primitive

form social consciousness is a consciousness of opposition,

of conflicting and clashing wills at war with one another.

This opposition can be completely overcome only by a

self-conscious and voluntary identification of the private

 27

with the public self, and of the individual with the common

interest.27

It is because of the institutions of society and the

state that the clash of individuals is largely prevented, but

prevented by means in which the individual does not as yet

willingly acquiesce. Social organization, therefore, exerts

compulsion upon individuals and forces them to conduct

themselves in a way that is still against their will and

imposes limitation upon their freedom. In society, the

individual has to obey social norms. To put it specifically

it is individual who is controlled by social norms. The

socially alienated individual is one who ignores the social

norms. This condition of normlessness denotes a situation

in which the social norms regulating individual’s conduct

have broken down and the individual exhibits lack of

commitment to shared social rules for behaviour. This

normlessness results in widespread deviance, suspicion,

tension, unrestrained individual competition, hatred etc.

Emile Durkheim’s description of “anomie”28 refers to a

condition of normlessness.

v) Cultural Estrangement
 28

Culture is the man made part of the environment.

According to E.B. Tylor: “Culture is that complex whole

which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law,

customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by

man as a member of society.”29 In fact, culture is the

expression of our nature in our modes of living and of

thinking, in our everyday intercourse in art, in literature, in

religion, in recreation, and in enjoyment.

Cultural Estrangement denotes the individual’s

deviation from society and the culture it carries and the

individual deviated from social norms suffers from cultural

estrangement also. The cultural estrangement causes the

lack of feeling of social responsibility, upbringing and

training, tolerance of suffering and the lack of respect for

others.

vi) Alienation from work or Alienated Labour

G.Petrovic observes: “Alienated labour, a well

known fragment in Marx’s Economic and Philosophic

Manuscripts, seems to suggest that we should distinguish

between four forms of man’s alienation: the alienation of

man from the products of his own activity, the alienation

 29

of man from his productive activity itself, the alienation of

man from his human essence, and the alienation of man

from other men.”30

The springboard of alienation in Marxian terms is

“work and division of labour,” which is based on the

existence of economic classes: “It was man’s nature, Marx

held, to realize himself in work, but the possibility of doing

so was denied to him by the economic system. Thus, the

key problem was alienated labour under capitalism… .”31

The Marxist concept of alienation stems from

economics, that is, the accumulation of capital through

profit and exploitation of the working class. According to

Marx, man is basically a social animal, but the exploitative

class structure separates him from his fellow men, the

environment, the society and its institutions.

Thus, it is vivid that the term alienation has been

given various interpretations. But after analyzing all the

points of Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Durkheim, Freud and

Sartre it may be concluded that alienation is the permanent

gap between man and man, man himself. In short, the

alienation is the inconsistency between work and attitude.

 30

Such inconsistency is frequently seen in the plays of

Christopher Marlowe.

End Notes

1. G. Petrovic. “Alienation.” The Encyclopaedia of

Philosophy. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
76. Print.

2. Erich Kahler. The Tower and the Abyss. New York:

Braziller, 1967. 43. Print.

3. Nicholas Lobkowicz. “Alienation.” Marxism, Communism

and Western Society: A Comparative
Encyclopaedia. Vol. 1. New York: Herder, 1972.
88. Print.

4. Ibid; p. 88

5. Ibid. p. 90
 31

6. Ibid. p. 90

7. Robert A. Nisbet. The Quest for Community. New York:

Oxford UP, 1953. 15 Print.

8. G. Petrovic. “Alienation.” The Encyclopaedia of

Philosophy. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
76-77. Print.

9. Idem
10. B.A.G. Fuller. A History of Philosophy. 3rd ed. New York:
Holt, 1955. 368. Print.

11. G. Petrovic. “Alienation.” The Encyclopaedia of

Philosophy. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
76. Print.

12. Ludwig Feuerbach. “Above Religion.” Treasury of

Philosophy. Ed. Dagobert D. Runes. New York.
n.p., 1955. 395. Print.

13. Dagobert D. Runes. Treasury of Philosophy. New York:

n.p., 1955. 789. Print.

14. Lloyd D. Easton and Kurt H. Guddat. Writings of the

Young Marx on Philosophy and Society. New
York:
Doubleday, 1967. 11. Print.
 32

15. Melvin Seeman. “Alienation.” The New Encyclopaedia

Britannica. 1977 ed. 575. Print.

16. Constantine Danopoulos and Padmakant Patel. “The

Concepts of Alienation in Marcuse’s
Philosophy.”Indian Journal of American Studies.
10.1 (1980): 13. Print.

17. Dagobert D. Runes. Jean Paul Sartre, Treasury of

Philosophy. n.p:n.p., 1955. 1055. Print.
18. Morton Grodzins. The Loyal and the Disloyal. Chicago:
Chicago UP, 1956. 134. Print.

19. Gwynn Nettler. “A Measure of Alienation.” American

Sociological Review. 22.1 (1957): 672. Print.

20. Melvin Seeman. “Alienation.” The New Encyclopaedia

Britannica. 1977 ed. 575. Print.

21. B.A.G. Fuller. A History of Philosophy. 3rd ed. New York:

Holt, 1955.299. Print.

22. Idem.

23. Melvin Seeman. “On the meaning of alienation.” American

Sociological Review. 24 (1959):786. Print.
 33

24. _____________ “Alienation.” The New Encyclopaedia

Britannica. 1977 ed. 574. Print.

25. B.A.G. Fuller. A History of Philosophy. 3rd ed. New York:

Holt, 1969. 445. Print.

26. Melvin Seeman. “On the meaning of alienation.” American

Sociological Review. 24 (1959):786. Print.

27. B.A.G. Fuller. A History of Philosophy. 3rd ed. New York:

Holt, 1955. 309. Print.
28. "Anomie.” The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology.
London:
Penguin, 1985. 38. Print.

29. E.B. Tylor. Primitive Culture. Vol. 7. London: n.p., 1871.

7.
Print.

30. G. Petrovic. “Alienation.” The Encyclopaedia of

Philosophy. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
78. Print.

31. Melvin Seeman. “Alienation.” The New Encyclopaedia

Britannica. 1977 ed. 574. Print.
 34

CHAPTER – II

Marlowe – The Man

 35

The Elizabethan age crowned itself with the imperishable

glory of many a triumphant culmination. It faced a world of vast

horizons, new ideas, infinite aspirations, opportunities and rich

rewards. Untrodden pathways promised unworn laurels. “With

the third decade of Elizabeth’s reign opens its most glorious

period, political and intellectual. One of the tendencies of the

Renaissance epoch throughout Europe was to break down the

medieval hierarchy of classes, and to substitute a compact

national body with the throne as head and centre of its life.”1

This movement had influenced England and left its mark on

literature. Two very different forces, the growth of national

spirit and the establishment of permanent theatres, combined to

affect the dramatists. Life was full of thronging opportunities,

and every opportunity throbbed with a living sense of the

nearness of the unreachable and the obvious affinity of the real

 36

with the ideal. The general activities of time found their

authentic echo in the artistic accomplishments in the realm of

literature. Next only to poetry, drama held the allegiance of the

writers of the day and flourished in an amazing manner,

reaching points of perfection undreamt of before. By the

mysterious waving of some magic wand, as it were, the crude

forms of early drama, the Mysteries, Miracles, Moralities,

Masques and Interludes, yielded place to the comparatively

finished products of drama proper. The establishment, in 1576,

of the first permanent public playhouse in London, and the rapid

growth of such theatres soon after, quickened even the common

people’s interest in drama and led indirectly to an improvement

in its quality. The theaters flourished as important centres of the

social life of the time, comparable to the clubs of today in their

intimate touch with the daily life about them and also in their

task of affording both amusement and information to the public.

Tragedy which derived its artistic stimulus from the bloody

adventures, gruesome deeds, daring ambitions and heroic

struggles of the time, enjoyed unquestioned supremacy. But the

promiscuous taste of the people which thirsted for sensation

joyed in a comedy of beatings, a tragedy of murders and a

mixture of jigging and villainy. Thus, the ego (the persons with
 37

a literary bent) in postulating its own existence, necessarily

assumed the existence of a non-ego (the plays). The problems of

livelihood threatened the ego unconsciously to cause an

inherent conflict which ultimately led to the process of

alienation and dealienation.

From both the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge,

there flocked to London many educated young men eager to

cater to the theatrical demand. These were called by the general

name – the University Wits, because they had their education at

the Universities. They were a strenuous, if not always wise, set

of professed men of letters, a professional set of literary men.

F.S. Boas observes: “There is a singular resemblance in the

lives and career of all these men. They were of good birth and

position, graduates of the University, members of learned

societies, cultivated by foreign travel. Yet when they settled in

London they plunged into the wildest debauchery.”2 They

produced a considerable body of dramatic work, including

tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies all of the Romantic type

as opposed to the Classical. In the work of these University

Wits, especially in the work of the five greater University Wits,

as Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Lyly and Kyd have been called,

 38

there are in evidence the birth throes of a new dramatic style

and technique.

The University Wits are the real founders of the great

Elizabethan Drama and the immediate predecessors as well as

contemporaries of Shakespeare, who not only took many a hint

from them but, as tradition has it, collaborated with some of

them, notably Kyd and Marlowe. Lyly, who made his name

with his Euphues belongs more to the history of prose than to

that of drama. Peel’s plays show a great variety of subjects:

Classical, Romantic, Biblical, Historical. Greene, Lodge and

Nash form a more or less distinct group or sub-group of play–

wrights who wrote for the popular stage. Of these Greene alone

is remarkable as a dramatist. “The dramatic work of Lodge and

Nash is almost negligible, certainly they are inferior to their

contemporaries, remarkable though they be in the domain of

fiction.”3 While all these made contributions to the development

of the drama, they did not supply thrilling action demanded by

the public. This was done splendidly by Kyd and Marlowe.

Whether Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy or Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the

Great came first, it is difficult to say: “What is certain is that

both made a hit about the same time 1586 or 1587. But the great
 39

genius of Christopher Marlowe justifies him to be ‘the greatest

of the band’ ”4 and “The great protagonist of Elizabethan

drama.”5 He, only he, serves as an illustrious and worthy

predecessor of Shakespeare. Nathan Drake says: “Marlowe,

Christopher, is an author, an object of great admiration and

encomium in his own times, and of all the dramatic poets who

preceded Shakespeare, certainly the one who possessed the

most genius.”6

Christopher Marlowe, the youngest but the greatest of the

University Wits was a great purveyor of thrills on Elizabethan

Stage. But it is sad to note that precious little is known of his

life and its details. Comprehensive research of scholars like

Tucker Brooke, Frederick S. Boas, Bakeless, Miss de Kalb,

Miss Seaton, Miss Ellis-Fermor and Leslie Hotson have

vanished much of the mystery that shrouded the life and death

of Marlowe for a long time.

Christopher Marlowe was the second son of a well-to-do

shoemaker, John Marlowe, his mother was Catherine, the

daughter of the rector of St. Peter’s. He was born at Canterbury

on the 6th of February 1564. He was christened at St. George’s

Church at Canterbury on the 26th of February, about two

 40

months before the baptism of his great successor, William

Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon. From the scanty information

at our disposal, Marlowe seems to have started his education at

the King’s school, Canterbury which he entered on 14th January

1576. There he remained in the valuable company of such

fellow students as Richard Bayle, afterwards known as the great

Earl of Cork and Will Lyly, the brother of John Lyly, the

dramatist. Just before his fifteenth birthday, he was gifted with

one of the fifty scholarships to King’s School, which was held

within the cathedral precincts at Canterbury. At seventeen he

obtained one of the three scholarships from King’s school to

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. These scholarships were

founded by Archbishop Parker. They lasted for three years, or,

on the understanding that the student intended to take Holy

Orders, for six years.

Marlowe’s career at Cambridge was uneventful. He took

his degrees in the usual period, the B.A. in the spring of 1583-4

and the M.A. in July 1587. The fact that he retained his

scholarship for the full period of six years indicates that he was

understood to be a candidate for Holy Orders. The only

irregularity in Marlowe’s University career was his failure to

 41

take Holy Orders at the end of it. He satisfied the requirements

of the University without displaying signs of intellectual

precocity. His scholarship at King’s school was taken at the

latest legal age, and he entered the University at seventeen, an

age late rather than early at that time. His degrees were not of

outstanding brilliance: and certainly none suspected him of

being a poet.

After leaving Cambridge Marlowe had less than six years

to live. About this period we know very little. He lived in

London or the surrounding parts of Kent. He was apparently

well off, though his source of livelihood is not known. He did

not, like many of the early Elizabethans, descend to literary

hack-work; and his output was small.

He kept good company, he was friend of Sir Walter

Raleigh and Sir Thomas Walsingham. He was a friend of Nashe

and Chapman. He incurred the enmity of Greene and Thomas

Kyd, with whom for a short period he worked in the same room.

His plays were performed by the Company of the Lord Admiral,

Howard of Effingham, and, after the suppression of their

performances by the Lord Mayor in November 1589, by the

Company of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange.

 42

In October 1589 Marlowe was summoned before

Newgate session and released on bail. The nature of his offence

is not known. It is conjectured to have been a breach of the

peace, perhaps in connection with the theatre.

Marlowe spent the early months of 1593 at the house of

Mr. Thomas Walsingham, at Scadbury near Chislehurst. It is

probable that he left London because of the plague, which had

been raging since the previous summer. In May of this year

Thomas Kyd was in trouble with the authorities. His rooms

were searched and among his papers were found some

“atheistical” documents, which he alleged to be the property of

Marlowe and to have been left from the period when they

worked together. Marlowe was summoned before the Privy

Council to answer from his alleged heretical views. He was not

imprisoned and apparently apprehended no serious danger.

There is not sufficient evidence that he was ever engaged in

political intrigue, and he had powerful supporters. It is true, a

formal indictment for blasphemy was drawn up against him by

one Richard Baines. He submitted allegations that Marlowe had

spoken treasonably, blasphemously and in praise of

homosexuality. It was told that he wrote a book against the

 43

Trinity and that he declared that Christ was a bastard and his

mother dishonest. But before some action could be taken

against Marlowe’s heretical views denying the deity Jesus

Christ, he left this mortal world for his heavenly abode and thus

the world lost a genius gifted with literary brilliance.

Various accounts of Marlowe’s death have been given by

different writers. However, according to the most reliable

version, based on the evidence of documents in the Public

Record office, Marlowe was murdered by one of his

companions, Ingram Frizer at an inn on the 30th May, 1593. He

spent the day at a tavern in Deptford, a little village about three

miles from London, in the company of Ingram Frizer, Robert

Poley and Nicholas Skeres, three men of doubtful reputation.

Here he was stabbed by Frizer with a dagger which caused a

fatal wound over Marlowe’s eye. According to the story told at

an inquest on June 1, after supper, Marlowe and Frizer

quarreled about the reckoning and it was Marlowe himself who

first attacked Frizer and latter was, thus, compelled to kill him

in self-defence. Frizer was pardoned on June 18. Marlowe was

buried at St. Nicholas church, Deptford on June 1.

 44

This brilliant detection of facts about Marlowe’s death is

particularly attributed to the remarkable discoveries of a young

American scholar, J.L. Hotson, who searched through the

Elizabethan documents in the Public Record office in Chancery

Lane. He came to the conclusion:

…As its chief contribution, this paper provides the

authoritative answer to the riddle of Marlowe’s

death. We know now that he was killed by a

companion of his, one Ingram Frizer, gentleman,

servant to Mr. Thomas Walsingham, in the

presence of two witnesses, Robert Poley and

Nicholas Skeres. The testimony of these men

before the Coroner’s jury was that Marlowe

attacked Frizer from behind, and this account was

borne out to the satisfaction of the Jury by the

evidence of two wounds on Frizer’s head. Frizer

was pardoned, as having killed Marlowe in self-

defence. It is important to remark that he did not

forfeit the good graces of his employers, the

Walsinghams, who were friends of the man whom

he slew.
 45

Marlowe died instantly. This fact destroys most of

the interest in Beard’s account, which builds on the

assumption that the poet died a more or less

lingering death, in the course of which he ‘cursed

and blasphemed to the last gaspe, and together with

his breathe an oth flew out of his mouth’… .7

After his death in 1593, Marlowe was remembered quite

differently by two groups of people. To the puritan writers, who

were intent upon attacking the corrupting influence of stage

plays, Marlowe’s sudden and violet death seemed to be a clear

sign of God’s Judgement against him for his heretical attitude

and immoral life. William Vaughan says: “Not inferior to these,

was one Christopher Marlowe, by Profession a play-maker,

who, as it is reported, about 14 years ago wrote a booke

againste the Trinitie; but see the effects of God’s Justice; it so

happened that at Deptford, a little village about three miles

distant form London, as he meant to stab with is ponyard one

named Ingram, that had invited him thither to a feast, and was

then playing at tables, he quickly perceiving it, so avoydede the

thrust, that with all drawing out his dagger for his defence, hee

stabbed this Marlowe in the eye, in such sort, that his braynes
 46

coming out at the daggers point, hee shortly after dyed. Thus

did God, the true executioner of divine Justice, worke the ende

of impious atheists.”8

Undoubtedly the intellectual position implicit in his

writings allies him to the currents of Renaissance Skepticism

which was challenging the medieval notion of a harmonious

creation ruled over by God. Marlowe stands at the beginning of

his career in opposition to the Christian humanism of Richard

Hooker; he is in the company of Bruno, Montaigne, and

Machiavelli. “Marlowe was seriously concerned with Atheism,

Machiavellianism and Epicureanism as alternative ways of life

to the scholastic Christianity in which he had been brought up at

Canterbury and Cambridge.”9 These tendencies in Marlowe

bring serious charge of atheism against him and display the

seeds of alienation deep rooted in his personality.

Marlowe seems to have been a young-man of bold self

assurance, of passionate and fiery temper both in word and in

act, and of a biting and sarcastic tongue. His conversation was

rationalistic and iconoclastic; he was apt to speak irreverently

and flippantly upon religious matters. Thus, he shocked many of

his milder associates during his life and after his death incurred
 47

the serious charge of atheism. With such passages in his

writings as the last soliloquy of Faustus it is impossible to write

down Marlowe as a mere cynic in religion. Yet it is most

probable that he was going through a period of religious doubt

and troubled by the usual intellectual difficulties about the

doctrine of the trinity, the incarnation, etc. Such doubts and

questionings are natural in a young man of independent

intellect and fearless disposition, who had for six years been

subjected to the arid routine of scholastic philosophy as then

taught at Cambridge, and who had refused to proceed to Holy

Orders at the end of his course. Expressed in conversation in a

violent and somewhat imprudent way, such sentiments would

offend the more timid and orthodox minds in an age when

political suppression of religious unorthodoxy was strict.

It cannot be denied that Marlowe, like his companions of

the theatre, punctuated the ardours of his work with the abandon

of loose living. But the charge of atheism cannot be definitely

levelled against him. His Doctor Faustus itself stands him in

good stead. The theme of the play presents the fascination for

forbidden things and thoughts, yet it surely stands for the

negation of the atheistic creed. Who can brand Marlowe as an

atheist after reading the last lines of the play.

 48

CHORUS. Faustus is gone, regard his hellish fall;

Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise,

Only to wonder at unlawful things,

Whose deepness doth entice such forward

wits,

To practice more than heauenly power

permits.10

Thus, the ultimate triumph of theism over atheism clearly brings

out the dealienated personality of Christopher Marlowe at a

later stage.

William Hazlitt remarks: “…There is a lust of power in

(Marlowe’s) writings, a hunger and thirst after unrighteousness,

a glow of the imagination, unhallowed by anything but its own

energies. His thoughts burn within him like a furnace with

bickering flames; or throwing out black smoke and mist, that

hide the dawn of genius, or like a poisonous mineral, which

corrode the heart….”11

Doctor Faustus is a reflection of the personality of

Marlowe. Reading the play one cannot refrain from concluding

that it is the spontaneous expression of its writer’s innermost

thoughts and authentic experiences. The storm of doubt and

 49

despair, of suffering and sin, that sweeps through the scenes of

the play, does not seem to be the work of a mere imaginative

artist who conjures it forth from the confines of his own mind,

but of one who must have stood upto the chin in such

experiences. There is no doubt that the writer of Doctor Faustus

appears to be one who has experienced a great spiritual tragedy

and thus reflects the phenomenon of spiritual alienation in his

personality. “In the character of Dr Faustus we see that a sense

of harmony between his mind and the universal force around

him is shaken and his intimacy with persons popularly

suspected of heresy, and whatever rumours may have begun to

circulate about his own atheism, his career, except for his arrest

and fortnight’s imprisonment in September, 1589, seems to

have run prosperously from his success with the Tamburlaine

plays till the spring of 1592. Nor was there then any check to

the flow of his genius, but during the last year of his life clouds

increasingly blackened his firmament, presaging the final

tragedy of 30 May 1593.”12

The writings of Christopher Marlowe give us not a

shadowy idea but an intimate glimpse of the alienated

personality of the writer. John Marlowe (the dramatist’s father),

 50

himself parish clerk of St. Mary’s as well as the pension which

young Christopher received as a student of St. Benet’s Hall

from the Archbishop Parker’s endowment, intended that he

should take up Holy Orders. But as it turned out, Marlowe

secured his M.A degree, throw himself into the vortex of the

Metropolitan life of London, associated himself with bohemian

fellows, and was perhaps impressed by the prevailing tendency

to free thinking or religious subjects. On account of all this he

must have felt as one who has lost his self and become

alienated. Through his heroes, he has expressed his insatiable

desires to attain power, knowledge and heavy with a feeling of

loss. Marlowe, like Faustus, seems to have realized that all he

had learnt and known, all he had attempted and achieved with

the help of his intellectual equipment, helped not to strengthen

his soul but to lose it, by being cut off from the rich natural

resources of inspiration and of faith: “Marlowe must have

recognized in Faustus his own counterpart. The Canterbury boy

through the bounty of Arch Bishop Parker, had reached

Cambridge to qualify himself there for the clerical career. His

studies had earned him the bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but

he had turned his back on the church, and on arrival in London

had gained a reputation for atheism. Similarly, Faustus through

 51

the bounty of a rich uncle had been sent to Wittenberg to study

divinity, and had obtained with credit his Doctorate in the

subject. But his interest lay elsewhere, and he had turned

secretly to the study of necromancy and conjuration.”13

In addition to this, Faustus shares his creator’s many

more qualities–his poetic talent, his love of the Classical world,

his lasciviousness, his Epicureanism, and his faith that beauty

has power to wash off sorrow from the human heart.

The poets and dramatists some of whom had been

Marlowe’s friends, remembered him primarily as a poet. He

was regarded by his contemporaries as the greatest of them all.

Marlowe’s death was lamented and his poetic genius

appreciated by George Peele:

Unhappy in thine end,

Marley, the muses, darling for the verse,

Fit to write passions for the souls below,

If any wretched souls in passion speak.14

Michael Drayton also praised him:

Neat Marlowe bathed in the Thespian springs.

Had in him those brave translunary things

 52

That the first poets had, his raptures were,

All ayre and fire, which made his verses

cleere,

For that fine madness still he did retaine,

Which rightly should possesse a poet’s

braine.15

Edward Dowden comments on his genius as follows: “It

is, however, amongst the pre-Shakespearians that we find the

man who, of all the Elizabethan dramatists, stands next to

Shakespeare in poetical stature, the one man who, if he had

lived longer and accomplished the work which lay clear before

him, might have stood even besides Shakespeare, as supreme in

a different province of dramatic art. Shakespeare would have

been master of the realists or naturalists: Marlowe, master of the

idealists.”16

Marlowe was, in every sense of the word, a

revolutionary. He was an important young man straining to

break the shackles of prescribed thought and the prevailing

modes of writing. In the field of drama he was a true pioneer

breaking new ground and paving the way for the greater

achievements of Shakespeare. The hackneyed themes, involving

 53

bluster and rant could not satisfy him. He revolutionized the

theme of drama and focused attention on the tragic hero, on the

one hand and forged a more supple medium of expression in the

form of blank verse, on the other hand.

The period of Marlowe’s dramatic activity comprises six

brief years, from 1587 to 1593. Yet during those six years he

wrote six splendid plays, all reflecting his essential sprit and

nature, all full of power, passion and poetry. Before Marlowe’s

coming to the forefront, English drama was lacking in several

aspects. Elizabethan theatre was passing through a period when

the scholarly critics were not satisfied with the plays then

produced and performed because they were full of mere

buffoonery and drollery. On the other hand, the majority of the

theatre going public consisted of the groundings, who were

addicted to clownage and buffoonery. The pre-Marlovian

dramatists were chiefly concerned with catering to their taste.

Therefore, those dramatists and their plays were unacceptable to

a considerable section of citizens. “It was still a question

whether any man would arise of sufficient genius to

successfully combat these sinister influences, and become the

dramatic interpreter of the Elizabethan ‘grand age.’ By 1587

 54

the question was determined, for in that year Marlowe

produced upon the stage part–I of his Tamburlaine the Great,

followed shortly afterwards by Part–II.”17 This is what, dazzled

the Elizabethan audience. The very subject matter and style of

Tamburlaine sounded a new and striking note compelling

public attention and admiration.

Marlowe started his dramatic career with a definite

purpose. Nothing explains his mission more clearly than the

opening lines of Tamburlaine the Great. The Prologue to this

play contains a spontaneous utterance of the poet’s own

mastering dream of greatness. He seems to be fully armed to

launch an attack on the old dramatic methods. The very opening

lines of the play contain what may be described as Marlowe’s

dramatic manifesto:

CHORUS. From Jigging veins of rhyming mother wits,

And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay,

Weele lead you to the stately tent of War,

Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine.

Threat’ning the world with high astounding

terms,
 55

And scourging kingdoms with his conquering

sword.18

Very rarely has a young and raw dramatist announced so

emphatically his revolt against the worn out conventions.

Through these introductory verses, Marlowe appealed much to

the mind and heart of his audiences and proclaimed as well that

his plays would differ from the conventional type alike in

language and subject. With the ‘Jigging veins’ of rhymsters are

contrasted the Scythian’s high astounding terms, while his

heroic explicit are similarly placed against the mere conceits of

clownage.

With this proclaimed mission, rejecting completely the

conventional dramatic norms, Marlowe started meeting the

demand of the hungry Elizabethan stage as best as he could.

The chronology of Marlowe’s writings is not wholly settled, but

most scholars would accept the following:

1585 – 6 Dido, Queen of Carthage, (But it may have

been among Marlowe’s later works; it was

published in 1594, in collaboration with

Thomas Nashe).
 56

1587 – 8 Tamburlaine the Great, Parts One and Two.

1589 – 90 The Jew of Malta

1590 – 2 The Massacre at Paris

1592 – 3 Doctor Faustus

1591 – 3 Edward the Second

Besides the above mentioned plays, his poetic works

include “Hero and Leander” and “The Passionate Shepherd to

his Love.” He also translated “The First Book of Lucan” and

“Ovid’s Elegies.” In any assessment of Marlowe, the fact of his

early and premature death must be kept in mind. Judging from

the quality of the work he accomplished, none should have any

hesitation in saying that had he been granted the normal span of

life, he would have been a potent rival to Shakespeare.

During the years 1587–1593, Marlowe gave to English

audiences a series of plays which were entirely different in

quality from those of his predecessors. It was a new type of

tragedy the chief charm of which emerges not form the crude

change in the fortunes of the hero from prosperity to adversity

but from his spiritual predicament and internal suffering.

Tragedy for him was not a thing merely of kings and princes at
 57

whose death even the heavens blazed forth. Marlowe wrought

tragedy out of the defeat, and death of common individuals fired

with insatiable aspiration. His heroes are great not by their rank

in life but by their individual worth. His Tamburlaine is a

common peasant, his Jew an ordinary money lender and Faustus

a German scholar and alchemist. It is the boundless and

unachievable ambition of these heroes that has made the theme

of his three great tragedies. Edward II, no doubt, is a king and

not a common man. In king Edward Marlowe has depicted the

fall of a king but a king who is less regal than human. It was not

only in the selection of his themes and heroes that the greatness

of Marlowe lay. In his treatment of a tragic theme he was

equally great. It was he who first displayed the art of designing

tragedies on a grand scale, by bringing about a unity of action,

character and interest. Compton Rickett observes: “He raised

the subject matter of the drama to a higher level. He provided

big heroic-subjects that appealed to the imagination.

Tamburlaine–a world conqueror; Faustus in pursuit of universal

knowledge. Barabas with fabulous dreams of wealth; Edward II

with his mingling nobility and worthlessness, sounding the

heights and debts of human nature.”19

 58

Marlowe actually introduced a new class of tragic

subjects eminently suited to dramatic handling. Almost all his

stories make a notable contribution to tragic themes. He is

motivated by an entirely new conception of tragedy. For him a

tragic play is not merely a thing dealing with life and death; or

bloody crime or a reversal of fortune. It is, for him, something

higher and more sublime. It is the struggle for a great

personality for the unattainable – a struggle which leads him to

inevitable death and destruction. “The insatiable sprit of

adventures; the master passions of love and hate; ideals of

beauty; the greatness and littleness of human life: these were his

subjects.”20 We even see the conception of a tragic flaw in

Marlowe’s heroes much before Shakespeare perfected the idea.

Tamburlaine is dominated by a master passion for world

conquest which might represent the true Renaissance spirit of

attaining the unattainable but which also turns out to be the

doom of a shepherd who aimed too high. David Daiches

remarks:

“… the interest in pride, in lust for power, in man as

master of his own destiny challenging and vying with the gods –

‘How noble in reasons! How infinite in faculties! In form and

 59

moving how express and admirable! In action how like an

angel! In apprehension how like a god!’ – and Imagining that by

an effort of the will he can control fortune’s wheel-all this is in

Tamburlaine, a play which ignores moral considerations to

exhibit the impressiveness of boundless ambition coupled with

determination and self confidence that similarly know no

limits.”21

Doctor Faustus again has the inordinate ambition to

become a demigod. In him Marlowe depicts the anguish of a

mind at war with itself and Doctor Faustus reveals for the first

time in English drama the beginnings of psychological tragedy.

From crude external conflict we are led on to an inner conflict

of the hero. It is true that there is nothing like the subtle

psychological conflict of Shakespearean heroes in Marlowe but

it is also equally true that the conception of tragedy put forward

by him was unknown before. With his plays put on the stage,

English tragedy had assumed a status of its own and could show

signs of a high destiny which it acquired in the hands of

Shakespeare.

As the creator of English blank verse Marlowe’s position

is still more secure. His establishment of blank verse as a

 60

vehicle for English poetic tragedy is perhaps, his most

important contribution to the growth of drama. The Classical

imitations had made use of this medium. It had been employed

in Gorboduc and in many plays after that but Marlowe found

the blank verse of the Classical school dull and lifeless. He was

the first Englishman to recognize the limitless possibilities of

the instrument he was handling and put it to the best possible

use. It was he who unlocked the secrets of blank verse and

taught his successors how to play upon its hundred stops. He

found in the blank verse of his predecessors a slavish adherence

to the heroic line monotonous, monosyllabic, divided into five

feet of tolerably regular alternate shorts and longs. In this blank

verse each line stood by itself ending with a pause. This line

pausing at the end could hardly suit the genius of Marlowe

whose poetry required a medium which could express its entire

lyrical intensity and varying moods. Marlowe, therefore,

fashioned out of the dull meter of his forerunners a rhythmical

language that could assume the diversity of cadences and was

adaptable to the swift current of his ideas and emotions. David

Daiches observes: “English tragedy had not yet, however, found

a blank verse eloquent and musical enough to add to the effect

of poetic conviction to that of rhetorical excitement. Nor had it

 61

yet turned to themes that came truly home to the Elizabethan

imagination. In the hands of Christopher Marlowe it advanced

spectacularly toward the achievement of these two goals.

Marlowe, the most striking personality and the most impressive

dramatist among the University Wits, stormed his way into

popular favour with Tamburlaine the Great, a play in two parts

probably first produced in the winter of 1587-88 when the

author was still in his early twenties. This flamboyant story of

the conquering Scythian Shepherd, presented in a richly

declamatory blank verse abounding in colourful images of

power and violence, brought a new kind of life to the English

theatre.”22

Marlowe could see that blank verse , used properly, could

express the subtlest of reasoning as well as the loftiest of

emotions It is because of this that his blank verse has freedom

and music in it. It is in the purple patches of his plays that we

can seek the inherent force of his language. In passages like the

death scene of Edward II or the impassioned outcry of Faustus

for the safety of his soul, we find Marlowe’s blank verse

flowing like a stream. In revealing the latent capacity of blank

 62

verse Marlowe can be taken as an innovator and the teacher and

guide of Shakespeare.

Another great thing that is credited to Marlowe is his

infusion of poetic passion into drama. The creation of intensely

poetic drama is one achievement of Marlowe. It has often been

said that Marlowe’s poetry reached sublime heights to the

disadvantage of his dramatic art. All this tends to prove that

Marlowe’s poetic genius failed to satisfy the demands of his art.

Consequently it has been customary to think that the greatness

of Marlowe as a poet was his weakness as a dramatist. To

consider this view as a wholly correct will be wrong. We

cannot, of course, ignore the constructional defects of

Marlowe’s plays. Doctor Faustus, the most famous of his works

has been considered a very weak drama. Moreover, in the

modern times when we have little respect for poetic exuberance

and all respect for subtle reasoning, the poetry of Marlowe’s

plays may appear to imperil the success of his dramatic art. But

in the Elizabethan age when the common air itself was poetic

and an average citizen also was pulsating with artistic

inspirations, Marlowe’s verse was not beyond the reach of

common men. Poetry was the popular vehicle for the expression
 63

of human inspirations that had reached new heights in the

Renaissance. The poetry of Marlowe’s plays, therefore, added a

special charm and force to his work. If his plays were weak

dramatically it was not because Marlowe was not too much of a

poet but because the art of drama and the conception of stage-

craft had not till then, advanced much. A genuine lover of

Elizabethan literature cannot fail to see the enrapturing beauty

of Edward’s abdication or Faustus’s flight of the soul with

Mephistophilis in order to realise what strength Marlowe’s

poetry gave to his plays. If these lines are taken away from their

respective plays, the pieces will be converted to common stuff.

Edward has been compelled to surrender his crown and here is

the passionate outcry of the deposed Monarch:

EDWARD. O, would I might but heaven and earth

conspire To make me miserable. Here received

my

crown.

Receive it? No, these innocent hands of mine

Shall not be guilty of so foul a crime:

He of you all that most desires my blood,

And will be call’d the murderer of a king,

 64

Take it What, are you mov’d? Pity you me?

Then send for unrelenting Mortimer

And Isabel, whose eyes being turned to s’eel

Will sooner sparkle fire than shed a tear.23

These are lines the parallel of which can be found only in

Shakespeare’s Richard II. Faustus, again, is tortured by the

unbearable agony of damnation and the following lines from the

pen of young Marlowe are probably some of the best to be

found in all literature:

FAUSTUS. The stars more still; time runs; the clock

will

strike;

The devil will come, and Faustus must be

damned.

O, I”ll leap up to my God! Who pulls me

down?

See, See, where Christ’s blood streams in

the firmament!

One drop would save my soul, half a drop!

Ah, my Christ!24
 65

The lines quoted above are some of the most admirable in

the entire range of dramatic poetry. Marlowe’s poetry then, did

not make his plays weak; it added charm to them because this

poetry was not the mere rant and bombast of his predecessors

but the true language of a heart that was ablaze with the passion

of a new awakening. This poetry was eminently suited to the

tragic themes Marlowe brought to the stage and by combining

this poetic passion with the art of drama he had not erred but

had infused his plays with a vigour that has kept them alive to

this day. “He had, of course, the defects of the temperament of

his age: ‘a frequent, over luxuriance of imagination, a lack of

restraint, an extravagance bordering on the ridiculous.’ But no

criticism can obscure the greatness of his genius. He found the

drama crude and chaotic; he left it a great force in English

Literature.”25

Marlowe, thus, was the first Englishman who could see

the vast possibilities of Romantic drama in England. It was he

who discovered in the metre of the Classical school the most

perfect vehicle of dramatic expression. It was again, in his

hands, that English tragedy grew into an art- an art which he

drew forth from the womb of darkness, anarchy and

 66

incoherence. His claim as the father and founder of the national

English stage, therefore, is completely undisputed. Silhouetted

against the crowded and rather confused literary firmament of

Pre-Shakespearean age, Christopher Marlowe shines with

singular scintillation. Standing in the shadow of Shakespeare

without being over-shadowed by him, Marlowe, of all the

Elizabethan dramatists, is next only to him in poetical status. A

master-idealist, Marlowe is one of the foremost representatives

of the Elizabethan artistic movement, a writer who lived in and

for his art. Possessed by his art rather than holding it in

possession, he made his literary work not a mere episode in his

life but his very life itself. David Daiches’s assessment of

Marlowe comes nearest to the truth when he concludes: “… if

his early death by violence in 1593 cut short a career which

might, if spared to develop, have rivaled Shakespeare’s, it can

still be said that his dramatic debut was one of the most

remarkable in English literary history, and one which has left a

lasting impression. He remains a living and not an academic

figure, even to the most casual student of Elizabethan

Literature.”26
 67

Thus, the life of Marlowe shows that he himself was an

alienated individual – a fact which is bound to find its reflection

in his works.

End Notes
 68

1. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 26. Print.

2. Ibid; p. 29

3. Arthur Compton-Rickett. A History of English Literature.

New Delhi: Universal, 1981. 101. Print.

4. Idem

5. Idem

6. Nathan Drake. Shakespeare and His Times. Vol. 2.

London: Allen, 1817. 245. Print.

7. J. Leslie Hotson. The Death of Christopher Marlowe.

New
York: Harward UP, 1925. 66-67. Print.

8. The Golden Grove Moralized in Three Books. 2nd ed.

London: n.p., 1608. n.pag. Print.

9. John Russell Brown. Introduction. Marlowe:

Tamburlaine
the Great, Edward the Second and The Jew of
Malta: A Selection of Critical Essays. Ed. Brown.
London: Macmillan, 1982. 14. Print.
 69

10. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 194. Print.

11. William Hazlitt. Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of

the Age of Elizabeth (1820) Hazlitt’s Works. Vol.
6,
Ed. P.P. Howe, London: n.p., 1931. 202. Print.

12. Frederick S. Boas. Christopher Marlowe: A Biographical

and Critical Study. London: Oxford UP, 1964.
114-
15. Print.

13. Ibid; p. 208

14. George Peele. The Honour of the Garter the Works of

George Peele. Vol.2. London: Allen, 1828. 140-41.
Print.

15. Michael Drayton. “Epistle to my most Dearly Loved

Friend Henry Reynolds Esquire of Poets and
Poesie.” The Works of Michael. The Vol. 3.
London:
Oxford UP, 1931. Print.

16. “Extracts.” Fortnightly Review 2.2 (1870): 1-5. Rpt. in

Marlowe: Tamburlaine the Great, Edward the
Second and The Jew of Malta: A Selection of
 70

Critical Essays. Ed. John Russell Brown. London:

Macmillan, 1982. 34. Print.

17. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 30-31. Print.

18. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 9. Print.

19. Arthur Compton-Rickett. A History of English Literature.

New Delhi: Universal, 1981. 102. Print.

20. Ibid; p. 102.

21. David Daiches. A Critical History of English Literature.

2nd ed. Vol. 1. London: Secker, 1969. 235. Print.

22. Ibid; p. 235.

23. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of
Malta, Edward the Second, The Massacre at Paris.
Ed. J.B. Steane. London: Penguin, 1969. 511.
Print.

24. Ibid; p. 336.

 71

25. Arthur Compton-Rickett. A History of English Literature.

New Delhi: Universal, 1981. 101. Print.

26. David Daiches. A Critical History of English Literature.

2nd ed. Vol. 1. London: Secker, 1969. 245. Print.

CHAPTER – III

Alienation in Tamburlaine the Great

 72

Tamburlaine the Great was Marlowe’s first powerful

trumpet-blast. Marlowe made his mark in 1587-88 with the

production of Tamburlaine, a loose but impassioned chronicle

of the Mongol Conqueror Timur. In this vigorous epic drama,

Marlowe epitomized the Renaissance cult of power in

resounding terms. He not only dramatized the hero’s search for

“The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.”1 But transfigured the

empire conqueror’s ambition into a romantic passion for the

unattainable. “Tamburlaine is the most solid and unflawed of

Marlowe’s plays: more consistent in quality than Dido or

Faustus, more whole and substantial than The Jew of Malta, and

more vigorous in imagination and sustaining power than

Edward The Second.”2 The play is in two parts. “It is generally

conceded that Tamburlaine, Part I, has a unity of parts with the

whole which Tamburlaine, Part II, does not possess and that

Marlowe attempted to do twice what could only be done once.”3

Tamburlaine is the story of a Scythian Shepherd who

dreams of world conquest and achieves his aspirations

magnificently. As a drama it has many drawbacks – the plot is

weak and loosely knit: the scheme seems to be inartistic, the

 73

effects are grim and bloody. Yet none can refrain from

appraising the play as a first rate one–taking into account its

attractive exaggeration of thought and expression, its burning

passages of eloquent poetry. Its glare and horror, its vehemence

and intoxication, its titanic truculence and luminous colouring.

In the forefront of all these and towering high above them all,

stands the high tempered hero-full of indomitable strength and

passionate speech. Tamburlaine is the symbol of invincible

human will, the embodiment of a fearless vision filled with

fretting and fuming aspirations.

Alienation in the character of Tamburlaine

The play Tamburlaine the Great centres round an over

mastering passion-wild, intemperate passion that grows and

develops till it destroys itself. It is this burning passion of power

which alienates Tamburlaine from the rest of the world, from

the morality, and culture of society and from his own self. He is

a “gigantic and energetic man lusting for military dominion,

believing in his own destiny, and with all being particularly

cruel, proud, and wrathful.”4 The very opening lines of the play

contain what may be described as Marlowe’s dramatic

 74

manifesto as well as the display of the fuming aspirations of

Tamburlaine:

TAMBURLAINE. From Jigging veins of rhyming mother

wits, And such conceits as clownage keeps in

pay,

We’ll lead you to the stately tent of war,

Where you shall hear the Scythian

Tamburlaine

Threat’ning the world with high astounding

terms

And scourging kingdoms with his

conquering sword.5

Almost in his first words, the Scythian Shepherd expresses his

limitless thirst for power and declares himself as:

TAMBURLAINE. And means to be a terror to the world,

Measuring the limits of his empery

By east and west, as Phoebus doth his

course.

Lie here, ye weeds that I disdain to

wear!
 75

This complete armour, and this curtle-

axe

Are adjuncts more beseeming

Tamburlaine.6

Part one of the play deals with the first rise to power of

Tamburlaine. Mycetes, the king of Persia, sends his chief

Theridamas to suppress Tamburlaine. Theridamas gets

enamoured of Tamburlaine’s dream of world conquest and

becomes his follower. Unscrupulously enough, Tamburlaine

incites Theridamas against his Persian king:

TAMBURLAINE. Forsake thy king and do but join with me,

And we will triumph over all the world.

I hold the fates bound fast in iron chains,

And with my hand turn fortune’s wheel

about,

And sooner shall the sun fall from his

sphere

Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome.7

Not to say of the soaring aspirations of Tamburlaine, his

very physical appearance is so fiery as can challenge any king

 76

of the universe. Comments on his dashing appearance cannot be

ignored:

THERIDAMAS. Tamburlaine! A Scythian Shepherd so

embellished

With nature’s pride and richest furniture!

His looks do menace heaven and dare the

gods;

His fiery eyes are fixed upon the earth,

As if he now devis’d some stratagem,

Or meant to pierce Avernus’ darksome

vaults To pull the triple-headed dog from

hell.8

From the very first, the seeds of alienation are discernible in the

personality of Tamburlaine. He is cruel, hot-headed, ambitious

and without the fear of God. “Nothing is extenuated in

Tamburlaine’s non-Christian character and career– the cruelty,

bloodshed, suffering, violence, ruthlessness, pride, fanaticism.”9

Mercy, selflessness, tenderness have no significance in his

world. Power is his whole world. He avowedly announces his

purpose:
 77

TAMBURLAINE. Why then Theridamas, I’ll first assay .

To get the Persian kingdom to myself.

Then thou for Parthia; they for Scythia and

Media;

And, if I prosper, all shall be as sure

As if the Turk, the Pope, Afric and Greece,

Came creeping to us with their crowns

a piece.10

Alienating himself from all the norms of morality, he allies

himself with Cosroe in the latter’s rebellion against his brother,

the king of Persia, Mycetes. He challenges the Persian king for

the throne and defeats him in the battle. He first crowns Cosroe

as the king of Persia but afterwards turns against him and takes

from Cosroe both his crown and life. Falling a victim to

Tamburlaine’s counter-plot, Cosroe cries:

COSROE. What means this devilish shepherd, to aspire

With such a giantly presumption,

To cast up hills against the face of heaven,

And dare the force of angry Jupiter?11

By his desires and aspirations he appears to us as a

superman belonging to some other world. “He does not belong

 78

entirely to either earth or heaven. Though he has distinctly

human characteristic, both good and bad, he has something of

the magnificence and the incomprehensibility of a deity.” 12

Meander comments:

MEANDER. Some powers divine, or else infernal, mix’d

Their angry seeds at his conception;

For he was never sprung of human race,

Since with the spirit of his fearful pride,

He dares so doubtlessly resolve of rule,

And by profession be ambitious.13

Tamburlaine is “Hardly thought of as a man.”14 He is

presented on such a grand scale that “he is most frequently

equated with a god or a devil.”15 Ortygius’s assessment of proud

Tamburlaine comes nearest to the truth when he says:

ORTYGIUS. What god, or fiend, or spirit of the earth,

Or monster turned to a manly shape,

Or of what mold or mettle he be made.16

This “Fiery thirstier after soveriegnty,”17 pays no heeds to

his associates and friends. What he cares for and longs for is his

rule not only over the worldly men and affairs but also on
 79

divine and heavenly bodies. This “Bloody and insatiate

Tamburlaine…”18 is completely alienated from the

considerations of others’ motives. The pathetic cries and curses

of Cosroe fall on deaf ears. Instead of sympathising with his

once ally Cosroe, he avowedly proclaims that he is no where

wrong in his steps as he has done what is expected of him:

TAMBURLAINE. The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown,

That caus’d the eldest son of heavenly Ops

To thrust his doting father from his chair,

And place himself in the imperial heaven,

Mov’d me to manage arms against thy state.

What better precedent than mighty Jove?

Nature, that fram’d us of four elements

Warring within our breasts for regiment,

Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.19

The alienated self of Tamburlaine holds his “barbarous

and bloody.”20 designs justified and further proclaims that he

will:

TAMBURLAINE. Wills us to wear ourselves and

never

rest,
 80

Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,

That perfect bliss and sole felicity,

The sweet fruition of an earthly

crown.21

Tamburlaine’s unbounded ambition and ruthless cruelty

do not end after usurping the Persian crown, “Tamburlaine’s

ambition has no definite object; it exists in and for itself. His

aspiring mind is drawn upward as naturally as gravitation draws

a stone downward.”22 He now conquers the Turkish Emperor

Bajazeth and takes him as a prisoner in a cage, goading him and

his queen Zabina with cruel taunts till they dash their brains

against the bars of their cage. He also conquers Egypt, winning

the daughter of the Soldan of Egypt, Zenocrate, whom he

marries. His love for Zenocrate is the only softening effect on

the cruelty of his mighty conqueror. F.P. Wilson observes: “It is

Zenocrate, the symbol of beauty and compassion, who turns

Tamburlaine into a love when he might have been merely a

conqueror; it is Zenocrate who sets up a conflict between

Honour and Love in a mind otherwise undivided and single; it is

Zenocrate who speaks or who inspires some of the lyrical

passages which contrast so markedly with the ruthless clangour

 81

of much of the heroic verse; it is Zenocrate who exacts from

this all conquering conqueror and admission of defeat.”23

TAMBURLAINE. Zenocrate, loulier than the love of Jove,

Brighter than is the silver Rhodope,

Fairer than whitest snow on Scythian hils,

Thy person is more worth to Tamburlaine,

Than the possession of the Persean Crowne,

which gratious starres have promist at my

birth.24

This is done with the fervor of true and sincere love.

TAMBURLAINE. Zenocrate, the loveliest maid alive,

Fairer than rocks of pearl and precious

stone,

The only paragon of Tamburlaine.

Whose eyes are brighter than the lamps

of heaven

And speech more pleasant than sweet

harmony,

That with thy looks canst clear the

darkened sky

And calm the rage of thundering Jupiter

 82

Sit down by her, adorned with my

crown

As if thou wert the empress of the

world.25

He even spares the life of the Soldan of Egypt in

response to the pleadings of Zenocrate. Who can forget the

treachery of Tamburlaine? Cosroe describes him as:

COSROE. Barbarous and bloody Tamburlaine,

Thus to deprive me of my crown and life.26

Tamburlaine is utterly contemptuous of human life and thus

estranged from all the other human beings of the world. Eugene

M. Waith says: “His contempt for earthly potentates and the

assertion of his will combine in his conception of himself as the

scourge of God, a conception which he shares with Hercules.”27

Urged by the barbaric lust for power, he does not retain even

basic humanity and feels satisfied and happy at the horrible

sight of general massacre. This part of the play ends with the

sack of Damascus and the slaughter of the virgins. But even the

cries of Virgin:
 83

VIRGIN. Pitie, O, Pitie, (Sacred Emperour)

The prostrate seruice of this wretched towne.28

It hardly affects him. “Tamburlaine’s refusal is based on the

absolute primacy of his will-of the execution of whatever he

has vowed. He is as self-absorbed as Hercules.”29 He rather

feels proud:

TAMBURLAINE. Hell and Elysium swarm with

ghosts

of men

That I have sent from sundry

foughten fields.

To spread my fame through hell

and

up to heaven.30

He claims even the deities as tributaries and challenges

them openly:

TAMBURLAINE. The god of war resigns his rooms to me,

Meaning to make me general of the

world.

Jove, viewing me in arms, looks pale and

wan.
 84

Fearing my power should pull him from

his throne.

Where’er I come the fatal sisters sweat.

And grisly Death, by running to and fro

To do their ceaseless homage to my

sword.31

There is no end to his desires and no end to his wars. He

says of Mars as “The angry God of arms”32 and the words might

be taken as self-description, for when he is annoyed, the fear

that his looks inspire, is almost that of a mortal to a god.

Agydas, when Tamburlaine has passed looking wrathfully at

him, expresses a characteristic reaction:

AGYDAS. Upon his brows was portrayed ugly

death,

And in his eyes the fury of his heart,

That shine as comets, menacing

revenge, And Casts a pale complexion on

his

cheeks.33
 85

Part two of the play deals with the continuation of

Tamburlaine’s conquests which extends to Babylon. But one

thing is certain about Tamburlaine that he achieves victories

effortlessly. M.C Bradbrook comments: “Tamburlaine’s

conquests are always quite effortless. There is no doubt in

his mind, and no check in his success. He holds the Fates bound

fast in iron chains. The series of opponents are only a row of

ninepins to be toppled over: there is no interest attached to

them, except as necessary material upon which Tamburlaine can

demonstrate his power.”34

Utterly deviated from human morality, this most cruel king

of history until Hitler has his chariot drawn by the defeated and

captive kings of Trebizond and Soria. They are even ruthlessly

lashed forward like horses. The pitiable and poignant positions

of his victims make his spirits high. Putting aside all human

values, he vaunts like a superman or demi-god, exulting over

his victims:

TAMBURLAINE. You shall be fed with flesh as raw

as blood,

And drink in pails the strongest

muscadel.
 86

If you can live with it, then live,

and draw

My chariot swifter than the

racking clouds;

If not, then die like beasts, and fit

for naught

But perches for the black and fatal

ravens.

Thus am I right the scourge of highest

Jove;

And see the figure of my dignity,

By which I hold my name and majesty!35

Though he loves Zenocrate from the deepest core of his

heart yet her words fail to dissuade him from his dream of

world conquest. When Zenocrate asks Tamburlaine:

ZENOCRATE. Sweet Tamburlaine, When wilt thou leave

these arms,

And save thy sacred person free from scathe,

And dangerous chances of wrathful war?36

He avowedly and proudly declares:

 87

TAMBURLAINE. When heaven shall cease to move on

both the poles,

And when the ground, where on my

soldiers march,

Shall rise aloft and touch the horned

moon,

And not before, my sweet Zenocrate.

Sit up and rest thee like a lovely

queen.37

When Zenocrate falls ills, Tamburlaine is shocked. It is only

here that he is seen praying to the governing spirit of the

universe:

TAMBURLAINE. Then let some holy trance convey my

thoughts,

Up to the palace of th’ empyreal

heaven,

That this my life may be as short to

me As are the days of sweet Zenocrate.38

He desires the end of his life with that of Zenocrate:

 88

TAMBURLAINE. Live still, my love, and so conserve

my

life

Or dying, be the author of my

death.39

But, as it is, she dies and her death comes to Tamburlaine both

as a shock and as a defeat. His grief over the dead Zenocrate

takes the form of a challenge to nature:

TAMBURLAINE. What, is she dead? Techelles, draw

thy sword,

And wound the earth, that it may

cleave in twain,

And we descend into th’ infernal

vaults,

To hale the Fatal sisters by the hair,

And throw them in the triple moat of

hell,

For taking hence my fair Zenocrate.40

Tamburlaine’s helplessness after her death takes the form

of furious madness, again a sign of his alienation from the

 89

world and human restrictions. He orders his men to put the town

to fire where his Zenocrate died:

TAMBURLAINE. But burn the turrets of this cursed

town,

Flame to the highest region of the air,

And kindle heaps of exhalations,

That, being fiery meteors, may presage

Death and destruction to the’

inhabitants!

Over my Zenith hang a blazing star,

That may endure till heaven be

dissolv’d,

Fed with the fresh supply of earthly

dregs,

Threatening a dearth and famine to this

land!

Flying dragons, lightning, fearful

thunder- claps,

Singe these fair plains, and make them

seem as black.

As is the island where the Furies mask,

 90

Compass’d with Lethe, Syx and

Phlegethon,

Because my dear Zenocrate is dead!41

His cruelty does not stop here. He does not spare even his son,

Calyphas, who appears to him cowardly and despicable because

he is not made of that stuff which Tamburlaine is made.

Calyphas differs from the alienated and remorseless self of his

father:

CALYPHAS. I know, sir, what it is to kill a man;

It works remorse of conscience in me.

I take no pleasure to be murderous,

Nor care for blood when wine will

quench my thirst.42

The end of Calyphas is the same as of the opponents of

Tamburlaine and he is mercilessly stabbed by his father.

The capture of Babylon is followed by a general

massacre. Tamburlaine burns the Koran and challenges

Mahomet to avenge the death of his faithful followers.

“Tamburlaine orders his men to burn the Mahommedan books

daring Mahomet out of his heaven and turning from him in

disgust. But the god proves not so sleepy, for less than twenty
 91

lines later Tamburlaine feels himself ‘distempered Sudainly’

(sic), with the fever which is to kill him.”43 But even now he is

not ready to accept his defeat and declares:

TAMBURLAINE. What soe’er it be,

Sickness or death can never conquer me.44

Thus, when he falls a victim to a mysterious illness, “he would

fain in revenge carry war against the immortals, who have

ventured to dispute his supremacy.”45 Still he insists that he will

not let his:

TAMBURLAINE. Sickness prove me now to be a man

That have been term’d the terror of the

world?46

He defies the heavenly powers:

TAMBURLAINE. Come, let us march against the power

of

heaven

And set black streamers in the

firmament.

To signify the slaughter of the gods.47

This is the climax of his social and moral estrangement.

Though powerless before the powers of god and death, he is not

 92

ready to submit to the inevitable lot and “seeks with scornful

glance to scare away his ‘slave, the ugly monster Death,’ but the

‘villain’ still comes.”48 He even tries to Let us march /And

weary Death with bearing souls to hell.”49 Though on the verge

of death, he is crazy after world conquests: “Then let me see

how much / Is left for me to conquer all the world.”50 He thinks

of the past glorious days, his brave marches and his various

triumphs and wishes for the perpetuation of his spirit in the

world in the form of his sons:

TAMBURLAINE. My flesh, divided in your

precious

shapes,

Shall still retain my spirit, though

I die,

And live in all your seeds

immortally.51

At last: “He yields with the heart wrung avowal that

Tamburlaine, the Scourge of God, must die.”52

Thus, there is great difference between the Tamburlaine

of Part I and that of Part II. F.P. Wilson observes: “The hero’s

fortunes always rising in Part I are bound to fall in Part II, as

 93

Death conquers first Zenocrate and in the end himself. In Part I

Tamburlaine is wholly the centre of interest, his cause

uniformly successful, the fine speeches… his all the power and

all the glory. In part II, as we have seen, much of the interest is

directed elsewhere, especially in the first half of the play; and

after the death of Zenocrate, when the fury of his fit is upon

him, he becomes a monster of cruelty.”53

The seeds of alienation implicit in the personality of

Tamburlaine ally him to the currents of Renaissance skepticism

which were challenging the medieval notion of a harmonious

creation ruled over by the providence of god. Nature for the

Christian humanist is the creation of God, controlled only by

God and human reason willingly and intuitively lives by the

moral laws- the altruistic feelings, love, kindness, loyalty etc.

The alienated Tamburlaine, on the other hand, exalts the power

of man to control the universe by his own strength and reason

without regard to divine influence. But his pride and his

alienated self do not last long. They break down proving

Bajazeth’s words true:

BAJAZETH. Great Tamburlaine, great in my ouerthrow,

Ambitious pride shall make thee fall as low,

 94

For treading on the back of Bajazeth

That shoul’d be horsed on lower mighte

kings”54 Thus, the second part of the play is in the nature of

divine retribution. The hero who follows no moral and social

rules except those devised by his boundless ambition and

ruthless cruelty pays the penalty for his blasphemy and

defiance of gods with madness, with the death of Zenocrate and

finally with his own death.

Alienation in other characters of Tamburlaine the Great

All the other characters of the play are feeble and

shadowy. They serve no artistic purpose except that they set off

the power of the Scythian conqueror by contract. Theridamas

and Zenocrate get a little share of interest and that too, because

of being closely attached to Tamburlaine. Theridamas becomes

the blind supporter and follower of Tamburlaine being

influenced by his ambition of world conquest. He betrays his

King, Mycetes, who had sent him to Tamburlaine. This betrayal

is a clear sign of his alienation from the moral values. He joins

the camp of Tamburlaine to materialise his own dream of

kingship. He feels:
 95

THERIDAMAS. A God is not as glorious as a king.

I think the pleasure they enjoy in

heaven

Can not compare with kingly joys in

earth:

To wear a crown enchased with pearl

and gold,

Whose virtues carry with it life and

death;

To ask and have, command and be

obeyed;

When looks breed love, with looks to

gain the prize,

Such power attractive shines in princes’

eyes.55

For the fulfillment of his hidden desire, he willingly

yields everything to Tamburlaine proving himself a “traitor” 56

to his king. Later, even Cosroe becomes the victim of the

cruelty of Tamburlaine and treachery of Theridamas and he

condemns Theridamas:
 96

COSROE. Treacherous and false Theridamas,

Even at the morning of my happy state,

Scarce being seated in my royal throne,

To work my downfall and ultimately

end!57

The alienation of Theridamas is obviously discernible in

his active support to the cruelty, brutality, pride, and hot-

headedness of Tamburlaine. Because of his devotion to

Tamburlaine, he is later crowned as the King of Argier. He goes

so low in his depravity as to propose to Olympia, the widow of

the captain of Balsera, to marry him:

THERIDAMAS. Thou shall be stately queen of fair

Argier,

And, clothed in costly cloth of massy

gold,

Upon the marble turrets of my court

Sit like to Venus in her chair of state,

Commanding all thy princely eye

desires;

And I will cast off arms and sit with

thee,
 97

Spending my life in sweet discourse of

love.58

But here his alienated self is defeated by the devotion of

Olympia to her late husband. Theirdamas himself stabs her.

Zenocrate is the wife of Tamburlaine. She is

overwhelmed by the superman stature of Tamburlaine. Agydas

tries to dissuade her from giving her love to Tamburlaine:

AGYDAS. So wile and barbarous Tamburlaine.59

But she overlooks the cruelty of Tamburlaine and says:

ZENOCRATE. I may live and die with Tamburlaine60

Thus, Indirectly she favours the alienated Tamburlaine

displaying her own alienation from her father, from the society

and from the world of pity. She even dehumanises her

Tamburlaine:

ZENOCRATE. As looks the sun through Nilus’s flowing

stream,

Or when the morning holds him in her arms,

So looks my lordly love, fair Tamburlaine;

His talks much sweeter than the muses’ song

They sung for honor’ gainst Pierides,

 98

Or when Minerva did with Neptune strive;

And higher would I rear my estimate,

Than Juno, sister to the highest god,

If I were matched with mighty

Tamburlaine.61

Though not cruel at heart, she welcomes the victories of

her husband and thus helps him to be more cruel. “Zenocrate”,

says Eugene M. Waith, “by representing a scale of values far

removed from those of the warrior or the monarch, provides

further insights into Tamburlaine’s character.”62

 99

End Notes

1. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido,

Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great,
Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 133. Print.

2. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 62. Print.

3. M.C. Bradbrook. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan

Tragedy: A History of Elizabethan Drama. Vol. 6.
London: Cambridge UP, 1935. 137. Print.
 100

4. Johnstone Parr. “Tamburlaine’s Malady.” PMLA 30.5

(1944):700. Print.

5. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido,

Queen
of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 105. Print.

6. Ibid; p. 112

7. Ibid; p. 116

8. Ibid; p. 116

9. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 62. Print.

10. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido,

Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great,
Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 130. Print.
 101

11. Ibid; p. 131

12. Eugene M. Waith. “Marlowe’s Herculean Hero (1962).”

Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, Edward the
Second, and the Jew of Malta: A Selection of
Critical Essays. Ed. John Russell Brown. London:
Macmillan, 1982. 92. Print.

13. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido,

Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great,
Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 131. Print.

14. M.C. Bradbrook. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan

Tragedy: A History of Elizabethan Drama. Vol. 6.
London: Cambridge UP, 1935. 137. Print.
15. Idem.

16. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido,

Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great,
Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 131. Print.
 102

17. Ibid; p. 131

18. Ibid; p. 132

19. Ibid; p. 132-33

20. Ibid; p. 132

21. Ibid; p. 133

22. M.C. Bradbrook. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan

Tragedy: A History of Elizabethan Drama. Vol. 6.
London: Cambridge UP, 1935. 138. Print.
23. F.P. Wilson. Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare. London:
Oxford UP, 1963. 35. Print.

24. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 16. Print.

25. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido,

Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great,
Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 114. Print.

26. Ibid; p. 132

 103

27. Eugene M. Waith. “Marlowe’s Herculean Hero (1962).”

Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, Edward the
Second, and The Jew of Malta: A Selection of
Critical Essays. Ed. John Russell Brown. London:
Macmillan, 1982. 92. Print.

28. The works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 165. Print.
29. Eugene M. Waith. “Marlowe’s Herculean Hero (1962).”
Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, Edward the
Second, and The Jew of Malta: A Selection of
Critical Essays. Ed. John Russell Brown. London:
Macmillan, 1982. 100. Print.

30. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido,

Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great,
Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 176. Print.

31. Ibid; p. 176

32. Ibid; p. 166

33. Ibid; p. 169

 104

34. M.C. Bradbrook. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan

Tragedy: A History of Elizabethan Drama. Vol. 6.
London: Cambridge UP, 1935. 139. Print.

35. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 236. Print.

36. Ibid; p. 191

37. Ibid; p. 191

38. Ibid; p. 205

39. Ibid; p. 205

40. Ibid; p. 206-07

41. Ibid; p. 211

42. Ibid; p. 227

43. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:
Cambridge
UP, 1964. 63. Print.
 105

44. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 247. Print.

45. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 35. Print.

46. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 251. Print.

47. Ibid; p. 251

48. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 35-36. Print.
49. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen
of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 252. Print.

50. Ibid; p. 253

 106

51. Ibid; p. 255

52. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 36. Print.

53. F.P. Wilson. Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare. London:

Oxford UP, 1963. 53. Print.

54. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 49. Print.

55. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 129. Print.

56. Ibid; p. 118

57. Ibid; p. 132

58. Ibid; p. 233-34

59. Ibid; p. 137

60. Ibid; p. 137

 107

61. Ibid; p. 138

62. Eugene M. Waith. “Marlowe’s Herculean Hero (1962).”

Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, Edward the
Second and The Jew of Malta: A Selection of
Critical Essay. Ed. John Russell Brown. London:
Macmillan, 1982. 96. Print.
 108

CHAPTER –IV

Alienation in Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus which followed in the wake of

Tamburlaine the Great, is acclaimed as Marlowe’s play in

which the leaven of fertile poetry and fearless imagination work

 109

wonders. The story is that of Faustus, a scholar who sells his

soul to the devil in his eagerness for the acquisition of

omnipotence through omniscience. Faustus is as insatiable and

mighty as Tamburlaine. If Tamburlaine thunders:

TAMBURLAINE. I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains,

And with my hand turn Fortune’s wheel

about;

And sooner shall the sun fall from his

Sphere,

Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome.1

Faustus declares with vibrant passion:

FAUSTUS. All things that move between the quiet

poles

Shall be at my command, Emperors and

kings

Are but obeyed in their several provinces.

Nor can they raise the wind or rend the

clouds.

But his dominion that exceeds in this

 110

Stretched as far as doth the mind of man:

A sound magician is a demi-god.2

Out of the dry bones of an old German legend Marlowe

has fashioned a work of art, a noble drama of a scholar’s

alienated soul in the grip of intense agony. It is a play of vast

conflict, fearful failure, intense feeling, and stirring emotion: it

is a play the central idea of which is that of loss; a play in which

sin is presented with its inescapable retribution; a matchless

spiritual tragedy in which the mighty protagonist is man and

mysterious powers that surround him: a play whose symbolism

has an irresistible appeal, a drama whose tragic hero displays

the seeds of alienation in his character.

Alienation in the character of Doctor Faustus

The strongest point of the tragedy is the character –

sketch of its hero, Dr. Faustus, Marlowe’s Faustus is, as H.A.

Taine puts it: “…the living, struggling, natural, personal man,

not the philosophic genuine type which Goethe has created, but

a primitive and genuine man, hot-headed, fiery, the slave of his

passions, the sport of his dreams, wholly engrossed in the

present, molded by his lusts, contradictions, and follies, who

amidst noise and starts, cries of pleasure and anguish, rolls,

 111

knowing and willing it, down the slope and crags of his

precipice.”3

Dr. Faustus is a man of great learning and scholarship,

but it is his unbridled thirst for knowledge and power which

generates the seeds of alienation in his personality.

The development of the personality of Dr. Faustus can be

conveniently divided into three parts. In the first, Faustus makes

his decision and after some hesitations and backward glances,

commits himself to evil. Chorus–I introduces the second part in

which Faustus exploits his dearly bought power in Rome, in

Germany and in Vanholt. The third part extends from the

opening of Act–V to the Epilogue. It shows Faustus’s behaviour

as his end approaches. The Chorus or the speaker of the

Prologue announces a play which differs from its predecessors.

This, he says is not a play about ancient wars or love in high

places or great deeds. It presents the career of a scholar, a man

of humble origin who is “the young extremist, eager and

buoyant, with a brilliantly energetic inquiring mind, intoxicated

by the enthusiasm, heady in his dislikes and fundamentally

superficial in both.”4 His arrogance causes him to overreach and

 112

ruin himself. We are to witness a tragedy of presumption and

pride. The Chorus speaks:

CHORUS. So much he profits in divinity,

The fruitful plot of scholarism graced,

That shortly he was graced with Doctor’s

name, Excelling all and sweetly can dispute

In th’ heavenly matters of theology,

Till swol’n with cunning of a self-conceit,

His waxen wings did mount above his reach,

And melting, heavens conspired his

overthrow, For, falling to a devilish

exercise.5

Alienation consists of six variants–meaninglessness,

powerlessness, self–alienation, social alienation, cultural

estrangement and alienation from work. All these variants of

alienation are best discernible in the career of Dr. Faustus.

Meaninglessness

The idea of meaninglessness refers to purposelessness in

life. The individual does not find any interest in his

surroundings. He sees no purpose in his life. This

 113

purposelessness leads him to hopelessness and despair. This

variant of alienation is present in the personality of Dr. Faustus

from the first – how else should he come to make his fatal

bargain? In the first scene Faustus runs through all the branches

of human knowledge and finds them inadequate and

meaningless for his desires and aspirations. Examining various

fields of learning, he is first attracted towards analytics or logic

but finds that logic can only teach how to argue:

FAUSTUS. Is to dispute well, logic’s chiefest end?

Affords this art no greater miracle?6

Since he has already attained the end of logic, its study is

meaningless. So far as the study of medicine is concerned, it

stops short where human desire is most thwarted. It cannot

defeat death:

FAUSTUS. ‘The end of physic is our body’s health.’

Why, Faustus, hast thou not attained that

end?

Is not thy common talk sound Aphorisms?

Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,

Whereby whole cities have escaped the

plague,
 114

And thousand desperate maladies been

cured?

Yet art thou still but Faustus and a man.

Couldst thou make men to live eternally,

Or being dead, raise them to life again,

Then this profession were to be esteemed.7

Thus, he finds no meaning in studying medicine. Then he

takes up law but that too, appears unsuitable and inadequate for

his aspiring mind:

FAUSTUS. This study fits a mercenary drudge,

Who aims at nothing but external trash,

Too servile and illiberal for me.8

Divinity would perhaps be the best choice, but it teaches

the doctrine of fatalism, which is totally unsatisfactory. Divinity

is disappointing and meaningless as it is based on the

recognition of man’s mortality and fallibility. This he rejects

outright:

FAUSTUS. ‘If we say that we have no sin,

We deceive our selves, and there’s no truth in us.’

Why then, belike, we must sin,

 115

And so consequently die.

Ay, we must die an everlasting death.

What doctrine call you this? Che sera, sera.

‘What will be, shall be.’ Divinity, adieu!9

Thus, Faustus dismisses all the above mentioned

branches of study as none of them has anything to give him

more than “external trash.”10 He is free from the desire for

worldly honours which he has already enjoyed in ample

measure. All the useful arts appear meaningless and purposeless

to Faustus. He longs for something else, something which is

beyond the reach of other mortals. Under the influence of wild

passion, Faustus commits the sin of pride. He turns to magic

and for magic he says:

FAUSTUS. Oh, what a world of profit and delight,

Of power, of honor, of omnipotence.

Is promised to the studious artizen!11

He further declares:

FAUSTUS. A Sound magician is a demi-god.

Here tire my brains to get a deity.12

The sin of Faustus here is presumption, an aspiration to

rise above his human status, or a revolt against the law of

 116

creation. Through the door of pride, the fatal passions have

begun to invade Faustus and he welcomes everyone. But as he

advances in the practice of necromancy, he becomes aware of

its meaninglessness. He feels that he has committed a great sin

by becoming the follower of Lucifer and this blunder leads him

only to despair and purposelessness.

His end being near, Faustus is overcome by remorse and

realises what he has lost by pledging his soul to Lucifer. What

a disastrous end he is going to meet in spite of all his learning

and scholarship. He wishes that he had never studied any books.

He has, no doubt, earned widespread fame by his magic-deeds,

but he has now to pay a heavy price for the power that he

acquired through Lucifer. He has lost Germany and the world.

He has lost Heaven and the Kingdom of Joy. He must remain in

hell forever. We can imagine the pain and agony in his voice,

when he says:

FAUSTUS. But Faustus’ offence can ne’er be

pardoned.

The serpent that tempted Eve may be

saved, But not Faustus. Ah Gentlemen,

hear with patience and tremble not at

 117

my speeches.

Though my heart pants and quiver to

remember that I have never seen

Wittenberg, never read book.

And what wonders I have done all

Germany can witness, yea, all the

world, for which

Faustus hath lost both

Germany and the world, yea heaven it self,

heaven the seat of God, the throne of the

blessed, the kingdom of joy, and must

remain

in hell for ever. Oh hell for ever.

Sweet friends, what shall become of

Faustus, being in hell for ever?13

The scholars try to console the bereaved soul of Faustus.

One of them advises him to sincerely call on God because to a

God – fearing, man only prayer and repentance are significant

after the commitment of any sin. But Faustus cries miserably:

FAUSTUS. On God, whom Faustus hath abjured? On

God,
 118

whom Faustus hath blasphemed?

Oh, my God, I

would weep, but the devil draws in my tears.

Gush forth blood instead of tears, yea, life

and soul. Oh, he stays my tongue. I would

lift

up

my hands, but see, they hold them, they hold

them.14

The scholars are unable to understand the real cause of

his helplessness and despair. They express their anxiety to know

who is preventing him from praying to God. Now Faustus

discloses the bitter fact which he had hitherto concealed from

them. Faustus tells the scholars that he pledged his soul to

Lucifer and Mephistophilis as a price for the magic power

which he acquired through them and now the devils are holding

his hands and not permitting him to talk to God. Though now

Faustus realises the futility and meaninglessness of his life

because of his evil pact with the devil, he is unable to make up

for his disastrous loss. It was his own sense of pride which

forced him to commit a sin, which has now turned his life
 119

meaningless and purposeless. In spite of the warnings of the

Good Angel, he opted for magic and now he has to pay the

penalty:

FAUSTUS. God forbade it indeed, but Faustus

hath

done it.

For vain pleasure of four and

twenty years hath.

Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity.

I write them a bill with

mine own blood,

The date is expired, this is

the time, and he will fetch me.15

Faustus sees no meaning in his life of magic to which he

was very much attached once. Thus, this variant of alienation is

most explicit in the life of Faustus at the first stage – as well as

at the later stage. The meaninglessness of the later stage is very

much different from that of the first stage. At the first stage, he

sees no purpose in life, either as a philosopher or as a doctor or

as a lawyer or as a theologist and opts for the life of a magician.

But at a later state, he realises the purposelessness of his life and

 120

skill as a magician. He now comes to understand how he has

wasted the valuable part of his life. This meaninglessness leads

Faustus to despair, depression and hopelessness and he cries:

FAUSTUS. Mountains and hills, come, come and

fall on me,

And hide me from the heavy wrath of

God. No, no. Then will I headlong run

into the earth.

Earth, gape! Oh no it will not harbour

me.

You stars that reigned at my nativity,

Whose influence hath allotted death and

hell,

Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist16

Powerlessness

Powerlessness implies helplessness and consists in “the

feeling that one’s destiny is not under one’s own control but is

determined by external agents, fate, luck, or institutional

arrangements.”17 Man finds himself unable to stand against the

opposing force bringing about his downfall. This variant of

alienation is best seen in the career of Dr. Faustus which in the

 121

later stages becomes painful and thus more explicit. From the

very beginning, Faustus appears powerless before his

aspirations which are apt to violate social values. Though

conscious of his error, he is helpless before his ignoble desires.

His later powerlessness is entirely due to his slavery to magic.

Faustus writes a contract with his own blood to give away his

soul to the devil for twenty four years of omnipotence and

sensuous pleasure. Ironically, when he thinks that he has gained

supernatural power by gifting his soul to the common enemy of

man, he is deprived of all power. The devils never let him think

of God, follow the Scriptures and act according to his

conscience. He has to go strictly in accordance with the wishes

of Satan. The very first speech of Mephistophilis is a rebuff to

the pride of Faustus. He bluntly tells him that he did not

specifically come in response to Faustus’ conjuring – speeches.

Devils always rush to capture the soul of a man who is inclined

to renounce God and the Scriptures. But for his obsession he

might have realised that it was the beginning of his end. Though

informed in all frankness that he is able to exercise supernatural

powers only when he is ultimately dragged down to hell, he

protests defiantly, saying that he thinks hell to be “a fable”18 and

that the damnation does not terrify him. Such is his pride that he
 122

maintains his own opinion against Mephistophilis who has

come direct from hell and to whom he is talking only because

he believes him to have come from there. This willful blindness,

this persistence in self-deception is brought out most clearly in

the speech in which he enquires about the fate of Lucifer.

Mephistophilis clearly tells him about the fate of Lucifer and

the dialogue between the two is authentic very much:

FAUSTUS. How comes it then that he is prince of

devils?

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Oh by aspiring pride and insolence,

For which God threw him from the

face

ofheaven.19

Mephistophilis no doubt is very much clear of what it

means of being in hell and his speech no doubt can act as a

wake up call for Faustus:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Think’st thou that I that saw the face of

God

And tasted the eternal joys of heaven

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Am not tormented with ten thousand

hells,

In being deprived of everlasting bliss?20

But the result is that this hardly affects Faustus, his

arrogance or self conceit does not in any way diminish, on the

contrary, he mocks at Mephistophilis.

FAUSTUS. What, is great Mephistophilis so passionate,

For being deprived of the joys of heaven?

Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,

And scorn these joys thou never shalt

possess.21

Apart from these rebuffs, there are certain other remarks

of Mephistophilis which could have served as an eye-opener to

Faustus, had he not chosen to disregard them in his

presumptuous alienated quest for power. Faustus is again

pricked by his conscience against his contract with the devil and

often he feels like turning to God. He curses Mephistophilis for

excluding him from heavenly joys:

FAUSTUS. When I behold the heavens, then I

repent,

And curse thee, wicked

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Mephistophilis,

Because thou hast deprived me of

those

joys.22

Mephistophilus is eager to know the real cause.

MEPHISTOPHILIS. But thinkst thou heaven is such a

glorious thing?

I tell thee, Faustus is not half so fair

As thou, or any man that breathes on

earth.

FAUSTUS. How prov’st thou that?

MEPHISTOPHILIS. ’Twas made for man’ then he’s

more excellent.

FAUSTUS. If it was made for man,’ twas made

for

me:

I will renounce magic, and repent.23

Soon Faustus is reminded of being in contract with the

devil and so unfit for God’s mercy but he is much confident and

exclaims:
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FAUSTUS. Be I a devil, yet God may pity me.

Yea, God will pity me if I repent. 24

But all these emotional outbursts end in vain as he has no

control over his feelings. He wants to repent but he cannot

because repentance is against the principles of the devils to

whom he has surrendered his soul. Faustus again tries to turn to

God and renounce magic. He cries for the help and mercy of

God:

FAUSTUS. Ah Christ my saviour,

Seek to save distressed

Faustus soul.25

But soon Lucifer, Beelzebub and Mephistophilis appear

and strictly demand the fulfillment of the conditions to which

Faustus has agreed by signing a bond and thus, Faustus is again

forced to beg their pardon:

FAUSTUS. Nor will I henceforth. Pardon me in

this,

And Faustus vows never to look to

heaven,

Never to name God, or to pray to

him,
 126

To burn his scriptures, slay his

ministers,

And make my spirits pull his churches

down.26

At every stage, we are made aware of

Faustus’powerlessness: powerlessness not only over the outer

forces but also over the inner self. Faustus’s conversation with

the scholars in Act-V, Scene-ii, clearly brings it out. When the

scholars ask him to repent and pray to God, he cries out in

despair:

FAUSTUS. On God, whom Faustus hath abjured? On

God, Whom Faustus hath blasphemed? Oh,

my God, I would weep, but the devil draws

in my tears. Gush forth blood, instead of

tears, yea life and soul. Oh, he stays my

tongue, I would lift up my hands, but see,

they hold them, they hold them.27

He is in the clutches of the devil. He now repents but it is

too late. The date of the contract has expired and the devils are

anxiously waiting to drag his soul to hell. Faustus expresses his

miserable lot:
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FAUSTUS. Oft have I thought to have done so,

But the devil threatened to tear me in pieces

if I named God; to fetch me, body and soul,

If I once gave ear to divinity, and now ‘tis

too late: Gentlemen, away, lest you perish

with me.28

Then follows the last monologue of Faustus which clearly

exhibits his powerlessness in the worst form. The time of

damnation is approaching fast and he is finding himself unable

to escape the cruel nails of eternal damnation. Faustus has now

just one hour to live. Then Mephistophilis will come to take

away his soul to hell. He is in the miserable condition. He

would like time to stop. He wants the sun to rise so that the hour

of midnight may never come. In his desperation, he says that he

would be satisfied if this one hour could stretch into a year, or a

month, or a week or one single day so that he may get time to

repent for his misdeeds and beg God’s forgiveness. He appeals

to the planets to stop moving so that time may come to a halt:

FAUSTUS. Stand still, you ever-moving spheres

of heaven,

That time may cease and midnight

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never come.

Faire nature’s eye, rise, rise again, and

make

Perpetual day. Or let this hour be but

A year, a month, a week, a natural

day,

That Faustus may repent and save his

soul.29

Out of despair, he cries for the help of God. He sees a

vision of Christ’s blood flowing in the sky. One drop of it can

save his soul, even half a drop would suffice. But the moment

he names God and Christ, the devils begin to rend his heart and

again he is made helpless. Faustus is now feeling terrified to

think of how angry God must be with him. He, therefore,

appeals to mountains and hills to descend on him and hide him

from God’s anger. Then he calls upon the earth to open in order

that he may hide himself in its womb. But he finds that the earth

does not open to give him shelter. After vainly appealing to the

earth, Faustus now appeals to the stars which were ascendant at

the time of his birth. Stars are believed to influence the

character and nature of human beings. Faustus would like those

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stars to draw him up so that he might mingle with the clouds

and after being purified, be able to climb to heaven:

FAUSTUS. You stars that reigned at my nativity,

Whose influence hath allotted death and hell.

Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist,

Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud,

That when you vomit forth into the air

My limbs may issue from your smoky

mouths,

So that my soul may but ascend to heaven.30

“Tragedy is an isolating experience,”31 says Harry Levin.

Faustus’s fate is not different. No response is there to his cries

of anguish and his appeals for mercy. Thus, step by step

Faustus’s powerlessness is taking the turn for the worse. The

clock now strikes the half an hour to his life. Faustus feels that

God is not likely to show any mercy to his soul. He appeals to

God in the name of Christ and in the name of the martyrdom of

Christ, to fix same date when the agony that he is to suffer in

hell, will end. The most unfortunate part of his damnation is

that there will be no end to his suffering in hell. He is willing to

undergo the tortures of hell for a thousand years or for a

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hundred years but he wants that there should ultimately be an

end to his suffering:

FAUSTUS. Oh God, If thou wilt not have mercy on my

soul,

Yet for Christ’s sake, whose blood hath

ransomed me,

Impose some end to my incessant pain.32

This again “is one of many vain desires that flash into

Faustus’s mind as he twists and turns to escape his fate, as time

passes inexorably into eternity.”33 Pathetically, Faustus says that

it would have been better if he were a creature without soul. He

deplores the fact that he has a soul which is immortal. He says

that if the doctrine of the transmigration of souls were true, he

would be changed into some beast after his death and he would

be happy. But, as it is, he is condemned to everlasting

damnation in hell. In his distress, he curses his parents for

having given him birth. But then, he realises that he ought to

curse himself for his misdeeds or curse Lucifer who has robbed

him of the joys of heaven.

All these appeals and realisations are of no use. The clock

now strikes the hour of midnight. Faustus would like his body
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to dissolve and mingle with the air because, otherwise

Mephistophilis will carry his soul to hell. He would like his soul

to be changed into water drops which may mingle with the

waves of the ocean and be lost forever. But the devils appear

and look at Faustus threateningly. Faustus feels terrified and

makes a last attempt to seek the mercy of God. His courage fails

him when he finds the devils looking fiercely at him. He

addresses them as snakes and serpents, and he would like to get

a little respite from them. He is prepared to burn his books of

magic in order to escape the wrath of hell and get the love of

God. He does not want to go to hell but the devils take away

Faustus and he leaves behind him his most pathetic cry which

goes on echoing in the air, in the ears of the readers and of the

spectators:

FAUSTUS. My God, my God, look, not so fierce on

me:

Adders and serpents, let me breathe a

while!

Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer.

I’ll burn my books. Ah, Mephistophilis!34

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Even in the very first Act Faustus murmur.

FAUSTUS. The reward of sin is death: that’s hard35

We listen to the Chorus who speaks the Epilogue and gives the

moral. The man who is sent crying and shrieking to hell is one

who previously had avowedly vaunted:

FAUSTUS. Think’st thou that Faustus is so fond

to

imagine

That after this life there is any pain?

No, these are trifles and mere old

wives’ tales.36

He finds it impossible to get rid of his soul:

FAUSTUS. Why wert thou not a creature wanting

soule?37

Whereas before he had thought nothing earlier than to throw it

away.

FAUSTUS. Had I as many soules as there be starres,

Ide giue them al for Mephistophilis.38

Again he says:
 133

FAUSTUS. Here Mephistophilis receiue this screwee.

A deede of gift of body and of soule.39

The great reversal from the first scene of the play to the

last can be assessed in different ways: from presumption to

despair, from doubt of the existence of hell to belief in the

reality of nothing else, from a desire to be more than man to the

recognition that he has excluded himself from the promise of

redemption for all mankind in the Christ, from haste to sign the

bond to desire for delay when the moment comes to honour it,

from aspirations to deity, and omnipotence to a longing for

extinction, from alienation, from God to dealienation. At the

beginning, Faustus wished to rise above his humanity, at the

close, he would like to sink below it and be transformed into a

beast or into little water drops.

Thus, this variant of alienation i.e. powerlessness results

at a later stage into Faustus’s dealienation.

Social Alienation

The very first appearance of Faustus displays the seeds of

social and moral estrangement. When the curtain goes off, he is

seen debating the merits and demerits of various branches of

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study. This debate clearly indicates an early stage of inner

conflict. By and by, the inner conflict in him progresses to such

an extent that he finds himself pulled in opposite directions. He

is torn between two possible alternatives, one of which he must

choose. Consequently, Faustus meets his downfall because in

spite of his will power and determined efforts, he proves

unequal to the forces (outer and inner) opposing him. There is

no point in the play where we can stop and say that Faustus’

mind is no longer divided and that he is pursuing a particular

line of action without any mental disturbance. Faustus is

throughout dogged by uncertainty, doubt, apprehension and fear

leading to his alienation, which in the later stages becomes

painful and agonising.

Owing to his contempt for earthly limitations and

ambition to fulfill human desires with a completeness denied in

this world, Faustus promptly dismisses logic, medicine, law and

divinity, and they have left him “still but Faustus, and a man.”40

He decides in favour of magic:

FAUSTUS. These Metaphisickes of magicians,

And Necromantike bookes are heavenly.41

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Faustus thinks that his choice is rational. He is blissfully

unconscious of the fact that his rationalism is undercut by

rationalising. He rejects religion because it offers no scope for

the exercise of his free will. To him it is a monstrous trick

played on humanity for generations. He cannot submit to such a

system. “That is hard.”42 There is a hidden sub-conscious urge

in him for omnipotence which he fails to acknowledge at this

stage. He forgets that if there is condemnation for sins, there is

also hope of redemption by the sacrifice of Christ. He

consequently, deviates from the norms of society, mortality and

religion. “It is thus, strictly speaking, the passion for

omnipotence rather than omniscience that urges Faustus to

summon Mephistophilis by incantations to his side.”43

As soon as Faustus has decided in favour of magic to

attain his end, he seeks the aid of his friends, Valdes and

Cornelius, who already are proficient in the magic art:

FAUSTUS. Their conference will be a greater help to me

Than all my, labours plod I ne’er so fast.44

Both of them readily accept his offer for they have eagerly

waited long to lead him into forbidden ways.

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FAUSTUS. Know that your words haue woon me at the

last,

To practice Magicke and concealed arts.45

At the same time, though they are his dearest friends, he is not

ready to appear too pliant. He adds a little peevishly:

FAUSTUS. Yet not your words only, but mine own

fantasie.46

He makes it plain that he is no humble seeker after instruction,

but one whose personal fame and honour are to be taken into

account:

FAUSTUS. Then, gentle friends, ayde me in this

attempt, And I, that haue with concise

syllogismes

Graueld the Pastors of the German Church,

And made the flowering pride of

Wertenberge

Swarme to my problemes as the infernale

spirits

On sweet Masqeus when he came to hell,

Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,

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Whose shadowes made all Europe honor

him.47

His friends are content to accept him on these terms. Valdes,

while hinting that common contribution deserves common

reward:

VALDES. Faustus, these books, thy wit and our

experience

Shall make all nations to cononize us.48

He paints a glowing picture of the possibilities before then,

adding, however, a little ominously:

FAUSTUS. If learned Faustus will be resodlute.49

Reassured on this score, Cornelius is ready to allow Faustus’s

pride of place and position:

CORNELIUS. Then doubt not (Faustus) but to be

renowmd

And more frequented for this mystery

Than heretofore the Delphian

Oracle.50

However, “it soon appears that for all their sinister reputation,

the two are but dabblers in witch–craft. They have, indeed,

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called spirits from the deep, and they have come” 51 to tell

Faustus how powerful the sprits are.

FAUSTUS. The spirits tell me they can dry the sea

And fetch the treasure of all foreign wracks,

Yea, all the Wealth that our forefathers hid

Within the massy entrails of the earth.52

But they have made no use of this knowledge. They have

never become the masters or the slaves – of the spirits. Even to

raise them they must, of course, have run moral risk or the

danger of damnation.

Mephistophilis describes it as:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Nor will we come unless he use such

means

Whereby he is in danger to be

damned.53

These two friends have been careful enough not to “forfeit their

salvation for supernatural gifts; they have never succumbed to

the temptation of the spirits or made proof of their boasted

powers. Nor do they mean to put their own art to the ultimate

test.”54 when Faustus eagerly demands.

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FAUSTUS. Nothing Corneilus. O this cheares my soule,

Come, showe me some demonstrations

magicall,

That I may Coniure in some lustie groue,

And haue these joys in full possession.55

Valdes proves himself a ready teacher and guarantees to make

him proficient in the art:

VALDES. First I’ll instruct thee in the rudiments,

And then wilt thou be perfecter than I.56

Knowing the depth of Faustus’s learning and intensity of his

courage and resolution, “they are anxious to form a partnership

with one whose potentialities as an adept so far exceed their

own.”57 But Cornelius leaves us in no doubt of their intention to

make Faustus alienated from morality and then to exploit him

“as a cat’s paw rather than run into danger themselves.”58 He

leaves everything to Faustus’s will and efforts:

CORNELIUS. Valdes, First let him know the words of

art,

And then, all other ceremonies learned,

Faustus may try his cunning by himself.59

“The precious pair are no deeply versed magicians

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welcoming a promising beginner, but merely the devil’s

decoys luring Faustus along the road to destruction.” 60 They

serve their purpose in giving a dramatic turn to his

temptation.

Faustus feels quite elated to think of the power that magic

will bring him:

FAUSTUS. A sound magician is a demi–god.61

He says and decides to:

FAUSTUS. Here try my brains to get a deity.62

He is so much infatuated by the prospects which the black art is

going to offer to him that whenever Valdes expresses some

doubt about the firmness of Faustus’s determination, he boldly

asserts:

FAUSTUS. Valdes, as resolute am I in this

As thou to live; therefore object it not.63

Learning the rudiments of black art, Faustus resolves to test his

newly gained supernatural power:

FAUSTUS. This night I’ll conjure, though I die

therefore.64
 141

Faustus is exultant in spirit at the view that after he achieves

perfection in black art, he will be able to do what he desires, to

get what he craves for. His dreams are in heroic vein:

FAUSTUS. Oh, what a world of profit and delight,

Of power, of honor, of omnipotence

Is promised to the studious artisan!

All things that move between the quiet poles

Shall be at my command. Emperors and

Kings

Are but obeyed in their several provinces,

Nor can they raise the wind or rend the

clouds:

But his dominion that exceeds in this

Stretched as far as doth the mind of man.

A sound Magician is a demi- god.65

Faustus entertains to his mind an alluring vision of his future

and in line with other magicians, thinks of using his power for

the protection of his country:

FAUSTUS. Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,

Resolve me all ambiguities,

Perform what desperate enterprise I will?

 142

I’ll have them fly to India for gold,

Ransack the Ocean for orient Pearl,

And search all corners of the new-found

world

For pleasant fruits and princely delicates.

I’ll have them read me strange philosophy,

And tell the secrets of all foreign kings.

I’ll have them wall all Germany with brass,

And make swift Rhine circle faire

Wittenberg.66

In response to his eager incantations, Mephistophilis

appears. This evil spirit gets a contract signed by Dr. Faustus in

his own blood. Faustus promises to give away his soul to

Lucifer for twenty four years of omnipotence and pleasure. This

paves the way for Faustus’s damnation. Faustus’s corruption or

alienation from morality is not a mechanical outcome of his

pact with the evil. In spite of his earnest desire to know the

truth, the seeds of decay are in his character from the first – how

else should he come to make his fatal bargain? Besides his

passion for knowledge, there is lust for riches, pleasure and

power. He shares Barabas’s insatiable lust for wealth:

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FAUSTUS. I’ll have them fly to India for gold,

Ransack the Ocean for orient pearl,

And search all corners of the new found

world

For pleasant fruits and princely delicates.67

He aspires to be on the top in terms of worldly possessions and

in his heart of hearts he is very much clear that this negotiation

with Mephostophilis will be beneficial for him. He puts it as:

FAUSTUS. Had I as many souls as there be stars,

I’d give them all for Mephistophilis.

By him I’ll be great Emperor of the world.68

His aspiration resembles Tamburlaine’s vulgar desire for “The

sweet fruition of an earthly crown.”69

But Faustus’s ambition is not thus limited. The aspirations of

his soul reveal themselves in the words of the Evil Angel:

EVIL ANGEL. Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,

Lord and commander of these elements70

He also expresses “the lack of commitment to shared social

prescriptions of behaviour,”71 resulting in his widespread

deviance from the society. There is a sensual vein in his

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aspiring heart, though it is not exhibited at this early stage. His

demand to “live in all voluptuousness”72 anticipates his later

desires of becoming a “great emperor of the world.”73

Faustus stoops low enough from his moral self. It may be

with shrewd insight that Valdes promises serviceable spirits:

VALDES. Sometimes like women or unwedded maids,

Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows

Than has the white breasts of the queen of

love.74

But this simply means that Faustus is a man dazzled by

the unlimited possibilities of magic. After Faustus has signed

the bond with his blood, we can trace the stages of gradual

deterioration in his morality resulting in his alienated

personality. His previous interviews with Mephistophilis strikes

the note of earnest, if slightly sceptical, enquiry. He questions

eagerly about hell and the spirit answers in a tone that rings the

piercing note of a deeper sorrow than human despair:

FAUSTUS. Tell me what is that Lucifer thy

Lord?
 145

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Arch-regent and commander of all

spirits.

FAUSTUS. Was not that Lucifer an Angel once?

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Yes, Faustus, and most dearly loved

of

God.

FAUSTUS. How comes it then that he is prince of

devils?

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Oh, by aspiring pride and insolence,

For which God threw him from the

face

of heaven.

FAUSTUS. And what are you that live with

Lucifer?

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer,

Conspired against our God with

Lucifer,

And are forever damned with Lucifer.

FAUSTUS. Where are you damned?

MEPHISTOPHILIS. In hell.
 146

FAUSTUS. How comes it then that thou art out of

hell?

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Think’st thou that I that saw the face of

God

And tasted the eternal joys of heaven.

Am not tormented with ten thousand

hells

In being deprived of everlasting

bliss?75

But even this utterance of spiritual agony leaves Faustus

unmoved and unchanged and he readily offers his soul to

Lucifer and if he is allowed to live twenty four years “in all

voluptuousness.”76 He comes back with Mephistophilis on his

side. “Here his motive seems to take a lower and more sensual

turn, but he immediately afterwards revert to the idea of power

in his declaration that by infernal aid he will be great emperor

of the world.”77

After the bond is duly signed, the discussion is renewed

and Faustus returns to his old question of the whereabouts of

hell. Mephistophilis replies in the same spirit as before:

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MEPHISTOPHILIS. Hell hath no limits, nor is

circumscribed

In one self place. But where we are is

hell,

And where hell is there must we ever

be:

And to be short, when all the world

dissolves

And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be hell that is not

heaven.78

But Faustus is so much carried away by the dream of

power and knowledge that he cannot foresee the disastrous

consequences of coming damnation. “His intoxication at his

power to command the devil occasionally blinds him to

everything else.”79 He even stoops lower to enjoy the company

of a good wife and asks Mephistophilis to fulfill his desire. But

Mephistophilis strictly refuses to act accordingly, as:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Tut, Faustus Marriage is but a

ceremonial toy,

And if thou lovest me, think no more

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of it.

I’ll cull thee out the fairest courtesans

And bring them every morning to thy

bed.

She whom thine eye shall like, thy

heart shall have,

Be she as chaste as was Penelope,

As wise as Saba or as beautiful,

As was bright Lucifer before his fall.80

Again and again, he is reminded indirectly by

Mephistophilis of his deviation from the heavenly bliss. In spite

of all his aspiring motives, Faustus is often pricked by his

conscience. Once he goes even to the extent of calling upon

Christ to save his soul but at the cry, Lucifer enters with

Beelzebub and Mephistophilis to warn him that he is breaking

his contract and Faustus vows in terror:

FAUSTUS. Nor will I henceforth. Pardon me in this,

And Faustus vows never to look to heaven

Never to name God or to pray to him,

To burn his scriptures, slay his ministers

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And make my spirits pull his churches

down.81

At times, Faustus realises his mistake and tries to regret

his alienation from God and heaven. When he looks at heaven,

he thinks of heavenly joys, he has lost. He is on such occasions

overcome by remorse and curses the devil, Mephistophilis for

having deprived him of heavenly bliss. Mephistophilis in his

reply, tries to assure Faustus that his loss is not a serious one

because man is more splendid than heaven:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. But thinkst thou heaven is such a

glorious thing?

I tell thee, Faustus, it is not half so fair

As thou or any man that breathes on

earth.82

This argument appeals to Faustus and he comments:

FAUSTUS. If heaven was made for man, ’twas made for me.

I will renounce this magic and repent.83

At this point the Good Angel and the Evil Angel appear again,

each trying to win over Faustus to his side. The Good Angel

asks Faustus to repent for practising magic, while the Bad

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Angel tells him that there is now no hope for him of God’s

forgiveness because he has already pledged his soul to Satan

and it is of his own seeking.

Faustus now finds it impossible to repent and to seek

God’s forgiveness. He has already become a hardened sinner

for whom prayer and repentance is impossible. But soon his

feeling of utter hopelessness or despair is overcome by his

thought of the enjoyment of pleasures made available to him by

the devil. Later, in the same scene, when Faustus calls on Christ

to save his soul, Lucifer replies with admirable logic:

LUCIFER. Christ cannot save thy soul for he is just.

There’s none but I have interest in the same.84

Again, Faustus has to submit the authority of the devil.

Lucifer arrogantly warns him not to speak of the Garden of

Eden and the creation of God. He can talk of the devil and of

nothing else.

In Act V, the Old Man appears and urges Faustus’

alienated self to repent of his sinful misdeeds. Let Faustus’s

heart break, let him shed his blood and let his blood mingle with

his tears, tears flowing from his eyes, because of his remorse.
 151

He points out that only the mercy of Christ can wash

away Faustus’ heinous crime and save his soul. All these

appeals straightway invade the inner conscience of Faustus. He

becomes aware of his miserable lot as the time of his death is

approaching. The fear of damnation begins to haunt him.

Mephistophilis, seeing Faustus’s mood of despair, offers him a

dagger to commit suicide. However, the Old Man prevents him

from this sinful deed. Faustus does feel a desire to repent of his

sins, but Lucifer fights against his desire and prevents him from

seeking God’s pardon:

FAUSTUS. Accursed Faustus, wretch, what hast thou done?

I do repent, and yet I do despair.85

No conflict can be more agonizing than this.

Mephistophilis commands Faustus to rebel against God.

If Faustus persists in seeking God’s forgiveness, Mephistophilis

will tear his flesh bit by bit in order to punish him. Faustus

apologises to Mephistophilis for having gone back on his word

and for having sought God’s pardon. Thus, urged by the Old

Man, Faustus has attempted a last revolt but as usual he has

been cowed into submission and has renewed the blood bond.
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He has sunk so low as to beg revenge upon his would be

saviour:

FAUSTUS. Torment, sweet friend, that base and

crooked age

That durst dissuade me from thy

Lucifer,

With greatest torment that our hell

affords.86

Again, his alienation from moral values is evident when he

seeks possession of Helen:

FAUSTUS. One thing, good servant, let me crave of thee

To glut the longing of my heart’s desire,

That I may have unto my paramour

That heavenly Helen which I saw of late,

Whose sweet embraces may extinguish clear

These thoughts that do dissuade me from my

vow,

And keep my vow I made to Lucifer.87

“Love and revenge are alike insurances against salvation.

Helen then is a ‘spirit’ and in this play a ‘spirit’ means a ‘devil’.

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In making her his paramour, Faustus commits the sin of

demoniality.”88 Thus he, completely deprives himself of the

least hope of salvation. Immediately before the Helen episode

the Old Man is still calling on Faustus to repent, “but with

Faustus’s union with Helen the nice balance between possible

salvation and imminent damnation is upset. The Old Man, who

has witnessed the meeting, recognises the inevitable.”89 He

exclaims:

OLD MAN. Accurs’d Faustus, miserable man,

That from thy soul excludst the grace

of

heauen

And fliest the throne of his

tribunale seate.90

The fiery flame of his lust and power and knowledge

burns Faustus’s human feelings to ashes and his personality is

developed into one who is absolutely alienated from morality,

religion, God and also from society. The socially alienated

person feels lonely even in the presence of others – the same is

the lot of Faustus, Faustus’s friends are there, his students are

there, his servant is there, the whole society is there but he is

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alienated from all of them by his aspiring self and afterwards

by his evil contract yielding his soul to the devil.

Self Alienation

In self-alienation the person experiences himself as an

alien. He becomes estranged from self. “The individual is out of

touch with himself.”91 In one way or the other, this form of

alienation is best exhibited in Dr. Faustus by the introduction of

two Angels. These two Angels represent two contrary impulses

in Faustus. The Good Angel, symbolising Faustus’s conscience,

tries to dissuade him from the practice of magic but the Bad

Angel, symbolising the evil instinct that exists in every human

being, urges him to go further in this black art. The good Angel

and the Bad Angel can’t be regarded as forces outside Faustus

but, on the contrary, natural tendencies in him, with the evil

impulse proving more powerful. “Through this play, however,

runs the feeling, of which there is no hint in Tamburlaine that

the satisfaction of unbridled desire is unlawful and the poet

vividly points the struggle in Faustus’s soul before he finally

surrenders himself to the powers of darkness.”92

Faustus’s alienation from self starts the very moment he

gets involved in magic. In the first scene of Act I, which

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symbolises the process of self-alienation, the two Angels

appear. “Faustus’s mind is revealed in the first two Acts – it is

seen swinging constantly between repentance and damnation,

wavering between remorse and fixed price.”93 The Good Angel

persuades Dr. Faustus to adhere to Christ and read the

Scriptures:

GOOD ANGEL. Oh, Faustus, lay that damned book

aside,

And gaze not on it lest it tempt thy

soul

And heap God’s heavy wrath upon thy

head.

Reade read the scriptures: that is

blasphemy.94

But the Bad Angel tries to incite Faustus to devote

himself to magic and proceed without any hesitation:

BAD ANGEL. Go forward, Faustus, in that famous

art

Wherein all nature’s treasure is

contained:

Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,

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Lord and commander of these

elements.95

At the beginning of Act II scene i, we again see Faustus

in the conflict. He realises that he is damned forever and cannot

be saved. An inner voice coming from his conscience, calls

upon him to turn to God and renounce magic and he does feel

like turning to God. But soon he changes his mind and proposes

to build an altar and a Church to Beelzebub:

FAUSTUS. To him Ile build an altare and a church,

And often luke warme blood of new borne

babes.96

As soon as he comes to the decision, however, his mental

conflict recurs. The Good Angel and the Bad Angel again

appear externalising his internal struggle with his conscience.

The Good Angel asks him to leave that detestable art of magic

and says:

GOOD ANGEL. Sweet Faustus, thinke of heauen and

heauenly

things.97
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While the Bad Angel urges him to think of honour and of

wealth as prayers to God and repentance over one’s sins are

nothing:

EVIL ANGEL. Rather illusions, fruites of lunacy,

That makes men foolish that do trust them

most.98

Faustus comforts himself by saying that with

Mephistophilis on his side, God will not be able to hurt him.

When Faustus proceeds to sign the bond, his blood

congeals and he can write no more. This is another warning

from his own soul. When Mephistophilis has brought a chafer

of fire to dissolve his congealed blood, Faustus resumes his

writing of the bond but another warming comes in the words:

FAUSTUS. Homo Fuge.99

This too, is his inner voice urging him not to go headlong

to his damnation. But evil impulse overpowers him and the

bond is accordingly signed and Faustus begins to interrogate

Mephistophilis regarding hell.

Mephistophilis tries to divert his attention from heaven

but the Good Angel and the Bad Angel appear, once again
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externalising the inner conflict that has taken place in Dr.

Faustus. The Angels depart and Faustus expresses the disturbed

state of his mind, saying:

FAUSTUS. My heart is hardned I cannot repent,

Scarce can I name saluation, faith or

heauen,

But fearful ecchoes thunders in mine

eaers: Faustus, thou art are damn’d

these swordses and kniues

Poyson, gunnes, halters and

invenomd

Are layde before me to dispatch my

selfe,

Had not swede pleasure conquerd

deepe dispoure.100

But again he concludes that he needs neither to kill

himself nor fall into a state of despair:

FAUSTUS. Why should I dye then, or basely

despair?

I am resolu’d; Faustus shall not

repent.101
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He questions Mephistophilis regarding astronomy and

when he goes on to ask who made the world, he gets a

disappointing and annoying reply:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Thinke thou on hell Faustus, for thou

art damned.102

Mephistophilis departs but Faustus’s mood has again changed

to one of despair. He thinks that it is too late for him to repent.

Then again, the Good Angel and the Bad Angel appear, the

former urging him to repent:

GOOD ANGEL. Neuer too late, if Faustus repent.103

But the Bad Angel threatens him with the dire consequences if

he even thinks of repenting. Here Faustus seems to be

persuaded by the Good Angel and in an outburst of remorse, he

calls upon Christ:

FAUSTUS. Ah Christ, my Sauiour seeke to saue

distressed Faustus soule.104

This is a moment of crisis in Faustus’s career. He would

like to retrace his steps and repent for his sin of surrendering his

soul to the devil. But Lucifer, Beelzebub and Mephistophilis

appear and demand the fulfillment of conditions to which

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Faustus has agreed by signinig a bond in his blood. Finding no

way out of the situation, Faustus begs the forgiveness of the

devils. The devils, thereupon, show him the Seven Deadly Sins

to entertain him and at the end of the show Faustus says:

FAUSTUS. O this feedes my soule.105

Lucifer assures him:

LUCIFER. Tut Faustus, in hel in al manner of

delight.”106 Faustus is again elated at his contrail and speaks:

FAUSTUS. O, might I see hell and return again safe,

how

happy were I then?107

Faustus takes the utmost possible advantage of the

service, of Mephistophilis. It is this fallen angel with his

sinister sincerity and unaffected frankness that resolves for

Faustus the doleful problems of damnation and indirectly helps

to heighten the intrepidity of the sin-steeped scholar and his

spiritual alienation. It is Mephistophilis that clears Faustus’s

doubts in astronomy and cosmography, helps him to ride

triumphantly in a chariot round the world – scanning the planets

in the firmament and the kingdoms of the earth. It is with the

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help of Mephistophilis, the embodiment of his dearly purchased

power, that Faustus surfeits his sense with carnal pleasures, not

coarse delight, however, but highest and deepest enjoyments.

His longing is for the fairest maid of Germany, for the beauty of

the Helen that makes man immortal with a kiss. He chooses no

other song but that of Homer, no music but that shaken from

Amphion’s harp. He uses sweet pleasures to conquer deep

despair. Faustus’s mind is delighted with the dumb show of

devils that Mephistophilis presents before him. Even the

repulsive masque of the Seven Deadly Sins attracts and soothes

him for the time being.

Travelling far and wide, Faustus displays his newly won

power. He fools the Pope and the Friars to the top of his bent,

calls up the spirits of dead Alexander and his Paramour before

the Emperor and plays a practical joke on the horse courser. In

the midst of all this, however, the horror of damnation seizes

him every now and then. It increases with the passing of years

and the drawing near of the end. He is unable to take advantage

even of the last chance that is given to him by the Old Man. He

would have listened to the advice, repented for his sin and

rectified his character, but the pull of the evil forces with which
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he has associated himself for long, is too much for him to resist.

Moreover, Mephistophilis is there near at hand threatening:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Thou traitor, Faustus, I arrest thy

soule,

For disobedience to my souereigne

Lord,

Reuolt, or Ile in peece - mealel teare

thy flesh.108

Faustus’s own alienation from self, his own vices him into

instruments to plague him.

In Act V, scene I, an Old Man appears and tries to

awaken Faustus to the heinous sins which he has committed by

his contract with the devil. He tells Faustus’s that there is still

time for him to seek God’s mercy. At the Old Man’s

exhortation, Faustus immediately becomes aware of the call of

his own conscience, he says to himself:

FAUSTUS. Where art thou, Faustus? wretch, what

hast thou done?

Damned art thou Faustus, damn’d, despaire

and die.

Hell calls for right, and with a roaring voyce

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Sayes ‘Faustus, come, thine houre is come,

And Faustus now will come to do thee

right!109

He tries to commit suicide but the Old Man checks him and

says:

OLD MAN. Ah stay good Faustus, Stay thy

desperate steps,

I see an Angele houers ore thy head.

And with a viole full of precious grace

Offers to pour the same into thy soul.

Then call for mercie and auoy’d

despaire.110

The old Man’s words bring some solace to Faustus’s

distressed soul. But as Faustus proceeds to fight against his

despair in order to be able to repent, Mephistophilis threatens

him to tear his flesh into pieces for disobeying Lucifer. Again,

Faustus rejects to act according to the call of his conscience and

demands to see Helen. Accordingly, he is provided with the

vision of sweet Helen, which puts him in a mood of rapturous

joy.
 164

Thus from the beginning to the end, Faustus neglects the

call of his conscience and as a penalty he has to undergo eternal

damnation. Because of his unscrupulous cravings and activities,

Faustus becomes alienated from his own self. He is scolded by

the Old Man for surrendering to Lucifer and thus, having

excluded himself from the grace of heaven.

OLD MAN. Accursed Faustus, miserable man,

That from thy soul excludst the grace

of

heauen,

And fliest the throne of his tribunale

seat!111

We can very well say that it is because of Faustus’s

alienation from his self that he has to suffer from damnation.

His cry is pathetic:

FAUSTUS. My God, my God, looke not so fierce on me:

Adders, and Serpents, let me breathe a while:

Vgly hell, gape not! Came not, Lucifer!

Ile burne my bookes ah, Mephistophilis!112

Cultural Estrangement
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This variant of alienation denotes the individual’s

deviation from the society and the culture it carries. It puts

emphasis on a sense of removal from the established values of

society. It involves departure from cultural values of society.

Cultural estrangement is best found in Dr. Faustus. From the

very beginning, he is estranged from the social values. The very

idea of pursuing necromancy as branch of study, clearly

exhibits Faustus’s alienation from social norms. Magic, being

incompatible with the beliefs of the Church, has always been a

prohibited art. It is against the norms of social culture and the

man practising it is looked upon as a social pervert But Faustus

has no control over his craving and is even persuaded by Evill

Angell:

EVILL ANGELL. Go forward Faustus in that famous art,

Wherein all natures treasury is

containd:

Be thou on earth as Love is in the

skie,

Lord and commaunder of these

Elements.113
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He embraces it and scorns other disciplines socially

approved. He is contemptuous of worldly human limitations and

tries to come out of them with the help of magic. He dismisses

all other branches of study as fit only for a drudge and exclaims:

FAUSTUS. Philosophy is odious and obscure;

Both Law and Phisicke are for pettie

wits,

Divinitie is basest of the three,

Vunpleasant, harsh, contemptible and

vilde.114

Faustus minutely broods over the merits and demerits of these

branches of studies. First, he takes up philosophy and leaves it

as it only teaches how to argue well-an end he has already

achieved. It does not suit his genius he says:

FAUSTUS. Sweet Analytics, tis thou hast rauisht me

Bene disserere est finis logices

Is to dispute well, Logickes chiefest end,

Affoords this Art no greater myracle?

Then reade no more, thou hast attained

that end:115
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He shifts his attention from philosophy to the study of

medicine in view of the dictum: where the philosopher leaves

off, there the physician begins. But here also he does not stop,

because he has already attained perfection in this art. He

thinks:

FAUSTUS. The end of physicke is our bodies health:

Why Faustus, hast thou not attained that

end?

Is not thy common talk sound

aphorismes?

Are not thy billes hung vp as monuments,

Whereby whole Citties haue escapt the

plague,

And divers desprate maladies been eased

Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a

man116

But the man whose ambition is to circumvent earthly

limitations, finds little solace in the study of medicine. True, its

practice can give him enormous wealth, but after all it can cure

only disease, not the mortality of man. Elaborating his ambition

he says:
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FAUSTUS. Yet art thou still but Faustus and a man.

Wouldst thou make men to liue eternally.

Or, being dead, raise them to life againe,

Then this profession were to be esteem’d.117

Faustus then turns to the study of law. But even this fails to

bring contentment to him, because:

FAUSTUS. His study titles a mercenary drudge,

Who aimes at nothing but externale trash,

Too seruile and illiberal for me.118

Now Faustus turns his attention to the study of divinity.

But its tenets prescribe a sort of determinism-what will be, will

be. Faustus who shares the Renaissance belief of his creator,

refuses to submit to a system that deprives man of his will

power. He readily renounces it. The dreams he cherishes cannot

be materialised by any of these branches of study. That is why,

his attention is captured by the thoughts of necromancy. He

feels that the treatise on supernatural matters and books dealing

with the art of calling up spirits of the dead, are wonderful and

inspiring. He exultingly remarks:

FAUSTUS. These Metaphisickes of Magicians.

And Necromantike books are

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heauenly:

Lines, circles, sceanes, letters, and

characters:

I, these are those that Faustus most

desires.119

Faustus is estranged from society when he adopts magic

when he adopts magic for his specialisation. He is so gripped by

his unearthly aspirations and so bent upon materialising them

that he readily adopts a course which involves the risk of

damnation. But the prospects of supernatural power and

knowledge is so alluring to him that he overlooks the after

coming damnation and avowedly proclaims:

FAUSTUS. All things that moue between the quiet poles

shalbe at my command. Emperorus and

kings

Are but obeyed in their seueral prouinces:

Nor can they raise the wind or rend the

cloudes.

But his dominion that exceeds in this,

Stretcheth as farre as doth the minde of

man.
 170

A sound Magician is a mighty god:

Here try thy brains to get a deitie1120

To fulfill his ambition, he seeks the help of Valdes and

Cornelius, who are proficient in magic. Valdes and Cornelius

are already estranged from society as is remarked by one of the

scholars:

FIRST SCHOLAR. That thou art fallen into that damned

art

For which they two are infamous

through the world121

Faustus decides not only to study work art but also to

practice it. For that purpose he stoops so low as to promise to

surrender his soul to Satan after twenty four years of voluptuous

pleasures. This surrender of Faustus is nothing but his

estrangement from social norms.

From time to time Faustus is awakened to his tragic error.

His conscience pricks him but he suppresses it, just because of

his alienation from society. He is carried lower and lower in his

dealings owing to his estrangement from society. He is not even

ashamed of playing school boy tricks upon the Church

dignitaries, because as a disciple of the devil, he looks upon

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them as his enemies. Pope, the highest symbol of Roman

Catholic Church, also becomes a prey to Faustus’s alienated

self. Pope is at a feast in the company of the Cardinal of

Lorraine. Faustus is made invisible by Mephistophilis. He

snatches away dishes and drinks from the hand of the Pope,

much to the Pope’s dismay. He exclaims surprisingly:

POPE. How now? Whose that which snatch the

meate from me?

Will no man looke?

My Lord dish was sent me from the

122
Cardinall of a Florence.

Faustus then goes so far as to hit the Pope on his ear.

Under the orders of the Pope, the Friars perform a ritual

whereby they call down a curse on the sinner who has had the

audacity to offend the Pope. At the end of this ceremony

Mephistophilis and Faustus beat the Friars and throw fireworks

among them. Undoubtedly, by his harassment of the Pope,

Faustus clearly exhibits his anti-social and anti-religious

attitude. Thus, at every step, Faustus is alienated from society

and the culture it carries.

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Alienation from work

G. Petrovic suggests that the alienation from work is, “the

alienation of man from the Products of his own activity, the

alienation of man from his productive activity itself, the

alienation of man from his own essence and the alienation of

man from other men.”123 All those forms of alienated labour are

best seen in Faustus’s career. He is alienated from his own

products. In the beginning, he tries to be perfect in the art of

necromancy and stoops lower and lower to achieve this end.

With the advancement of his study and practice, he becomes

capable of doing the things which are not suited to human

powers. He can play tricks on the Pope of Rome, he can even

raise Alexander, the Great from his tomb and also Alexander’s

mistress, Thais in the court of the Emperor of Germany. To

remind one of Emperor’s knights of his insolence, Faustus even

raises a pair of horns on his head and removes them at the

request of Emperor himself. These all are the achievements of

Faustus’s magical powers. But when he becomes aware of the

evil influence of his powers, he becomes alienated from his

achievements. He feels no pleasure, no thrill even with the

thought of his magical powers. Consequently, he grows

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alienated from the products of his own activity (display of

magical power). He also becomes alienated from his productive

activity (practice of magic) for which once he craved so eagerly.

He is so much alienated from his products and productive

activity that he goes to the extent of saying:

FAUSTUS. I’ll burn my books. Ah! Mephistophilis124

Out of despair and anger, Faustus curses even Lucifer, to whom

he had willingly, and knowingly signed a bond:

FAUSTUS. No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer

That hath deprived thee of the joys of

heaven.125

He now repents over his earlier decision of choosing

necromancy as a branch of study. Had he not craved for

supernatural power, he would have enjoyed the bliss of heaven.

This outburst of remorse, creates depression in Doctor Faustus

and thus alienates him from magic that once was his greatest

productive activity. This naturally results in his alienation from

the products of his activity i.e. the display of magical power. He

exclaims pitiably:
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FAUSTUS. God forbade it indeed, but Faustus hath

done it: for vaine pleasure of 24 years

hath Faustus lost eternale joy and felicities? I

writ them a bill with mine owne bloud, the

date

is expired, The time will come, and he will

fetch me.126

Alienation from his own essence is also exhibited in

Faustus at various stages. Faustus is, at the root, a human being

with human feelings. But these feelings are suppressed by

Faustus’ lust for power and longing for omnipotence. Whenever

the essence of humanity comes to the surface, Faustus feels

disturbed and even tries to abandon necromancy and return to

God according to the call of his conscience:

FAUSTUS. Ah Christ, my Saviour, My Sauiour.

Seeke to saue distressed Faustus Soule.127

But again and again his essence i.e. his conscience is put down

by the domineering influence of his superhuman aspirations. As

a result of his earlier sin, he cannot listen to the call of his

conscience. If he tries to do that he is warned by his devil-

master:
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LUCIFER. We come to tell thee thou dost injure

vs

Lucifer: Thou talkst on Christ,

contrary

to thy promise:

Thou should’st not think on God,

Thinke of the deuill,

And of his dame too.128

Thus, Faustus is alienated from his own essence. This

alienation of Faustus from his deep rooted humanity results in

his alienation from other human beings also. After signing a

bond with the devil, Faustus misses the company of great

scholars. These scholars of University had always been

intimately associated with Dr. Faustus as he was the most

learned of them. But his immoral activities, his practice of black

art, make him alienated from them. When he is back among his

students at Wertenberge he is a very different Faustus from the

fearless teacher his students used to know, whose least absence

from the class room caused concern:

FIRST SCHOLAR. I wonder what’s become of Faustus,

That was wont to make our schools

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ring with sic probo.129

Faustus is a tremendous figure of terrible tragic

alienation. The well-versed Wertenberge ally scholar rises to be

an able of Lucifer and the enemy of God. Insatiable hunger for

knowledge and the power that knowledge gives is the dominant

passion of Faustus, and this becomes as fatal a passion as a

consuming lust of power is in the case of Tamburlaine. Over the

soul of the Wertenberge doctor the passion for knowledge

dominates and all the influences of good and evil, the voices of

the damned as also of the blessed angels reach him faint and

ineffectual as dreams of distant music or the suggestions of long

forgotten odours, save as they promise to glut the fierce hunger

and thirst of his intellect. It is interesting to note how in Faustus

the scholar never disappears in the magician. He is ever a

student and a thinker. He wants all ambiguities to be resolved

and all strange philosophies explained. Even in the last scene

when the two scholars take leave of him, Faustus retains about

him an atmosphere of learning, of refinement. Faustus is made

of the stuff of which heroes are made. He has an unbridled

passion for knowledge infinite, a limitless desire for the

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unattainable, a spirit of reckless adventure and tremendous

confidence in his own will and spirit. And, too, he has dignity,

tenacity, patience, profundity and vein of unsuspected humanity

and tenderness. But all these are thrown into the background by

the isolation of his position and the horror of the course he

persues. He weaves the threads of his tragedy with his own

hands, signs his own death warrant. Himself the battlefield for

one of the greatest mental conflicts of man. Faustus creates in

us a feeling of loss and a sense of waste. What abiding wonders

would he not have achieved in the realms of the mind, had he

pursued pure scholarship and legitimate studies. Missing the

honour of a master mind, he has only the recognition of an

alienated magician. He would have been a scholar prince, but he

chose to be a conjurer – laureate. J.B. Steane has rightly

observed: “Instability is fundamental in the play, as a theme and

a characteristic. Dr. Faustus is a play of violent contrasts within

a rigorous structural unity. Hilarity and agony, seriousness and

irresponsibility: even of the most cautious theories of

authorship, Marlowe is responsible at times for all these

extremes. This artistic instability matches the instability of the

hero.”130
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Faustus, the chief and central figure of Marlowe’s play,

stands not for a character, not for a man but for Man, for

Everyman. The grim tragedy that befalls him is not a personal

tragedy, but one that overtakes all those who dare “To practice

more than heavenly power permits.”131 The conflict that rages in

his mind is not peculiar to him, but common to all who waver

between man and man, but the eternal battle, between the world

– old protagonists – man and spiritual power. The battle takes

place not in any known theatre of war but in the invisible and

illimitable region of the mind. What is object of fight – not

sceptres and crowns, not kingdoms and empires, but the

knowledge of man’s final fate. And the achievement of fight? –

not the success but the alienation of Faustus from society,

culture, morality, turning into his dealienation in the end.

Alienation in the Character of Mephistophilis

Doctor Faustus is in a way One–man show.

Characterisation in Doctor Faustus is, in general, weak and

shadowy. Marlowe concentrates all his powers of character

delineation on Faustus. Mephistophilis gets his share, though to

a much less degree. But all the other characters are faint and

feeble. In fact, Marlowe seems to have designed these minor

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characters – Valdes, Cornelius, the scholars, the Old Man, the

Good and the Bad Angels, in such a manner as to heighten the

character of Faustus by contrast. Each of these subordinate

characters is dedicated to the one main purpose of expressing

the psychological condition of Faustus from various points of

view.

Of the subordinate characters, Mephistophilis alone has a

certain individuality and importance. He is the right hand spirit

of Lucifer. He describes himself as modestly as

MEPHISTOPHILIS. I am a servant of great Lucifer,

And may not allow thee want his

leaue,

No more than he commands must we

performe.132

He, as a whole, appears to be the incarnation of alienation

– alienation from God, from society, from heaven, from

salvation, from morality and from everything sacred and pious.

He and Lucifer conspired against God and feel from heaven to

be damned forever in hell. Mephistophilis describes himself as:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer,

Conspir’d against our God with

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Lucifer, And are for euer damned with

Lucifer.133

His conspiracy against God clearly exhibits the seeds of

alienation in his character. His devotion for self and morality is

the real cause of his revolt against God. He is now tormented in

hell and is deprived of the joys of heaven. He, therefore, feels

joy in seeing other persons deprived of heavenly pleasures. This

sadistic attitude is again the result of his estrangement. He

misguides people and tempts them to go astray.

Part of his work seems to tempt souls to hell by offering

allurements and hiding from them the dreadfulness of

damnation. He applies the same yardstick to Faustus. He makes

Faustus to sign a bond in his own blood and reminds him of it

on all occasions and compels him to keep his word and submit

himself to the devils finally. Though alienated, Mephistophilis

does not conceal anything from Faustus. When Faustus is

successful in summoning Mephistophilis, he thinks that he can

now order him about anything. Accordingly, he charges the

devil to wait upon him during his life time and do whatever he

is commanded to do: FAUSTUS. I charge thee wait

upon me whilst I lieu,

 181

To do what euer Faustus shall commaund,

Be it to make the Moone drop from her

spheare,

Or the ocean to ouer whelme the world.134

But Mephistophilis disillusions him by saying that he cannot

obey him without Lucifer’s permission. But Faustus no doubt is

eager to know the real cause:

FAUSTUS. Did not he charge thee to appeare to

mee?

MEPHISTOPHILIS. No I came now hither of mine own

accord.

FAUSTUS. Did not my conjuring speeches raise

thee? Speake.135

But the very fact is that it is customary with devils to

come to those whose souls they hope to win in favour of Lucifer

and Mephistophilis put it as:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. For when we hear one racke the

name of God,

Abiure the scriptures and his

 182

Saviour Christ,

Wee flye in hope to get his

glorious soule;

Nor will we come unless he use

such meanes

Whereby he is in danger to be

damned.136

Thus, he clearly voices his deprived and alienated self.

After signing the bond, Faustus asks for a wife. Marriage is,

however, a sacred ceremony and Mephistophilis, therefore,

cannot give him a wife. This implies his powerlessness before

God and his creation. He tries to dissuade Faustus from having

a wife but, when Faustus reiterates his desire, Mephistophilis

plays a crude practical joke by bringing a devil, dressed like a

woman, on seeing whom Faustus is greatly annoyed.

Mephistophilis then consoles him by promising to bring him a

mistress (not a wife). This clearly points out Mephistophilis’s

helplessness resulting from his alienation.

Later, Faustus questions Mephistophilis about astronomy.

Mephistophilis gives very simple answers. Even when Faustus

asks who made the world, Mephistophilis is reluctant to

 183

acknowledge God, and refuses to give a reply. Faustus insists

on an answer but Mephistophilis says:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Moue me not, for I will not thee. 137

Faustus loses his temper and asks:

FAUSTUS. Villaine, haue I not bound thee to tell

anything?138

Mephistophilis points out that the question about the

creation of the world adversely affects the kingdom of hell and

will, therefore, not be answered. This refusal obviously brings

out Mephistophilis’s alienation – physical as well as spiritual –

from God, and from the creation of God.

In reply to another question, Mephistophilis expresses

deep regret at being deprived of heaven, of heavenly pleasures.

Signs of Mephistophilis remorse and passion are evident in the

lines:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Think’st thou that I who saw the

face of God.

And tasted the eternale joyes of

heauen

Am not torment’d with ten

 184

thousand hels

In being depriu’d of euerlasting

blisse? O Faustus, leaue these friuolous

demaunds

Which strike a terror to my fainting

soule.139

Mephistophilis, no doubt, means only to express his own

anguish, his own meaningless and purposeless life. The same

happens after the bond has been signed. Faustus asks where hell

is, and Mephistophilis explains that hell is the mental condition

of those who are entirely alienated from God. Mephistophilis

says:

MEPHISTOPHILIS. Hell hath no limits, nor is

circumscrib’d.

In one selfe place, for where we

are

is hell,

And where hell is, must we ever

be.140
 185

Mephistophilis intends to voice his restrained tragic

passion which has become his inevitable lot because of his

estrangement from God and godly virtues. His words would

have been construed as a warning if Faustus had been in a

receptive mood. But he is so obsessed with the thought of

omnipotence. Through omniscience that nothing can make him

swerve from his path, much less the examples of devil from

hell. When Mephistophilis gets sentimental at having lost the

joys of heaven, he patronisingly speaks to him:

FAUSTUS. What, is great Mephistophilis so

passionate

For being depriv’d of the joyes of

heauen?

Learne thou of Faustus manly

fortitude,

And scorn those joyes thou neuer

shalt possess.141

Mephistophilis is aghast at the heroic courage and

determination of Faustus. Here is a man who can teach a

lesson to the devil himself.

End Notes
 186

1. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 116. Print.

2. Ibid; p. 267- 68

3. John Jump. Ed. Doctor Faustus: A Selection of Critical

Essays. London: Macmillan, 1969. 32. Print.

4. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1969. 159. Print.

5. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 265. Print.

6. Ibid; p. 266

7. Ibid; p. 266

8. Ibid; p. 267
 187

9. Ibid; p. 267

10. Ibid; p. 267

11. Ibid; p. 267

12. Ibid; p. 268

13. Ibid; p. 333

14. Ibid; p. 333

15. Ibid; p. 333

16. Ibid; p. 336-37

17. “Alienation.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1977 ed. 574.

Print.

18. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 283. Print.

19. Ibid; p. 275

20. Ibid; p. 275

 188

21. Ibid; p. 275

22. Ibid; p. 285

23. Ibid; p. 285

24. Ibid; p. 285

25. Ibid; p. 288

26. Ibid; p. 288

27. Ibid; p. 333

28. Ibid; p. 333-34

29. Ibid; p. 336

30. Ibid; p. 337

31. Harry Levin. The Overrearcher: A Study of Christopher
Marlow. London: Faber, 1953. 151. Print.

32. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 337. Print.
 189

33. F.P. Wilson. Marlowe and the Early

Shakespeare.
London: Oxford UP, 1963. 84. Print.

34. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 338. Print.

35. Ibid; p. 267

36. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 283. Print.

37. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: 1910. 143. Print.

38. Ibid; p. 156

39. Ibid; p. 162
40. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine
the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
 190

Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:

Penguin, 1969. 266. Print.

41. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: 1910. 148. Print.

42. Ibid; p. 149.

43. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.
Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 38. Print.

44. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 268. Print.

45. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: 1910. 149. Print.

46. Ibid; p. 150

47. Ibid; p. 150

48. Ibid; p. 150

49. Ibid; p. 150

50. Ibid; p. 151

 191

51. W.W.Greg. “The Damnation of Faustus.” Modern

Language Review. 30 (1964): 98. Print.
52. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker
Brooke. London: 1910. 151. Print.

53. Ibid; p. 151

54. W.W.Greg. “The Damnation of Faustus.” Modern

Language Review. 30 (1946): 98. Print.
55. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker
Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 151. Print.
56. Ibid; p. 151

57. W.W.Greg. “The Damnation of Faustus.” Modern

Language Review. 30 (1946): 99. Print.
58. Idem
59. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine
the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 270. Print.

60. W.W.Greg. “The Damnation of Faustus.” Modern

Language Review. 30 (1946): 98. Print.
61. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine
the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
 192

The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 268. Print.

62. Ibid; p. 268

63. Ibid; p. 270

64. Ibid; p. 271

65. Ibid; p. 267-68

66. Ibid; p. 268

67. Ibid; p. 268

68. Ibid; p. 276

69. Ibid; p. 133

70. Ibid; p. 268

.
71. Melvin Seeman. “Alienation.” Encyclopaedia Britannica.
1977 ed. 574. Print.

72. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
 193

Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:

Penguin, 1969. 272. Print.

73. Ibid; p. 276

74. Ibid; p. 270

75. Ibid; p. 274-75

76. Ibid; p. 275

77. Frederick S.Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 38-39. Print.

78. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 283. Print.

79. M.C. Bradbrook. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan

Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979. 151.
Print.

80. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
 194

Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:

Penguin, 1969. 284. Print.

81. Ibid; p. 288

82. Ibid; p. 285

83. Ibid; p. 285

84. Ibid; p. 288

85. Ibid; p. 329

86. Ibid; p. 330

87. Ibid; p. 330

88. W.W. Greg. “The Damnation of Faustus.” Modern

Language Review. 30 (1946): 86. Print.

89. Ibid; p.106-7. Print.

90. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker
Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 190. Print.

91. Melvin Seeman. “Alienation.” Encyclopaedia Britannica.

1977 ed. 574. Print.

92. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 39. Print.
 195

93. M.C. Bradbrook. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan

Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979. 151.
Print.

94. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 268. Print.

95. Ibid; p. 268

96. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910.159. Print.

97. Ibid; p. 159

98. Ibid; p. 159

99. Ibid; p. 161

100. Ibid; p. 166

101. Ibid; p. 166

102. Ibid; p. 167

 196

103. Ibid; p. 168

104. Ibid; p. 168

105. Ibid; p. 171

106. Ibid; p. 171

107. Ibid; p. 171

108. Ibid; p. 188

109. Ibid; p. 188

110. Ibid; p. 188

111. Ibid; p. 190

112. Ibid; p. 194

113. Ibid; p. 149

114. Ibid; p. 150

115. Ibid; p. 147

116. Ibid; p. 147

117. Ibid; p. 147

 197

118. Ibid; p. 148

119. Ibid; p. 148

120. Ibid; p. 148

121. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 272. Print.

122. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 174-75. Print.

123. G. Petrovic. “Alienation.” The Encyclopaedia of

Philosophy. 1967 ed. 56. Print.

124. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 338. Print.

125. Ibid; p. 337

 198

126. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 191. Print.

127. Ibid; p. 168

128. Ibid; p. 168

129. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 271. Print.

130. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 164-65. Print.

131. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Tamburlaine

the Great, Dido, Queen of Carthage, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 339. Print.

132. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke.London: Clarendon, 1910. 154. Print.

133. Ibid; p. 155

 199

134. Ibid; p. 154

135. Ibid; p. 155

136. Ibid; p. 154

137. Ibid; p. 161

138. Ibid; p. 161

139. Ibid; p. 155

140. Ibid; p. 163

141. Ibid; p. 155

 200

CHAPTER – V

Alienation in The Jew of Malta

 201

This is another blank verse play written by Marlowe. The

source of the play is unknown and its date cannot be accurately

fixed, though it must have been later than the death of the Duke

of Guise on December 23, 1588, referred to in the Prologue.

The play, however, was not printed until 1633. This play gave

birth to the type of Machiavellian villain on the English stage.

“The Jew of Malta continuing Marlowe’s studies in libido

daminandi, emphasises conspiracy rather than conquest – or,

in the terms laid down by policy rather than prowess. From the

roaring of the lion we turn to the wiles of a fox.”1 The Prologue

is put into the mouth of Machiavel whose spirit is supposed to

brood over the tragedy and whose wicked influence regulates

the actions of its leading characters. The first two acts of The

Jew of Malta are so different from the final three that it is

difficult to conceive of the same mind as responsible for the

whole play. The aspiring superman of the play’s beginning has

been converted by its end into the caricature of a villain upon

whom retribution is visited in conventional terms of poetic

Justice. M.C. Bradbrook remarks: “The first part of the play is

 202

like Faustus, concerned only with the mind of the hero:

Barabas’ actions are comparatively unimportant. In the last part

of the play actions supply nearly all the interest; there is an

attempt to make the narrative exciting in itself, to connect the

various episodes casually and consecutively to produce

something of a story.”2

Though the end does not give us what we may have been

led to expect at the beginning, it does not obscure the fact that

the focus of the play in its original conception must still have

been upon the failure of its central character, whereas that of

Marlowe’s earlier plays had been upon the hero’s triumph. Here

“The Jew of Malta resembles Doctor Faustus in that it is the

unequal and incomplete carrying out of a great design.”3

Alienation in the Character of Barabas

The Jew of Malta again depicts a masterly and

domineering character, Barabas, a Christian hating merchant of

Malta. Barabas, at the beginning of the play is like Tamburlaine,

a man of boundless power and imagination. He rules the world

by his wealth as Tamburlaine rules it by his strength. In The Jew

of Malta, Marlowe added to the list of Renaissance-heroes a

third protagonist, Barabas, who is neither a conqueror nor an

 203

intellectual but a merchant prince, also intoxicated with the

power and glory of this world. “The character which he portrays

is, as is usual with him, that of a man of exceptional power

seeking exceptional power. This is no conventional stage miser,

no monster of a Jew. Like Tamburlaine, he has a reaching and

imaginative mind, but a mind that turns to wealth not to

Empire.”4 He “values wealth not merely for its own sake but as

the sinews of power.”5

Barabas also comes before us as an alienated person. He

stands deliberately in opposition to Christianity like

Tamburlaine and Aeneas. Tamburlaine is a Scythian, Aeneas is

a Pagan Trojan and Barabas a Jew; all stand for essentially non-

Christian ideals, and Barabas by name is specifically marked as

the anti-thesis of Christ. It has been suggested that Marlowe

uses Barabas as an instrument of attack upon Christianity, not

out of affection for Jews, but out of scorn for Christians.

“Marlowe is using the figure of the Jew to attack hypocrisy in

Christian society.”6

The play opens with Barabas, the hero, gloating over his

riches in a small room:

 204

BARABAS. So that of thus much that returne was made:

And of the third part of the Persian ships,

There was the venture summ’d and

satisfied.7

BARABAS. To ransome great kings from captivity.

This is the ware wherein consists my wealth:

And thus me thinks should men of

judgement

frame

Their meanes of traffique from the vulgar

trade,

And as their wealth increaseth, so inclose

Infinite riches in a little roome.8

The opening soliloquy gives us a glimpse of Barabas’s

insatiable greed for riches. The character is doing something all

the time now counting his money, now cramming it into his

steel barred coffers, now scanning the weather – vain in the

hope that his argosies at sea have favourable winds. The laying

up of treasure is, in the eyes of Barabas, sanctified by divine

benediction:
 205

BARABAS. Thus trowls our fortune in by land and sea,

And thus are we on every side enriched.

These are the blessings promised to the

Jews, And herein was old Abram’s happiness.

What more may heaven do for earthly man

Than thus to pour out plenty in their laps,

Ripping the bowels of the earth for them,

Making the sea their servants, and the winds

To drive their substance with successful

blasts?9

Barabas’s hovering over his precious jewels is not a sordid vice

but only a passion for the infinite. Soon Barabas is informed by

other Jewish Merchants of Malta that according to the orders of

the Governor they all are to surrender half their riches to the

state so that the Turkish tribute of Malta may be paid. Failing

this, they will have to accept Christianity. All the Jews obey the

orders but Barabas refuses to surrender his estate or religion. As

a punishment, the state confiscates the property of Barabas and

turns his house into a nunnery. Thus “At one blow he loses all

his wealth and here his fortunes excites compassion, and he has

our sympathy when he contends that theft is a worse sin than

 206

covetousness.”10 He bitterly asks of his persecutors whether

they are satisfied.

BARABAS. You have my goods, my money, and my

wealth,

My ships, my store, and all that I enjoyed.

And, having all, you can request no more,

Unless your unrelenting flinty hearts

Suppress all pity in your stony breasts,

And now shall move you to bereave my

life.11

We even feel inclined to condone him when he pathetically and

helplessly declares.

BARABAS. Why, I esteem the injury far less,

To take the lives of miserable men

Than be the causers of their misery.

You have my wealth, the labor of my life,

The comfort of mine age, my children’s

hope. And therefore ne’er distinguish of the

wrong.12
 207

It is when Barabas is unjustly deprived of his wealth by

the Christian rulers of Malta that he is transformed into an

alienated and implacable avenger. He determines to avenge

upon the Governor and the Christians putting aside all the

ethical principles. He becomes a diabolical or a Machiavellian

figure when he devotes himself to weaving a furious intrigue of

revenge that ultimately destroys him as well as those who

injured him. “With the amoral Tamburlaine, Barabas is an

immoralist, who acknowledges values by overturning them.

Contrasted with the devil worshipping Faustus ,he is more

consistently and more superficially diabolical.”13

Now appears the scheming, cruel, selfish and crafty

Barabas, “Mercy, selflessness, affection, loyalty, beauty,

warmth have no place in his world.”14 The first dramatic vision

of Barabas confirms the very image of evil. He is clever,

miserly, devoid of conscience and thus, an alienated personality.

Even his love for his daughter, Abigail proves to be merely an

extension of his self-absorbed greed. At the very outset,

Barabas’s defence appears to be the pleading of a wronged,

sensitive and helpless person:

 208

BARABAS. But give him liberty at least to mourn,

That in a field amidst his enemies,

Doth see his soldiers slain, himself

disarmed, And knows no means of his recovery.

Ay, let me sorrow for this sudden chance.

Tis in the trouble of my spirit I speak:

Great injuries are not so soon forgot.15

But when Barabas is left alone on the stage, he manifests

the seeds of alienation. His noble passion is contrived as a

means of deceiving others and winning sympathy from them.

He exults in his cleverness and the pity he has evoked:

BARABAS. No, Barabas is born to better chance

And framed of finer mold than common men

That measure nought but by the present

time. A reaching thought will search his deepest

wits

And cast with cunning for the time to

come.16

Obviously this is Barabas’s deviation from his own

conscience, leading to his estrangement from social and moral

norms. To repossess himself of a portion of his treasure, he

 209

plays a stratagem. His house has been forfeited and turned into

a nunnery, and in order to recover a store of wealth hidden in

the upper chamber he cleverly induces his daughter to seek

admission to the nunnery on the pretext of an atonement for her

lack of faith. “He justifies his next stratagem on the grounds

that a ‘counterfeit profession,’ his daughter’s pretended

conversion, is better than…. ‘unseen hypocrisy’ … .”17 As she

enters the sisterhood, he asks her to throw the jewels to him by

night. As he receives the money bags he cries out in utmost

ecstasy:

BARABAS. O my girle,

My gold, my fortune, my felicity;

Strength to my soule, death to mine enemy;

Welcome, the first beginner of my blisse.

O A (b) gal, Abig, that I had thee here too,

Then my desires were fully satisfied,

But I will practise thy enlargement thence:

O girle, O gold, O beauty, O my blisse!18

Barabas now proceeds with his revenge. He is bent upon

destroying everything and everyone pertaining to Christianity.

The Jew’s hatred is directed above all to the Governor of Malta.

 210

The tussle between Judaism and Christianity is the point at

which the Jew hints in his soliloquy.

BARABAS. I am not of the tribe of Levy, I,

That can so soone forget an injury,

We jewes can fawne like Spaniels when we

please;

And when we grin we bite, yet are our

lookes As innocent and harmlesse as a

lambes.

I learn’d in Florence how to kiss my hand,

Heave up my shoulders when they call me

dogge,

And ducke as low as any bare foot fryar,

Hoping to see them starve upon a stall.

Or else be gather’d for in our Synagogque

Then when the offering – Bason comes

tome,

Wuen for charity I may spit intoo’t.19

In pursuit of revenge he takes in service the Turkish slave,

Ithamore, tests his inclinations in that speech of glorious

rodomontade which begins.

 211

BARABAS. As for myself, I walk aboard a-nights

And kill sick people groaning under walls.

Sometimes I goe about and poyson wells;20

When Ithamore has replied in the same vein, he is accepted as a

junior partner in his villainy. Barabas asks his daughter to

pretend love to Lodowick, the son of the Governor, while she is

actually in love with Don-Mathias. Lodowick and Don–Mathias

are good friends but Barabas craftily makes them rivals in love

and gets them killed in a duel. He is so ruthless and revengeful

that his own daughter decides to leave him and makes a second

and entirely devout conversion to the life of a Nun.

ABAGAIL. Hard-hearted father, unkind Barabas!

Was this the pursuit of thy policy,

To make me show them favour severally,

That by my favour they should both be

slain?21

From this point the play so finely begun, suddenly

degenerates into a tissue of melodramatic villainies. Barabas

steeps into a world of sins and heinous crimes. Even Abigail

becomes the victim of her father’s cruel and alienated self. “She

is a potential enemy to the Jew on two accounts, of disloyalty

 212

and possession of dangerous knowledge.”22 Barabas being

afraid lest she should disclose the secret of his device, kills her

together with other members of the nunnery, with poisoned

porridge. He is so estranged from morality and religion that he

cares not the least for the innocent and religious nuns. The

slaughter of the nuns leads to yet another situation in which

Barabas has to protect himself because in her last breath,

Abigail discloses her sin and her father’s villainy to Friar

Jacomo and Friar Barnardine. The two Friars come to the Jew

and condemn him. The shrewd Jew befools the Friars by

pretending an intention to embrace Christianity. Both the Friars

want to take the credit of converting him. They fight each other

and Barabas decides to dispatch them with haste and skill

because they are dangerous to him.

BARABAS. Now I have such a plot for both their lives

As never Jew nor Christian knew the like.

Out turned my daughter; therefore he shall

die.

The other knows enough to have my life;

Therefore ’tis not requisite he should live.23

 213

Unscrupulously enough, he strangles one of them with the help

of his slave, Ithamore, and disposes of the other by charging

him with murder. “Barabas, the Jew is a man within grievance,

but his retaliation outruns the provocation. His revenges,

augmented by his ambitions, are so thorough – going that the

revenger becomes a villain. He is not merely less sinned against

than sinning; he is the very incarnation of sin, the scapegoat

sent out into the wilderness burdened with all the sins that flesh

inherits.”24

Barabas does not stop here. Ithamore, Barabas’s

companion is carrying out the wicked tricks, is also victimised

by his master’s alienated self. Ithamore is infatuated with a

strumpet, Bellamira. He conspires with her to extort money

from Barabas, who getting alarmed, promptly poisons both of

them. But before his death Ithamore places the facts of

Barabas’s crimes before the Governor. Barabas is condemned to

death but he again escapes as he takes a drug and is mistaken to

be dead.

The Turks besiege Malta as the tribute has not been paid.

Barabas helps the Turks in the siege of Malta and as a reward, is

made the Governor of Malta in place of Farneze who is

 214

delivered to him by Calymath. But again the alienated self of

Barabas gets the upper hand and leads him lower and lower into

an insane depravity. He turns against the Turks and offers to

help the Maltese for a substantial price. He invites the Turkish

Commander and his army to a banquet at the Governor’s palace

where he has contrived a collapsible floor with Cauldrons of

burning liquid underneath. But he is hoist with his own petard

and falls into the cauldron of boiling water prepared for his

enemy. When he is on the verge of death, having been

entrapped by Ferneze’s Counter plot, he admits that he had

intended the destruction of both the sides.

BARABAS. Know, governor, twas I that slew thy son

I framed the challenge that did make them

meet.

Know claymath, I aimed thy overthrow,

And had I but escaped this stratagem,

I would have brought confusion on you all,

Damned Christians, dogs, and Turkish

infidels!25

Thus, Barabas, on aspiring Pagan, drawing his wealth

from all corners of the world, wielding global power, and

 215

delighting in the felicity wealth can convey, is transformed into

an alienated figure discarding all the ethical principles of the

society and the world. Towards the close, Barabas is the

symbol of cruelty, crime, sin and depravity, clearly exhibiting

the seeds of alienation. “However, the Jew was actually a villain

when he appeared in the first scene. His later career of

viciousness is simply a return to his original nature rather than a

new and puzzling development in his character.”26

Alienation in other characters of The Jew of Malta

As is usual with Marlovian plays, The Jew of Malta is

also dominated by the commanding figure of the hero, Barabas,

who overshadows and dwarfs the other personages robbing

them of all interest on his account. Only Abigail and Ithamore

get the attention of the dramatist but only to a limited extent.

Both of them appear to be mere puppets in the hands of the

greedy Jew. For a while, Abigail also comes under the greedy,

cruel and alienated self of her father and seeks admission to a

nunnery. There she acts as she is directed by her father. She

betrays the Friars and the nuns by her hypocrisy and throws out

all the money bags to her father. But later, the death of her

lover, Don-Mathias and Lodowick, makes her aware of the

 216

intensity of her father’s alienated self. With this realisation she

gets rid of her own alienation from moral and religious values.

She again retires to the convent but no longer in a spirit of

hypocrisy. She now becomes alien to her father’s cruelty and

Ithamore’s hard-heartedness and cries:

ABIGAIL. But I perceive there is no love on earth,

Pity in Jews, nor piety in Turks.27 Her

transition from materialistic world to the spiritual is clear from

the following lines.

ABIGAIL Then were my thoughts so frail and

unconfirmed,

And I was chained to follies of the world,

But now experience, purchased with grief,

Has made me see the difference of things.28

Thus, in the case of Abigail, Barabas’s estrangement from

moral values serves as an instrument of her dealienation.

Ithamore is Barabas’s junior in his cruelty and villainy

and so he also comes before us as an alienated person. “With

wealth their end and opportunism their means the people of the

play cannot be other than hard and ruthless.”29 On Barabas’s

 217

asking what kind of man he is, he frankly discloses his

deviation from worldly norms.

ITHAMORE. Faith, master,

In setting Christian villages on fire,

Chaining of Eunuches, binding gally slaues.

One time I was an Hostler in an Inne,

And in the night time secretly would I steale

To trauellers’ Chambers and there cut their

throats:

Once at Ierusalem where the pilgrims

kneel’d,

I strowed powder on the Marble stones,

And therewithal their knees would ranckle,

so

That I haue laugh’d a good to see the

cripples

Ge limping home to Christendome on

stilts.30

The result is that Ithamore at once gets the attention of

alienated Barabas and becomes his active ally in carrying out

 218

his wicked designs. Barabas’s estimate of Ithamore and himself

comes nearest to the truth when he says.

BARABAS. As of thy fellow; we are villains both:

Both circumcised, we hate Christians both:

Be true and secret; thou shalt want no gold.31

He seconds Barabas in killing Abigail, the nuns, and the

Friar. But later under the infatuation with a courtesan he tries to

blackmail Barabas. Barabbas’s clever self gets alarmed and he

poisons both Ithamore and Bellamira. But before his death

Ithamore leaves his villainy and with this view. “to undo a Jew

is charity, and not sin.”32 He admits his crimes and discloses the

mischievous designs of Barabas in front of the Governor of

Malta. Thus, Ithamore’s alienation later takes the form of his

dealienation.

So, all the characters in The Jew of Malta are

unexceptional. Barabas, the Governor, Ithamore, the Friars,

Abigail, to compass their own short sighted views, all set moral

restraint at defiance and they all are not happy in their life and

their unhappiness is frequently brought about by their own guilt.

 219

End Notes

1. Harry Levin. The Overreacher: A Study of Christopher

Marlowe. London: Faber, 1953. 81. Print.

2. M.C. Bradbrook. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan

Tragedy: A History of Elizabethan Drama. Vol.1.
London: Cambridge UP, 1960. 156. Print.

3. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 41. Print.

4. F.P. Wilson. Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare. London:

Oxford UP, 1963. 61-62. Print.

5. Ibid; p. 62

6. “The Jew of Malta in Performance 1964.” Times 2 Oct.

1964:10. Print.

7. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 242. Print.
 220

8. Ibid; p. 243

9. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 351-52. Print.

10. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 42. Print.

11. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 359. Print.

12. Ibid; p. 359

13. Harry Levin. The Overreacher: A Study of Christopher

Marlowe. London: Taber, 1953. 81. Print.

14. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 167. Print.
 221

15. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 361. Print.

16. Ibid; p. 361

17. Harry Levin. The Overreacher: A Study of Christopher

Marlowe. London: Faber, 1953. 89. Print.

18. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 259. Print.

19. Ibid; p. 261-62

20. Ibid; p. 266

21 Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 389. Print.
 222

22 David M. Bevington. From Mankind to Marlowe: Growth

of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor
England. New York: Harvard UP, 1962. 30. Print.

23 Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 402. Print.

24 Harry Levin. The Overreacher: A Study of Christopher

Marlowe. London: Faber, 1953. 78. Print.
25 Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen
of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 428-29. Print.

26 David M. Bevington. From Mankind to Marlowe. Growth

of
Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England.
New York: Harvard UP, 1962. 56. Print.

27 Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
 223

Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:

Penguin, 1969. 390. Print.

28 Ibid; p. 390

29 J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 169. Print.

30 The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1915. 266. Print.

31 Ibid; p. 267

32 Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 416. Print.
 224

CHAPTER –VI
 225

Alienation in Edward the Second

Edward the Second is an undisputed masterpiece of

Marlowe in which he descends from those superman heights to

reality and history. It is a great historical and political play

which paved the way for the historical plays of Shakespeare.

There is here none of the beauty and bathos of the earlier plays,

none of their splendour and poetry. The whole is subdued, the

style is restrained and temperate and the characters are boldly

and clearly sketched. Unlike other Marlovian plays, this play

consists of more than one important character. The central

figure does take away the dramatist’s major attention but the

persons around him are not thrown into the background

 226

completely. They are not over- shadowed by the hero and do

not serve merely as foil to them. All the four major characters of

the play–King Edward II, Queen Isabella, Mortimer and

Gaveston display the seeds of alienation in one form or the

other.

Alienation in the character of King Edward

The political setting of Edward the Second involves the

same amoral world of Tamburlaine the Great, where the events

of history represent not the workings of a divine plan for

humanity, but the results of human action and error. There is no

mention in the play of the divine right of kings or of their

responsibility to God. A king’s power rests only upon his own

ability to maintain it in spite of opposition and when he cannot

assert this power, he loses all the attributes of royalty. The

germs of social alienation are best discernible, in the personality

of the king, Edward II. The king is a weak, vacillating, self

indulgent and socially alienated man. The socially estranged

man feels lonely even in the presence of others. The king has to

face social isolation because of his perverted love. The opening

speech of Gaveston poses the problem of the play at the very

outset. The king’s infatuation for his minion is manifested in the

 227

following lines:

GAVESTON. My father is deceased. Come Gaveston,

And share the kingdom with thy dearest

friend.1

It is not mere friendship, a divine virtue, that Edward has

for Gaveston. It is his depraved desire to keep a favourite

condemned by critics as the evil of homosexuality. Friendship

makes a man look great even in his fall. Antonio’s friendship

for Bassanio has something noble about it. Edward’s weakness

for Gaveston makes him an alienated and pathetic figure–slave

to his self-indulgent nature. He discards his loving queen for

this base upstart, fights the loyal barons and shakes the very

foundations of his kingdom for him. Judith Wail writes:

“Edward and Gaveston treat their union as Paradise, their

separation as Hell.”2 It is for this Gaveston that the king

deviates from society, culture and the moral norms which it

carries. What a king he is to offer to his lords:

KING EDWARD. And thou of wales. If this content you

not,

Make several kingdoms of this

monarchy.
 228

And share it equally amongst you all,

So I may have some nook or corner

left

To frolic with my dearest Gaveston.3

This socially and morally estranged monarch is prepared

to bring back Gaveston, at the cost of King Edward And Could

not bring him back. “Crown’s revenue.”4 In the absence of his

favourite, Gaveston, the instrument of king’s undoing, his heart:

KING EDWARD. My heart is an anvil unto sorrow,

Which beats upon it like the Cyclops’

hammers.5

Incident after incident adds to the alienation and

unattractiveness of the king: his weak querulous attitude to the

justly bullying nobles, his behaviour to the Bishop of Coventry

and his extravagant flinging of honours at his favourite. So

strong is his passion for Gaveston that Kent’s sensible advice,

falls on deaf ears and he foolishly expect his brother:

KENT. My lord, I see your love to Gaveston

Will be the ruin of the realm and you,

 229

For now the wrathful nobles threaten wars,

And therefore, brother, banish him for ever.6

ELDER MORTIMER. And seeing his mind so dotes on

Gaveston,

Let him without controlment

have his will.

The mightiest Kings have had their

minions;

Great Alexander lov’d Hephaestion,

The conquering Hercules for Hylas

wept,

And for Patroclus stern Achilles

droop’d.

And not kings only, but the wisest

men:

The Roman Tully loved octavius,

Grave Socrates, wild Alcibiades.7

The opposition of the nobles would have served as an

eye-opener to the king, had he been in a receptive mood. But

the King’s persistent perverted liking for Gaveston has been

 230

converted into a fatal flaw. It becomes the basis of a dispute

between the ruling Monarch and his peers.

The King’s obsession with Gaveston makes him

estranged from religion, religious places and religious

authorities. The King and Gaveston consider the Bishop of

Coventry responsible for the banishment of Gaveston from

London. And their revengeful attitude, towards the bishop of

Coventry is clear from their conversation:

BISHOP OF COVENTRY. Is that wicked Gaveston returned?8

The King peevishly replies:

EDWARD. Ay, Priest and lives to be revenged on thee,

That was the only cause of his exile.9

Gaveston had been Edward’s companion in his youth.

In 1305 he persuaded the prince to break into the Bishop of

Coventry’s Park, an offence for which Edward got

imprisonment from his father Edward I and Gaveston was

banished. The Bishop of Coventry is infuriated at the return of

Gaveston to England. He clearly declares that now again he will

take the desirable step as he earlier did:

 231

BISHOP OF COVENTRY. I did no more than I was

bound to do:

And Gaveston, unless then be

reclaim’d,

As then I did incense the

parliament,

So will I now, and thou shall

back to France.10

But now the tables are turned. England is being ruled by an

unscrupulous and morally alienated king, Edward II. He

revenges himself upon the Bishop of Coventry by announcing

EDWARD. Throw off his golden mitre, rend his

stole,

And in the channel christen him anew.11

His more sensible brother Kent tries to dissuade him from

laying violent hands on a religious priest. But the king holds his

opinion to be the wisest and goes to the extent of ordering to

confiscate all the property and titles of the church dignitary and

bestow them upon his favourite, Gaveston.

 232

KING EDWARD. No, spare his life, but seize upon his

goods:

Be thou lord bishop, and receive his

rents,

And make him serve thee as thy

chaplain.

I give him thee; here, use him as thou

wilt.12

This deviation of the king from religion and religious man will

prove later to be the cause of his down fall as is suspected by

Lancaster:

LANCASTER. What will they tyrannize upon the Church?

Ah wicked king! accursed Gaveston!

This ground, which is corrupted with their

steps,

Shall be their timeless sepulchre or mine.13

The King’s behaviour to the Queen is again an example

of his cultural and social estrangement. Arising from his

excessive attachment to his minion, the King’s rejection of his

faithful wife is a cruel act. It is only the later guilt of the Queen

that makes us forget the king’s injustice to her, otherwise the

 233

figure of the weeping and wailing Queen, intent on going to the

forest because her husband hangs on Gaveston and pays no

heed to her would have become simply intolerable. The king’s

alienation from his wife serves as an instrument to make his

wife alienated from him. His alienated behaviour makes his

peers, and the English citizens estranged from him and under

the leadership of Mortimer, they raise a rebellion and compel

the king to abdicate his throne. “Edward’s attachment to the

truly protean Gaveston has all but destroyed his responsiveness

to his peers, his wife, and his brother. He infuriates the already

angry barons, first by suggesting that they ransom Mortimer

senior themselves, then by mocking them with the offer of a

royal licence to beg alms throughout his kingdom”14 says Judith

Weil.

The signs of powerlessness are also exhibited in the

personality of Edward II. He is made to submit before the will

of the rebels. The haughty Lancaster has the courage to defy

the king in his very face and replies:

LANCASTER. Learn then to rule us better and the realm.15

Lancaster is defiant and insulting, no doubt, but he hits at the

basic weakness of his Monarch. Edward is not like the past

 234

heroes of Marlowe. Tamburlaine had the strength to satisfy his

passion for power. Faustus had the power of magic even to

befool the Pope. Edward II has the will to be a king without

possessing the necessary strength of determination or political

power to keep his will. He knows his weakness when he says:

KING EDWARD. My swelling heart for very anger breaks:

How oft have I been baited by these peers.

And dare not be reveng’d, for their power

is great!16

The fifth act is by far the most remarkable in the play

as it consists of two of the most tragic scenes clearly bringing

out the King’s powerlessness. Having been victorious,

Mortimer captures Edward and imprisons him in killing

worth Castle. When the captive king is bidden to surrender

the crown, he pitiably and helplessly cries:

KING EDWARD. But, what are Kings, when regiment is

gone,

But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?

My nobles rule; I bear the name of king;

I wear the crown, but am controll’d by

 235

them,

By Mortimer and my unconstant queen,17

Even when he cannot but resign his crown, he is still

importantly willful and defiant as of old. He tries pitiably to out

brave his enemies and breaks down. Although he has lost all

hopes of maintaining his position, yet he does not beg or bow.

He frets and frowns and rages. He buoys up himself for a

moment with the thought of the sanctity of his kingship, but

sees the vanity of such a refuge.

KING EDWARD. What, fear you not the fury of your

King?

But, hapless Edward, thou art fondly led;

They pass not for thy frowns as late they

did,

But seeks to make a new – elected

King.18

In despair, he uncrowns himself and bursts into a last defiance:

KING EDWARD. See, monsters, see! I’ll wear my

crown

again.19
 236

The Bishop and Leicester accept the King’s decision to retain

the crown, but remind him of the consequences and finally

Edward bows to his defeat.

KING EDWARD. To make me miserable. Here

receive my crown.

Receive it? No, these innocent

hands of mine

Shall not be guilty of so foul a

crime.

He of you all that most desires my

blood.

And will be called the murderer of

a king,

Take it, What, are you moved?

Pity

you me?

Then send for unrelenting

Mortimer.

And Isabel, whose eyes, being

turned to steel,

Will sooner sparkle fire than shed

 237

tear.20

The reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty hint at the

King’s powerlessness which is the result of his own willful

alienation. His contemplation over the past glorious days of his

life again suggests his helplessness. Forcibly shaved, washed in

puddle water, confined in darkness and filth, maddened by a

beating drum, thrown his food like a dog, denied human contact

except with the gaolers who taunt and insult him, this King

becomes the very embodiment of powerlessness. When

Lightborn enters the Castle to kill Edward II, he is struck with

fear. Edward’s appeal to Lightborn, the story he unfolds of the

miseries which, as a king, he has borne, even although he feels

that the listener is to be his murderer, his longing for sleep, from

which he fears he will never wake, make up a situation which

brings forth the King’s poignant helplessness. Thus, from the

very beginning, Edward II displays the seeds of alienation and

decay – How else should he maintain his perverted will? The

very “first scene presents Edward’s frivolous immaturity and its

probable disastrous consequences through the interplay of

visual and verbal images.”21

 238

Alienation in the character of Gaveston

Gaveston, the chief favourite of the King, is also

estranged from moral and social norms. He is a typical pleasure-

seeking individual. His very first “speech projects an idealised

sensuality and a paganised paradise mixed with a formalised

homosexuality.”22The King’s favour is his only objective

because the royal friendship can give him a free hold on the

exchequer of the state. In Mortimer’s words:

YOUNGER MORTIMER. He wears a lord’s revenue on

his

back23

Even though the soldiers of the state “mutiny for want of pay.”24

He knows how to please the king because it is only through the

flattery of the king that he can serve his own purpose of leading

a reckless life. Younger Mortimer describes his character as:

YOUNGER MORTIMER. What greater bliss an hap to

Gaveston

Than live and be the favourite

of

a King.25
 239

He is alienated from all the cultural and moral values of

society and even prepared to face the enmity of the whole world

to be able to lie in the lap of the King. He is thoroughly familiar

with the King’s likes and dislikes. Gaveston is very much crafty

in his relationship with King Edward. He is well aware of ways

and means through which King Edward can succumb.

GAVESTON. May draw the pliant king which way I

please.26

He further points out with reference to King Edward:

GAVESTON. I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,

Musicians

That with touching of a string.27

Through the presentation of masques and pleasing shows,

he proposes to humour his lord. He fills the court with

companies of jesters, ruffians, flattering parasites, musicians

and other vile and naughty ribalds, that the King might spend

both days and nights in jesting, playing, banqueting and in such

other filthy and dishonourable exercises. “Gaveston is rather the

embodiment of the weakness of the King.”28 Obviously it is

alienated and depraved Gaveston who acts as the King’s evil

 240

genius and brings him to disaster. “He craftily strengthens his

hold on the King’s affections by ministering to his artistic and

musical tastes and providing him with congenial entertainment.

So successful are his devices that Edward for his sake proves

false to his duties as a ruler and a husband.”29 Gaveston is also

alienated from religion and the religious man, the Bishop of

Coventry. The reason of his first exile was the Bishop and so he

is very much against him. He uses ignoble terms while talking

to the Bishop after his arrival in England. He is bent upon

revenging himself, being supported by the King. Kent tries to

warn them of the after effects of showing violence towards the

church dignitary. But in his arrogance and hot- headedness

Gaveston sweeps them aside and unscrupulously enough,

declares:

GAVESTON. Let him complain unto the see of hell:

I’ll be revenged on him for my exile.30

Not only this, he even goads the King to imprison the Bishop:

GAVESTON. He shall to prison and there die in bolts.31

 241

His estrangement exceeds to such an extent that he thinks

himself fit for the holiness and the title and property of the

priest.

GAVASTON. What should a priest do with so fair a house?

A prison may be seen his holiness.32

Thus deviating from society, morality, religion and from

his own self, Gaveston tries to keep Edward under his own

control and serves as an important instrument for the King’s

alienation and undoing. “Gaveston is the vivid character –

emblem of Edward’s irresponsibility. His speech and his

presence, both alone and in relation to the King and his party,

reveals his subtly pagan flavour and his function as a vice.”33

Alienation in the character of Mortimer

Mortimer, who stands at the head of the barons in their

conflict with the King and Gaveston, is remarkably a kin to

Marlowe’s conception of heroes. In his character there is a

lawlessly aspiring ambition. He is a power drunk politicians –

ruthless and tactful, powerful and prudent, energetic and

courageous, but wrong-headed. He comes before us as an

impassioned individual madly after the unattainable and as a

 242

result becomes alienated from morality, society and his own

self. “Mortimer, before his capture, is the most reckless of the

barons; afterwards he is a machiavel.”34 In spite of his energy,

courage and prudence’s, J.B. Steane writes: “He forfeits respect

partly because he knows ‘tis treason to be up against the King’

yet up he is; and partly because the motivation is extremely

petty. He explains the real cause of his fury when he is talking

with his uncle. The personal and not the official self speaks here

and it is moved by no moral or patriotic considerations but

merely by petty annoyance.”35

What in Gaveston most annoys him in his low birth:

YOUNGER MORTIMER. Uncle, his Wanton humor

grieves not me;

But this I scorn, that one so

basely born

Should by his sovereign’s

favour grow so pert,

And rift it with the treasure

of

the realm.36

And we see the same irritation against the pretensions of the

 243

foreigner in that little picture which Mortimer draws of the

King and Gaveston:

YOUNGER MORTIMER. Whiles other walk below, the

king and he

From out a window laugh at

such as we,

And flout our train, and jest at

our attire.

Uncle, ‘tis this that makes me

impatient.’37

“Impatience is the excuse for treason”38 but callow

resentment cannot at any stage be accepted as honourable anger.

J.B. Steane says: “In the beginning of the play, he is the angry

young man, impudent to his King, fiercely impetuous, the

outspoken spokesman for his elders. He is the most scornful of

them and the quickest to rebel.”39 He avowedly declares:

YOUNGER MORTIMER. Come Let us leave the brainsick

king

And henceforth parley with our

naked swords.40
 244

The others see his alienation grow and anger swell and urge him

to bridle it, but he will not:

YOUNGER MORTIMER. I cannot, nor I will not! I must

speak.41

What speaks, however, is selfish pride, arrogance and an

alienated self. His irritation with Gaveston, although no excuse

for his rebellion, is understandable enough. And he has a

genuine grievance when his uncle is captured in the King’s

wars. It is obvious that “Edward’s perversely exclusive

attachment to Gaveston injures Mortimer personally. Because

Edward consistently incenses him, exacerbating his natural and

noble pride, we find his reactions sympathetic, even when his

motives grow dubious.”42 But power corrupts his mind and the

unprincipled ambitious youth becomes the unscrupulous power

– politician. He becomes greedy, scheming, cruel and is urged

by the secret ambition to know.

YOUNGER MORTIMER. Makes fortune’s wheel turn as

he

please.43
 245

Power makes a machiavel of him and his words, his

behaviour, his arrogance smack soundly of his alienation. His

proclamation clearly precedes a fall.

YOUNGER MORTIMER. As for myself, I stand as

Jove’s huge tree,

And others are but shrubs

compared to me.

All tremble at my name,

and

I fear none;

Let’ see who dare impeach

me for his death.44

Under the influence of his aspiring self, he unscrupulously

gains the favour of the Queen Isabella. He provokes her

against her own husband.

YOUNGER MORTIMER. Cry quittance, madam, then,

and

love not him.45

 246

Being equipped with the queen’s help, he becomes successful in

over throwing Edward II and assuming the royal state. Heady

with his triumph, Mortimer arrogantly proclaims.

YOUNGER MORTIMER. The Prince I rule, the queen do I

command,

And with a lowly conge to the

ground,

The proudest lords salute me as

pass;

I seal, I cancel, I do what I

will.46

These proclamations are clear signs of Mortimer’s

alienated personality caused by his deviation from his own

conscience. His immoral self makes him indulge in

unscrupulous plots. Out of the fear of a popular rising on the

King’s behalf and with mingled cruelty and craft, he decrees

King’s removal to killing–worth Castle and his brutal

assassination within its vaults. The crime carried out, Mortimer

feels himself safe. But young prince Edward summons the peers

to his side, arrests his father’s murderer, and orders his instant
 247

execution. Mortimer meets his fate with a haughty indifference

and without a touch of repentance or regret. He has made the

most of this life, and he looks forward with eager zest to the

new possibilities that lie beyond the grave.

YOUNGER MORTIMER. Base fortune, now I see that in

thy wheel

There is a point, to which

when

men aspire,

They tumble headlong down.

That point I touched,

And, seeing there was no place

to mount up higher,

Why should I grieve at my

declining fall?

Farewell, fair queen; weep not

for Mortimer,

That scorns the world, and, as

traveler,
 248

Goes to discover countries yet

unknown.47

Here, at the close, the note is struck that rings throughout

Marlowe’s writings – the contempt for earthly limitations and

the yearning to glut human desires with a completeness denied

in this world. Thus, the aspiring self of Mortimer makes him

alienated from the worldly norms and values. “He is a minor

Tamburlaine in a shrunken stting.”48

Alienation in the character of Queen Isabella

Mortimer’s partner in crime, Queen Isabella, is depicted

more elaborately than any of Marlowe’s female characters, yet

she fails to arouse our sympathy. In the beginning of the play,

her grief at the King’s neglect of her for Gaveston and her

eagerness to win back his love is pathetically depicted. It is her

neglect and insults from her husband that results in her

deviation from the path of morality. She is the first victim of

Edward’s foolish passion for Gaveston. But she is quite firm in

her attempts to win the love of her lord. So great is her love for

the King that she has almost a passive acceptance of the King’s

injustice towards her. She is ready to go to the forest:

 249

ISABELLA. To live in grief and baleful discontent,

For now my lord the King regards me not,

But dotes upon the love of Gaveston.49

This clearly brings out her helplessness. When Warwick seeks

to expel Gaveston through war, the Queen is prepared to suffer

her lot and pleads not to take that violent step as that may harm

her husband. Being burdened with the heavy responsibility of

trying for Gaveston’s repeal, she seems to break under the

burden and cries out in absolute agony:

ISABELLA. O miserable and distressed queen!

Would, when I left sweet France and

was embarked,

That charming Circes, walking on the

waves,

Had changed my shape,

Or at the marriage–day

The cup of hymen had been full of

poison.50

In utter helplessness, she decides to obey the King.

 250

ISABELLA. I must entreat him, I must speak him fair,

And be a means to call have Gaveston.51

But all this is in vain. No amount of pleading and

moaning can win her back the sympathy of her lord. “Gaveston

has just come from France. He has been seated upon her throne.

As Gaveston embraces Edward, Edward has said to Isabella,

‘Fawn not on me, French strumpet,’ but who is really the

French strumpet, Gaveston or Isabella? The bleak irony here

lies in the fact that the muddled contents of her marriage cup

have poisoned Isabella already. She corruptly longs for her

share of Edward’s dotage, and she does indeed begin to change

her shape.”52

The transition to her unlawful passion for Mortimer and

her ready consent to her husband’s destruction revolt us by its

callous cruelty and present her as an alienated lady. After this,

the Queen’s conduct is one continuous story of treachery,

cruelty, faithlessness and sin. She becomes an active ally of the

rebelling lords and a constant companion of Mortimer. The

seeming contradiction in her attitude towards the King as too

glaring to be ignored. The same Queen who was keen to

preserve her honour and the happiness and dignity of her lord
 251

becomes an instrument of his death. How very callous this

woman is when to Mortimer’s question.

YOUNGER MORTIMER. Speak, shall he presently be

dispatched and die.53

She replies:

ISABELLA. I would he were, so ’twere not by my

means.54

Actually it is she who gives a hint to Mortimer for the death of

the king. We hear from her.

ISABELLA. But, Mortimer, as long as he survives,

What safety rests for us, or for my son.55

It is true that the King is to be blamed for the Queen’s

degradation as he is responsible for his own doom. But the low

level to which this once loving Queen falls is highly degrading.

She overlooks all the moral principles by callous cruelty. From

love in the beginning of the play to cruelty in the end, the

Queen displays the worst form of alienation. When she joins

Mortimer in expressing grief on the deposition of the King,

Kent observes her hypocrisy and says:

KENT. Ah, they do dissemble.56

 252

Mortimer’s tribute to her hypocrisy is clearly seen in his speech

when he says:

YOUNGER MORTIMER. Finely dissembled, do so still

sweet Queen.57

Thus, it is because of her alienated personality that she

does not get the sympathy of the readers, what if she is

neglected by her husband. Mortimer “even gains identity

through his fierce reactions to Gaveston. But Isabella reacting to

Gaveston as a rival, as well as an enemy, loses it.”58

End Notes
 253

1. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 315. Print.

2. Judith Weil. “The difference of things in Edward II.”

Christopher Marlowe: Merlin’s Prophet. Ed.Weil.
London: Cambridge UP, 1967. 161-65. Print.

3. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 448. Print.

4. Ibid; p. 457

5. Ibid; p. 457

6. Ibid; p. 472

7. Ibid; p. 460

8. Ibid; p. 440

9. Ibid; p. 440-41

10. Ibid; p. 441

11. Ibid; p. 441

 254

12. Ibid; p. 441

13. Ibid; p. 452

14. Judith Weil. “The difference of things in Edward II.”

Christopher Marlowe: Merlin’s Prophet. Ed.Weil.
London: Cambridge UP, 1967. 161-65. Print.

15. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 447. Print.

16. Ibid; p. 471-72

17. Ibid; p. 508

18. Ibid; p. 510

19. Ibid; p. 510

20. Ibid; p. 511

21. David Hard Zucker. Stage and Image in the Plays of

Christopher Marlowe. Salzburg: Salzburg UP,
 255

1972.
122. Point.

22. Ibid; p. 119

23. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 460. Print.

24. Ibid; p. 460

25. Ibid; p. 435

26. Ibid; p. 436

27. Ibid; p. 436

28. David Hard Zucker. Stage and Image in the Plays of

Christopher Marlowe. Salzburg: Salzburg UP,
1972.
119. Print.

29. F.S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors. Calcutta:

Rupa, 1967. 44. Print.
 256

30. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 441. Print.

31. Ibid; p. 441

32. Ibid; p. 442

33. David Hard Zucker. Stage and Image in the Plays of

Christopher Marlowe. Salzburg: Salzburg UP,
1972.
122. Print.

34. M.C. Bradbrook. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan

Tragedy. London: Cambridge UP, 1960. 161. Print.

35. J.B. Steane. “Edward II.” Marlowe: A Critical Study. Ed.

Steane. London: Cambridge UP, 1964. 215. Print.

36. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido,

Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great,
Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
 257

Penguin, 1969. 460. Print.

37. Ibid; p. 461

38. J.B. Steane. “Edward II.” Marlowe: A Critical Study. Ed.

Steane. London: Cambridge UP, 1964. 215. Print.

39. Ibid; p. 215

40. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 439. Print.

41. Ibid; p. 439

42. Judith Weil. “The Difference of Things in Edward II.”

Christopher Marlowe: Merlin’s Prophet. Ed. Weil.
London: Cambridge UP, 1977. 315. Print.

43. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 515. Print.
 258

44. Ibid; p. 529

45. Ibid; p. 453

46. Ibid; p. 522

47. Ibid; p. 531

48. J.B. Steane. “Edward II.” Marlowe: A Critical Study. Ed.

Steane. London: Cambridge UP, 1964. 217. Print.

49. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 444. Print.

50. Ibid; p. 452

51. Ibid; p. 452

52. Judith Weil. “The Difference of Things in Edward II.”

Christopher Marlowe: Merlin’s Prophet. Ed. Weil.
London: Cambridge UP, 1977. 156. Print.

53. Ibid; p. 156

54. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor
 259

Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,

The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 514. Print.

55. Ibid; p. 514

56. Ibid; p. 516

57. Ibid; p. 515

58. Judith Weil. “The Difference of Things in Edward II.”

Christopher Marlowe: Merlin’s Prophet. Ed. Weil.
London: Cambridge UP, 1977. 156. Print.
 260

CHAPTER – VII

Alienation in His Other Works

 261

Marlowe’s literary career was almost meteoric the

briefness and brightness of which left his contemporaries

aghast. Marlowe had achieved enough to secure for himself a

place of pride among the pioneers of that great age. He turned

to literature while still at Cambridge for as a student he

translated the Amores of Ovid and “The First Book of Lucan’s

Pharsalia”. It is possible that Dido, Queen of Carthage, the

earliest of the seven plays which constitutes his dramatic canon,

might have been written during his university days. Thus,

Marlowe’s literary output, though small, is of sufficient merit to

win for him a place in English literature next only to

Shakespeare. Besides the four major tragedies ascribed to him –

Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta,

Edward The Second – his other dramatic works include two

more plays – Dido, Queen of Carthage, and The Massacre at

Paris. But Marlowe was a poet first and a dramatist next. He

was an inspired lyricist and even if he had not written a single

play, he would have been remembered today as a great poet. His

most famous poem Hero and Leander is an impassioned love

 262

narrative of rare excellence matched only by Shakespeare’s

Venus and Adonis. He wrote a few lyrics also and his The

Passionate Shepherd to His Love appearing in the collection,

The Passionate Pilgrim, is one of the sweetest in English

Poetry. Two verse translations from Latin also form part of

Marlowe’s literary output. Ovid had a special charm for

Elizabethan writers, and his Amores was translated by Marlowe.

In Lucan he saw his own image of a rationalist and was tempted

to make a blank verse translation of Pharsalia.

Dido, Queen of Carthage

Although Marlowe had been expected to prepare himself

for the Church, he surrendered to the worldliness and to the

earth – centred and man-centred Classic literature. His

immature tragedy Dido, Queen of Carthage was evidently

started, if not actually completed, while he was still at

Cambridge. We know nothing about its composition except that

the title page of the 1594 quarto bears the names of Christopher

Marlowe and Thomas Nashe as authors and records that it was

performed by the children of the Chapel – Royal. However,

Irving Ribner Observes: “Most scholars would agree that the

version preserved in the 1594 quarto is a later recension, for the

 263

blank verse seems to illustrate two separate stages of artistic

maturity. There is nothing in this final version which we have

any reason to attribute to Nashe, and it is possible that his share

was excised entirely in the revision. It has been suggested also

that his only connection with the play may have been that he

prepared it for publication after Marlowe’s death.”1

The play, Dido, Queen of Carthage, is a manifestation of

the first stage of Marlowe’s development. It shows his change

from Christian contemplation of the divine to pagan concern

with the sensual aspect of man and his involvement in or

attachment to the great political and military affairs. Dido,

Queen of Carthage is as static a play as Tamburlaine the Great.

F.S. Boas describes: “Dido, the oriental Queen, is conceived

with power and refinement, but instead of being a complex

creation, like Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, she is yet another of

Marlowe’s embodiments of limitless desire, which in her case

takes the form of amorous passion.”2 The play opens with a still

pageant. The curtain goes off to reveal Jupiter and his

Ganymede; and Venus interrupts to plead for assistance for her

son. Jupiter explains the heroic destiny which awaits her son,
 264

Aeneas, and then we pass through succession of scenes which

reveal Aeneas obeying the impulses of destiny.

The play differs from its predecessors in that it does not

paint or portray any lust. The hapless love tale of the great

Carthagenian Queen is presented poetically and dramatically.

This is the only play of Marlowe which has love as its theme

and woman as its central figure. The play Justifies in its

emotional force the saying of the old nurse:

NURSE. If there be any heaven in earth, ‘tis love.3

Love, moreover, is shown as the delight of the gods and heaven

within heaven itself. Jupiter woos Ganymede with Ovidian

fervour:

JUPITER. Whose face reflects such pleasure to mine eyes,

As I, exhal’d with thy fire-darting beams,

Have oft driven back the heroes of the Night,

When as they would have hal’d thee from my

sight.4

Jove has the power to do what all lovers have wanted to

do. But for the rest he woos like Marlowe’s Passionate

Shepherd. Ganymede flirts prettily:

 265

GANYMEDE. I would have a jewel for mine ear,

And a fine brooch to put in my hat,

And then I’ll hug with you an hundred

times.5

“Jupiter’s love making sets the erotic mood of the play and

prepares for the more normal love making of Dido and

Aeneas.”6 But here “is a kind of perversion, for as Ganymede is

wooed by Jove so is Aeneas by Dido–the initiative and driving

passions are hers.”7 And the most remarkable thing about this

love making is that it makes both the lovers alienated from their

work, from their society and from their friends and associates. It

is the Queen, Dido who first becomes the victim of the arrows

of cupid. J.B. Steane writes: “cupid, on his mother’s

instructions, has touched and conquered the queen. He

wheedles, sings and flirts, while Iarbas looks on with impotent

irritation. The spell begins to work, pulling Dido from her

superior position of majestic security and aloofness, so that at

one moment the erotic disturbances impels her towards Iarbas

and at the next her former indifference to him turns to positive

dislike.”8
 266

She forgets everything – her position, her responsibility,

her engagement to Iarbas. The transition is presented well, as a

form of her alienation from social values:

DIDO. Because his loathsome sight offends mine eye,

And in my thoughts is shrin’d another love.

O Anna, didst thou know how sweet love were,

Full soon wouldst thou abjure this single life!9

Sweeping everything aside, she is rapt in the thoughts of

Aeneas only. At once she becomes possessive and pleads her

sister not to permit anybody else to look at Aeneas:

DIDO. But tell them, none shall gaze on him but I,

Lest their gross eye-beams taint my lover’s

cheeks.10

She hymns Aeneas’s beauty and expresses her thirsty love for

him in a lyrical passage which is more genuine in its eroticism:

DIDO. But now, for quittance of his oversight,

I’ll make me bracelets of his golden hair;

His glistering eyes shall be my looking-

 267

glass;

His lips an altar, where I’ll offer up

As many kisses as the sea hath sands;

Instead of music I will hear him speak;

His looks shall be my only library;11

“Dido,” says J.B. Steane, “is imagining their embrace, his

hair round her wrists as she runs her hand through it, and their

looking into each other’s eyes as they kiss.”12 For a moment,

she becomes estranged from social values, as she forgets the

restrictions of her maidenliness. Then she is reminded of the

unmaidenliness of her imaginings and tries to get rid of the

power of love:

DIDO. O, here he comes! Love, love, give Dido

leave

To be more modest than her thoughts admit,

Lest I be made a wonder to the world.13

But all this is of no use as the strength of love is beyond

her control and she carries her alienated self by disguising her

passion of love. She woos Aeneas by offering valuable gifts but

the suppressed eroticism gets clearer vent:

 268

DIDO. I’ll give thee tackling made of rivell’d gold,

Wound on the barks of odoriferous trees;

Oars of massy ivory, full of holes,

Through which the water shall delight to

play;14

The lover is still a passive figure. When in the storm

Aeneas at last realizes the genuineness of Dido’s love and

expresses his love for her, her happiness is vigorously and

movingly expressed:

DIDO. What more than Delian music do I hear,

That calls my soul from forth his living seat

To move unto the measures of delight? 15

But “Her real triumph–and the apotheosis of love in the

play–occurs when Aeneas’s first attempt to leave her is

thwarted.”16 Aeneas yields to the force of her love:

AENEAS. O Dido, patroness of all our lives,

When I leave thee, death be my punishment!

Swell, raging seas! frown, wayward Destinies!

Blow, winds! Threaten, ye rocks and sandy

shelves!
 269

This is the harbour that Aeneas seeks:

Let’s see what tempests can annoy me now. 17

Dido feels exalted. “This is the peak of Dido’s fortune,

for love is her whole world.”18 Love is her entire existence.

What she cares for, what she looks for, what she longs for, what

she seeks for – is nothing but love. Though Queen of Carthage,

she overlooks her responsibility as a ruler for to her the

Kingdom matters nothing besides her love. She avowedly

declares:

DIDO. But, though ye go, he stays in Carthage still;

Let rich Carthage fleet upon the seas,

So I may have Aeneas in mine arms.19

But all her love, her offerings, her enticements fail and

Aeneas leaves her, leaves Carthage without regard to the vow

he has made to Dido, to obey the call of his heroic destiny. Dido

is left helpless having no control over her feelings as well as her

lover. She is dejected beyond measure and throws herself into

burning pyre committing the sin of suicide. In despair, she

becomes a bit revengeful, again displaying the seeds of

 270

alienation. She kills herself not for a noble cause but for the

revengeful motif:

DIDO. Now, Dido, with these relics burn thyself,

And make Aeneas famous through the world

For perjury and slaughter of a queen.20

Dido’s passion for Aeneas serves as an instrument of

alienation for Aeneas from his duties and responsibilities but

that is a momentary weakness on his part. “The male world is

very unlike Dido’s.”21 The lover is a passive figure in the major

part of the play. F.S. Boas rightly expresses: “Aeneas is little

more than a lay figure, and is chiefly noticeable for his account

of the fall of Troy, which presents the main difficulty of the

play.”22 While escaping the sack of Troy, Aeneas’s ship is

wrecked at the coast of Libya and he is thrown on the mercy of

Dido, Queen of Carthage. Dido falls in love with Aeneas and

does everything to keep him under her control. But Aeneas

rarely responds as passionately as Dido wooes. For the rest he

merely accepts, gratefully enough, what is offered to him and

when he declares his love for her in the cave scene, it is merely

an acceptance of her offer of marriage settled earlier by Juno

and Venus. Immediately afterwards, destiny calls him and he

 271

leaves Carthage. He pays a token of respect to the demands of

courtesy and the courtly obligations of the lover, but there is no

real conflict in his mind.

For a time, Aeneas forgets Italy, forgets his duties and

succumbs to Dido’s blandishments and agrees to remain as

King of Carthage. But Aeneas’s alienation from Italy, from his

destined goal is only momentary. No luxuries and enchantments

of Carthage, no enticements and charms of Dido are strong

enough to keep him chained. No sooner does Hermes appear to

remind him of his duty, than the whole question of his stay

disappears and for the rest of the play he is concerned only with

how to escape. Aeneas has come from the world beyond and

goes back to it. His momentary alienation does not impede the

forward march of the superman to his destined goal.

Alienation is at the root of the plot of the play. In the

execution of the purpose of gods, Dido is denied her love. That

cunning is the weapon by which the ends of gods are assured is

not always so obvious but the entire Ascanius – Cupid sub-plot

is, after all, little more than a cunning device by which Dido is

outwitted so that the destiny of Aeneas may be forwarded.

Venus uses Ascanius first to trick Dido into loving Aeneas so

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that his fleet may be repaired and then her use of Ascanius as

the false hostage creates the sense of security on Dido’s part

which permits Aeneas to escape from Carthage.

The massacre at Paris

This play is rather an inferior piece of work. In the words

of J.B. Steane: “This is probably the last of Marlowe’s plays. In

its extant form certainly the least. No film director hungry for

sensation could reasonably complain about its ingredients:

twelve occasions for murder on stage (seventeen victims) a

lustful duchess, a hint of perversion, religion… And all in an

action – crammed script not half the length of Edward II.”23

The massacre of St. Bartholomew is the chief event of the

play preceded and followed by a number of cruel murders and

wicked plots. The play is not divided into acts and gives us a

long sequence of murders. “It seems to have been aimed

expertly at the box-office, to have arrived on target in 1593, and

to have lost most of its claim on anybody’s attention ever since.

If what we have is what Marlowe wrote, his dramatic career

came to as sad an end as his life.”24 We cannot doubt that it was

the towering ambition of Guise that most attracted Marlowe to

this theme. The Duke of Guise, the hero of the play, is similar to
 273

Barabas in his ruthless cruelty and shrewdness and in his

boundless ambition, he comes close to Tamburlaine.

The curtain rises on the marriage of Margaret of Valois,

sister of King Charles IX of France, to King Henry of Navarre.

It was designed to end the struggle between the French crown

and the Huguenots, of whom Henry was the leader. Being a

mark of unity between the Catholics and the Huguenots, this

marriage infuriates the Duke of Guise. Instead of blessing the

newly wed couple, he wishes this nuptial bond to come to

disaster:

GUISE. If ever Hymen lour’d at marriage–rites,

And had his altars deck’d with dusky lights;

If ever sun stain’d heaven with bloody

clouds,

And made it look with terror on the world;

If ever day were turned to ugly night,

And night made semblance to the hue of

hell;

This day, this hour, this fatal night,

Shall fully show the fury of them all.25

 274

Thus, from the very beginning the Duke of Guise comes

before us as a cruel and wicked person completely deviated

from all the moral and social values. F.P. Wilson describes it

thus: “It is the character of a man who uses religion as a stalking

horse, and the game which he shoots at is absolute power, the

crown of France. As with Marlowe’s other studies in ambition

he has a mastering intellect, though over reached in the end, and

danger is the element in which he lives and thrives, the chiefest

way to happiness.”26

One soliloquy of his, nearly three times longer than any

other speech in the play, brings forth the man who is

“determined to prove a villain.”27 The scheming and crafty

Duke of Guise cruelly launches his expedition proclaiming:

GUISE. Now, Guise, begins those deep-engendered

thoughts

To burst abroad those never – dying flames

Which cannot be extinguished but by blood.28

The alienated Duke of Guise does not like to do and

behave like ordinary persons of the world but like Tamburlaine

he aspires to be a man of exceptional power seeking the crown

of France, by the deliberate exercise of evil. Upon his own

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power he relies exclusively, using religion only as an instrument

of policy. He strives by villainy for the same goal. “The sweet

fruition of an earthly crown,”29 which Tamburlaine sought by

strength. His soliloquies reveal a self-reliant man deviated from

the established values of society like Barabas, but one who

unlike Barabas, vaunts his deliberate villainy from his first

appearance:

GUISE. What glory is there in a common good,

That hangs for every peasant to achieve?

That like I best that flies beyond my reach.

Set me to scale the high pyramides,

And thereon set the diadem of France;

I’ll either rend it with my nails to naught,

Or mount the top with my aspiring wings,

Although my downfall be the deepest hell.

For this I wake, when others think I sleep;

For this, I wait, that scorn attendance else.

For this, my quenchless thirst-whereon I build,

Hath often pleaded kindred to the King;

For this, this head, this heart, this hand, and sword,

Contrives, imagines, and fully executes,

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Matters of import aimed at by many,

Yet understood by none.30

He pays no heed to the call of his conscience, showing

the signs of self-alienation. “Poison, murder, and massacre, are

the steps by which Guise mounts the ladder of ambition.”31 He

has complete control over the king and exploits his kingship

according to his likings:

GUISE. So that for proof he barely bears the name.

I execute, and he sustains the blame32

Whatever he does is approved by the king and ratified by the

Pope – be it his involvement “in murder, mischief or in

tyranny.”33 He does whatever his alienated self goads him to do

with impunity:

GUISE. Since thou hast all the cards within thy

hands,

To shuffle or cut, take this as surest thing,

That, right or wrong, thou deal thyself a

King.34

He gets a pair of poisoned gloves presented to the Queen

Mother of Navarre who had planned the marriage of Margaret

and Henry of Navarre. The result is her death. This is followed

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by the Admiral Coligny being shot through the arm by a soldier

from an upper window. The alienated self of Guise does not

stop here. He now contrives the massacre of St. Bartholomew

with the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medicis and the Duke of

Anjou as his chief confederates. King Charles IX, who is weak

and irresolute, allows himself to be overruled and signs the

order for the Bartholomew massacre which begins with the

murder of the Admiral. The cruelty and barbarity showing the

estrangement of Guise from morality can well be confirmed by

his own words:

GUISE. The Admiral,

Chief standard- bearer to the Lutherans,

Shall in the entrance of this massacre

Be murder’d in his bed.

Gonzago, conduct them thither; and then

Beset his house, that not a man may live.35

The Duke of Guise orders his men to kill all the protestants

saying:

GUISE. Let none escape! Murder the Huguenots!36

He cruelly stabs the Cardinal of Lorraine, whose last words hint

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at the fatal estrangement of Guise:

LOREINE. Thou a traitor to thy soul and him.37

Taking ahead the murderous outlook of alienated Guise,

Catherine poisons Charles IX and Henry III ascends the thorne.

Guise and Catherine rule France through Henry who is equally

weak and his mind, like Edward II’s “runs on his minions, /

And all his heaven is to delight himself.”38 Being all powerful,

the Duke of Guise cares for nothing. He treats the king as a

puppet in his hand:

GUISE. Now sues the king for favor to the Guise,

And all his minions stoop when I command.

Why, this ’tis to have an army in the field.

Now by the holy sacrament, I swear,

As ancient Romans o’er their captive lords,

So will I triumph o’er this wanton king;

And he shall follow my proud chariot’s

wheels.39

But soon Guise is entrapped and the King gets him

murdered. Guise surcharged with the guilt of a thousand

massacres, gets his reward which had been declared at a very

early stage by King Henry of Navarre:

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KING OF NAVARRE. But He that sits and rules above the

clouds

Doth hear and see the prayers of the

just,

And will revenge the blood of

innocents,

That Guise hath slain by treason of his

heart,

And brought by murder to their

timeless ends.40

Even the brother of Guise, the Cardinal of Lorraine, is

strangled to death at the behest of the King of France. Duke

Dumaine gets offended with the King of France because of the

murder of his brothers, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of

Lorraine. He conspires with a Jacobean Friar to kill the King

Henry III. The Friar visits the King of France and gives him a

letter. While the King is busy in going through the letter, the

Friar stabs him with a poisoned knife and then the King gets the

knife and in return kills him. Thus, the murder of Henry III,

who lives by code no different from that of Guise, at the end

parallels his murder. However, before his death the King asks
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the English Ambassador to relate the whole story to Queen

Elizabethan and charges Navarre with the duty of ruling over

France and avenging his death on the Catholics.

Thus, as implied in the title of the play, The Massacre at

Paris, is a long tale of murders, massacres, tyranny, wicked

plots, and cruelty. Almost all the characters are alienated from

the morality and the culture of society in one or the other way.

Moral estrangement is at the root of the plot. Only Henry of

Navarre stands in contrast to these estranged characters. As a

champion of true religion, he places his faith in the protection of

God, and it is he, who comes at last to the French throne.

Hero and Leander

Hero and Leander is a narrative poem. It can be regarded

as one of the most remarkable of Elizabethan compositions–

emphasizing the fact that Marlowe might have achieved no less

fame as a poet than as a dramatist. The poem deals with the

feelings of love and sometimes this passion takes the form of

sensuousness. The very theme of the poem displays alienation

from social and moral values. F.S. Boas writes: “The

Renaissance spirit is there in its very quintessence: it leaps and

glows in every line. Its frank Paganism, its intoxication of

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delight in the loveliness of earthly things, especially the bodies

of men and women, its ardour of desire, the desire that wakens

‘at first sight’ and that presses forward impetuously to

possession – all these find here matchless utterance”44

The atmosphere of the poem is greatly sensuous. C.S.

Lewis observes: “…when we speak of ‘Innocence’ in

connexion with the first two sestiads we are using the word

‘innocence’ in a very peculiar sense. We mean not the absence

of guilt but the absence of sophistication, the splendour, though

a guilty splendour, of unshattered illusions. Marlowe’s part of

the poem is the most shameless celebration of sensuality which

we can find in English literature….”42

The very first description of Hero is full of sensuous

imagery:

At Sestos, Hero dwelt; Hero the faire,

Whom young Apollo courted for her haire,

And offred as a dower his burning throne,

Where she should sit for men to gaze upon.

The outside of her garments were of lawne,

The lining, purple silke, with guilt starres drawne,

Her wide sleeues greene, and bordered with a

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groue, Where Venus in her naked glory stroue,

To please the carelesse and disdainful eies,

Of proud Adonis that before her lies.43

The imagery in the passage does evoke visions of beauty

but at the same time its lustful effect cannot be denied. Hero is

beautiful and influences whosoever sees her:

But for above the loveliest, Hero shin’d,

And stole away the’ inchaunted gazers mind.44

A little later the poet says:

So at her presence all supris’d and tooken,

Await the sentence of her scornefull eies:

He whom she fauours liues, the other dies.45

Here Marlowe anticipates the tone, technique and attitude of

Pope towards his heroine in The Rape of the Lock. J.B. Steane is

of the view that: “Marlowe subjects his Hero to an exposure

which makes one see Pope’s treatment of Belinda as a marvel of

propriety and moderation; yet at the same time. Hero is a

woman made to live and command sympathy that Belinda never

begins to.”46
 283

Hero loves Leander from the deepest core of her heart

and gets a favourable response from him. They express their

love and make others feel the intensity of their passion:

He Kneel’d, but vnto her devoutly praid;

Chaste Hero to her selfe thus softly said:

Were I the saint hee worships, I would heare him,

And as shee spake those words, come somewhat

nere him.

He started up, she blusht as one asham’d;

Wherewith Leander much more was inflame’d.

He thought her hand, in touching it she trembled,

Loue deeply grounded, hardly is dissembled.

These lovers parled by the touch of hands,

True loue is mute, and oft amazed stands.47

But at times Hero becomes aware of her virgin self: “The poem,

writes J.B. Steane, is to focus constantly on this partly comic

tension between Hero’s official and private selves, between

natural will and the conscientious sense of propriety inculcated

by society and religion. Marlowe’s tone here is amused and

knowing, partly detached but also compassionate. We feel the

 284

strength of Hero’s emotion, the strain of her conflict and the

embarrassment of it.”48

Hero’s insistence on maintaining her virginity makes

leander turn against her and “the poem comes to its first climax,

as to its end, in ‘anguish,’ shame and rage.”49

The narration of the poem is full of sensuous imagery but

as F.S. Boas puts it: “…the tale moves forward with such

lightness and freedom and Marlowe’s imaginative touch is so

unerring that there is never a feeling of closeness. In this respect

Hero and Leander is incomparably superior to the Venus and

Adonis, which is oppressive in its realistically detailed study of

lustful passion.”50

The first Book of Lucan

This translation is probably the least read of Marlowe’s

works. Lucan’s Pharsalia is a historical poem. It is of epic-

length and deals with the narrative of wars between Caesar and

Pompey. It is generally supposed that twelve books of this Epic

were planned but because of his early death, Lucan could

 285

complete nine books and some five hundred lines of the tenth.

Marlowe has ventured to translate only the first book. He has

given a line for line translation in blank verse. This first book

describes Caesar crossing the Alps and the Rubicon, taking

Ariminum, creating panic and causing disaster in Rome. “The

state of civil war is lamented and the book ends with a vision of

destruction and horror.”51

The whole narrative is based on the cruelties of war and

Marlowe’s attempt to translate this book reveals his own taste

for sensation and deviance from the established values of

society J.B. Steane puts: “The two writers had much in

common. Their violent and early deaths (Lucan committed

suicide when he was twenty five) relate to the manner of their

lives. On a cautious reading of biographical information, it

seems likely that they were men of bold, independent mind,

given to strong antipathies and enthusiasms, with an irreverent

and ironical streak which courted danger.”52

We have no doubt that Marlowe was attracted towards

this book because of its bold and anti-religious theme. For

example, the gods are notably absent from the first book, when

by Virgilian tradition, they should be introduced as beneficent

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influences. The first book concentrates on the tragedy of civil

war. Caesar was the founder of the imperial Rome which Nero

inherited but Pompey and Cato defended the republic and the

resultant storm of fury causes havoc in Rome. The poem begins

with the lines:

Wars worse than ciuill on Thessalian playnes,

And outrage strangling law and people strong,

We sing, whose conquering swords their own breats

launcht, Armies alied, the Kingdoms league uprooted,

The ‘affrighted worlds force bent on Publique spoile,

Trumpets and drums like deadly threatning other,

Eagles alike displaide, darts answering darts.

Romans, what madness, what huge lust of warre.

Hath mad Barbarians drunke with Latin bloud?53

The violation of morality, the estrangement from the

culture of society are seen everywhere – “the translation

implying the process Ulysses outlines, whereby individual

license under a loosened morality undermines and eventually

overturns civil law.”54 The disorder on earth, hinted at in the

speech of Ulysses mirrors a state in the heavens:

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…why doe the planets.

Alter their course; and vainly dim their vertue?

Sword – girt orions side glisters too bright.

Wars radge draws neare; and to the swords strong hand.

Let all laws yeeld, sinne beare the name of virtue,…55

The disturbance of law is voiced again but as the wilful policy

of power through the words of Caesar:

And bounds of Italy; here, here (saith he).

And end of peace; and here end polluted lawes;

Hence leagues, and couenants; Fortune thee I

follow,

Warre and the destinies shall trie my cause.56

Power is the most important characteristic as everything is

included in it:

Force mastered right, the strongest gouern’d all.

Hence came it that th’ edicts were overrul’d,

That lawes were broake, Tribunes with Consuls stroue,

Sale made of offices, and peoples voices

Bought by themselves and solde, and euery yeare

Frauds and corruption in the field of Mars;

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Hence interest and deuouring usury sprang,

Faiths breach, and hence came war to most men

welcom.57

There is plenty of this throughout the book. The speech of the

Centurion contains the attempt to violate the laws:

And all thy seueral triumphs shouldst thou bid me

Intombe by sword within my brothers bowels;

Or fathers throate; or womens groning wombe;

This hand (albeit vnwilling) should performe it;

Or rob the gods; or sacred temples fire;

These troupes should soone pull down the

church of Iove.58

However, the work is not flawless. There are mistakes of

all kinds. Several ideas are missing. J.B. Steane concludes.

“These faults of translation matter to us now because on

account of them we do not have as good an English poem as we

might have had. Omissions and inaccuracies make the poem

less rich in sense and sound than it might have been, and they

are often the sign of a mind less than wholly creatively and

critically occupied in its task.”59 But the magnificence of the

work makes it worth reading.

 289

End Notes

1. Irving Ribner. Introduction. The Complete Plays of

Christopher Marlowe. By Ribner. New York:
Odyssey, 1963. xx-xi. Print.

2. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 148. Print.

3. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
 290

Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:

Penguin, 1969. 88. Print.

4. Ibid; p. 45-46

5. Ibid; p. 46

6. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 34. Print.

7. Ibid; p. 34

8. Ibid; p. 35

9. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 66. Print.

10. Ibid; p. 66

11. Ibid; p. 66-67

12. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 36. Print.
 291

13. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 67. Print.

14. Ibid; p. 67

15. Ibid; p. 76-77

16. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 37. Print.

17. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 84. Print.

18. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 37. Print.

19. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
 292

The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The

Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 86. Print.

20. Ibid; p. 98
21. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:
Cambridge
UP, 1964. 37. Print.

22. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 49. Print.

23. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 236. Print.
24. Ibid; p. 236
25. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen
of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 541. Print.

26. F.P. Wilson. Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare. London:

Oxford UP, 1963. 89. Print.

27. Ibid; p. 89
 293

28. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 542. Print.

29. Ibid; p. 133

30. Ibid; p. 542

31. F.P. Wilson. Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare. London:

Oxford UP, 1963. 90. Print.

32. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido Queen of

Carthage, Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 543. Print.

33. Ibid; p. 540

34. Ibid; p. 543

35. Ibid; p. 549

36. Ibid; p. 550

37. Ibid; p. 551

 294

38. Ibid; p. 562

39. Ibid; p. 574-75

40. Ibid; p. 540

41. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 50. Print.

42. Judith O’Neill. ed. Readings in Literary Criticism: Critics

on Marlowe. London: Allen, 1969. 122. Print.

43. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 492. Print.

44. Ibid; p. 494

45. Ibid; p. 495

46. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 311. Print.
47. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker
Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 496. Print.

48. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 316. Print.
 295

49. Ibid; p. 321

50. Frederick S. Boas. Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

Calcutta: Rupa, 1967. 50. Print.

51. Ibid; p. 249

52. Ibid; p. 254-55

53. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 648. Print.

54. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 251. Print.

55. The Works of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. C.F. Tucker

Brooke. London: Clarendon, 1910. 652. Print.

56. Ibid; p. 653

57. Ibid; p. 652

58. Ibid; p. 657

59. J.B. Steane. Marlowe: A Critical Study. London:

Cambridge
UP, 1964. 266. Print.
296
 297

CHAPTER – VIII

Conclusion

The problem of alienation has a foremost place in the

study of human relations, and the concept has a prominent place

in contemporary work. This thesis has sought to accomplish two

tasks: to present a systematic view of the uses of alienation

 298

which are frequently seen in various characters of the plays of

Marlowe; and to provide an approach that links Marlowe’s

ideas and emotions to the particular constitution of his alienated

psychology. Present day writers differ in their enumeration of

basic forms of alienation: “Frederick A. Weiss has distinguished

three basic forms (self-anaesthesia, self-elimination, and self–

idealization); Ernest Schachtel has distinguished four (the

alienation of men from nature, from their fellow men, from the

work of their hands and minds, and from themselves); Melvin

Seeman, five (Powerlessness, meaninglessness, social isolation,

normlessness and self-estrangement); and Lewis Feuer, six (the

alienation of class society, of competitive society, of industrial

society, of mass society, of race, and of generations).”1

The present study has identified the applicability of six

alternative meanings of alienation–powerlessness,

meaninglessness, social alienation, self-estrangement, cultural

estrangement and alienation from work – to Marlovian heroes

and minor characters because the aim of the present study is to

investigate the theme of alienation from social – psychological

point of view and its behavioural consequences in Marlovian

characters. A concept that is so prominent in the plays demands

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special clarity. In the plays of Marlowe, the consequences that

appear to flow from the fact of alienation are diverse, indeed.

Alienation motivates actions and attitudes, influences

characters, creates queer feelings and impressions and functions

as an element in contrast.

Tamburlaine does not consider himself a member of

human society but stands apart from it. Paul H. Kocher

observes: “The most obvious instance is his ruthlessness to all

who oppose his march towards world dominion.”2 He remarks:

“In Tamburlaine the self is, to a great extent alone in the

universe, blinded in mist and separated both form God and

man.”3 His alienation from the rest of the world motivates him

to be consumed by a burning passion of power. He arrogantly

discards all the other kings of the world. Not to say of mortal

kings, even the deities are claimed by the alienated Tamburlaine

as tributaries:

TAMBURLAINE. The god of war resigns his room to

me,

Meaning to make me general of the

world.

Jove, viewing me in arms, looks pale

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and wan,

Fearing my power should pull him

from his throne.

Where’er I come the Fatal Sisters

sweat,

And grisly Death, by running to and

fro,

To do their ceaseless homage to my

sword:4

Had there been no alienation in the personality of

Tamburlaine, he would not have arrogantly vaunted like this.

He wants to be a world conqueror. This desire of Tamburlaine

is not abnormal at all but when inspired by it, he even

challenges the creator of the world, the creator of the universe,

he clearly displays an abnormal and strange feeling. Carried

away by his desire to conquer the whole world, Tamburlaine is

attached to Cosroe (who has rebelled against his brother, the

King of Persia) and allies with him. Tamburlaine challenges the

Persia King, Mycetes for the throne and defeats him in the

battle. He then crowns Cosroe as the King of Persia but

afterwards his attachment to Cosroe is turned into his alienation

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from him. The result is that Tamburlaine snatches away the

bestowed crown from Cosroe. Thus, sweeping aside all the

moral values, Tamburlaine cares for nothing. Kocher has rightly

summarized: “… . Tamburlaine reveals Marlowe as primarily

self-sufficient, remote from both God and man.”5

Throughout his life, Tamburlaine follows no conviction,

no restriction. Even when, he is on the verge of death, he wants

to be carried to war against the Gods. Having driven away one

of his most powerful enemies, Callapine form the field, he over

a map shows his sons what part of the world is left to conquer.

As he recounts his exploits, there is no proudful boasting but

only regret for what he has left unconquered. There is a dignity

and sobriety in this speech which is in sharp contrast to the

ranting rages of most of his speeches in Part II of the play.

Amyras is crowned king, Zenocrate’s hearse is brought in.

Bidding farewell to his dead queen, his sons, his friends,

Tamburlaine dies, reconciled at last to the fact that

Tamburlaine, the scourge of God must die. The play ends with a

prayer for the destruction of the universe:

AMYRAS. Meet heaven and earth, and here let all things end,
 302

For earth hath spent the pride of all her fruit,

And heaven consum’d his choicest living fire.6

In Doctor Faustus spiritual alienation has been exhibited

in its pervasive use of the concept. In it Marlowe has

intentionally avoided any other human character because he

does not find any interest in the authentic existence of man, that

is, he is alienated from human essence even. Dr. Faustus is a

scholar who always remains free and continues to learn more

and more about the universe, but he finds the centres of power

less accessible. In fact, he comes to feel helpless in the

fundamental sense that he cannot control what he is able to

foresee. He feels frustrated and becomes aloof and marginal as a

consequence of the discrepancy between the control he may

expect from his activities and the degree of control that he

desires. In the play, alienation motivates every action occurring

in a sequence. Faustus is presented as a man and a Christian but

his alienation carries him a bit too far in his ambition and love

of voluptuous pleasure. He is no radical unbeliever, no natural

mate for the devil, conscienceless and heathen but his alienation

motivates him to disregard all the worldly values and rebel

against the creation, his alienation goads him to express

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superbly a longing for knowledge, beauty, wealth and power.

The opening scene supports this view, with Faustus examining

all the established lines of human knowledge and finding them

all inadequate, too limited. The aim he sets himself is

achievement of the supreme desires of man:

FAUTUS. Oh, what a world of profit and delight,

Of power, of honour, of omnipotence,

Is promised to the studious artizan!7

Ceasing to profess the useful arts, he will become a magician,

not a king or an emperor but a “demi-God.”8 Alienation

motivates him to neglect the warnings of the Good Angel and

the Old Man. Thus, Faustus commits a sin. James Smith holds:

“The sin is pride which, according to theologians, is the form

and fount of all other sins. Moreover, Faustus commits it

formally, that is deliberately, without the shadow of an excuse

or reason save his will to do so. That is, it is not one of the sins

committed in actual life, where some excuse, in however small

a measure, is always to be found. Rather, it is an abstract from

them all, sin it might be said in its essence.”9

As soon as Faustus decides in favour of necromancy, he

is alarmed by the Good Angel to read the Scriptures:

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GOOD ANGEL. Oh, Faustus, lay that damned book aside,

And gaze not on it lest it tempt thy soul

And heap God’s heavy wrath upon thy

head.

Read, read the scriptures: that is

blasphemy.10

This fear of incurring “God’s heavy wrath,”11 is

augumented when, in the following scene, the two scholars

perceive the danger of his soul. Faustus, however, persists in his

chosen course and succeeds in calling up Mephistophilis and

proposes his bargain with Lucifer: In Act-II, Scene I, he signs

his soul away to the devil and questions Mephistophilis about

hell; in Scene II of the same Act, he enquires of Mephistophilis

about astronomy and is later entertained by an infernal show of

the Seven Deadly Sins which is designed to distract him from

thoughts of repentance. During these scenes, Faustus receives a

number of rebuffs but his alienation forces him to disregard not

only those checks but also several quite explicit warnings. Of

these the most obvious is provided by the congealing of his

blood and the illusion of the words “homo Fuge”12 immediately

before signing the bond. The most eloquent warning comes

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from that melancholy, sombre, tortured and surprisingly truthful

fiend, Mephistophilis himself. Within fifty lines of their first

meeting, Faustus asks him what caused the fall of Lucifer.

Mephistophilis ascribes it correctly to “aspiring pride and

insolence,”13 frailties visible in Faustus himself. Disclosing the

tragic reality of his own life, he says that he and his fellows are

“unhappy spirits,”14 who are in “forever demand.”15

Mephistophilis, no doubt, means only to voice his own anguish.

His words could have conveyed a warning if Faustus had been

capable of receiving one. But he sweeps it aside with impatient,

flippant arrogance and signs an unfortunate bond. His alienation

so clouds his vision that he fails to perceive the magnitude of

the danger involved in it. His bargain requires him to abjure

God. He is ready to do it in spite of the warning of the Good

Angel to “Leave that execrable art,”16 and follow the path of

“contrition, prayer, repentance”17 as they are the means “to

bring thee unto heavens,”18 but alienated Faustus listens to the

voice of the Bad Angel who denounces these things as

“illusions, fruits of lunacy.”19 Such a doctrine helps Faustus to

silence the voice of his conscience. Once more he achieves the

heady elation of Scene I: “Why, the signory of Emden shall be

mine.”20 One more warning of Good Angel occurs towards the

 306

end of twenty four years of voluptuous life allowed to him in

the deed of gift:

GOOD ANGEL. Though thou hast now offended like a man,

Do not persever in it like a devil.

Yet, yet, thou hast an amiable soul,

If sin by custom grow not into nature:

Then, Faustus, will repentance come too

late, Then thou art banished from the sight of

heaven;21

This good counsel has an immediate effect upon Faustus

but he is so alienated form religion that he readily vacillates to

despair and damnation. Thus, the seeds of alienation are present

in Dr. Faustus as a motivating factor – how else he could make

a fatal bargain with the devil?

Alienation creates queer attitude in the character of

Doctor Faustus. He thinks that the study of magic is the most

suitable branch of study for his aspiring mind. It is surprising

that a scholar like Faustus intentionally and willingly opts for

necromancy – not only to study but also to practise it. He

avowedly proclaims to himself: “Tire my brains to get a

deity.”22 The shrewd and far-sighted Faustus cannot be unaware

 307

of the after effects of the practice of magic but the impact of the

alienation is so much on his character that he totally overlooks

his inevitable damnation under the temptation of supernatural

powers and knowledge. In spite of a number of rebuffs which

he receives from Mephistophilis, he is not alarmed. When

Faustus asked Mephistophilis: “Did not my conjuring speeches

raise thee?”23 he roundly disillusions Faustus. Faustus’s charms,

he explains, did not oblige him to come; they merely drew his

attention to his attractively sinful frame of mind and he came of

his own accord, “in hope to get his glorious soul.” 24 Again after

signing the bill, Faustus asks him where hell is, Mephistophilis

says: “Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed,” 25 but Faustus

is not ready to believe even in the existence of hell and

comments: “I think hell’s a fable.”26

Thus, it is alienation which impels Faustus to maintain

and follow his own attitude and passion. The result is tragic and

it can be accepted that “in pursuing physical pleasures, Faustus

neglects spiritual values and deteriorates to such a weakness of

will that he cannot assert himself against the temptations of the

devil even when the penalty is near at hand.”27

 308

Faustus and Mephistophilis are alienated from each other.

Faustus is a man with a glorious soul, while Mephistophilis is a

devil, deprived of “everlasting bliss.”28 Mephistophilis comes to

Faustus in the hope to capture his soul and thus enlarge the

Kingdom of Lucifer. Faustus accepts Mephistophilis with all

his conditions to enjoy all manner of delight and power.

Throughout the twenty four years of their bond, Faustus wants

to get rid of Mephistophilis and Mephistophilis strives to

remind, Faustus of his damnation. The power which Faustus

acquires by pledging his soul to Lucifer fell far short of

omnipotence of which he had dreamt. So he is a loser both

ways. Against the background of his alienation, Faustus’

powerlessness in freeing himself from the devil, has a tinge of

pathos about it. The pathos increases as the reader contrasts his

utter helplessness with his burning desire for power. Towards

the close he fore swears his humanism – having prided himself

on his self reliance and having even striven to be more than

man, he now longs to be less than man. No doubt, the books

which he offers to burn are primarily his books of magic which

earlier attracted him and he declared: “…necromantic books

are heavenly.”29 His last despairing cry of anguish is pathetic

and it has an abiding effect on the reader:

 309

FAUSTUS. Ugly hell, gape not, come not, Lucifer.

I’ll burn my books. Ah Mephistophilis!30

Alienation at times, becomes, the cause of an effect which is

itself pathetic. It is very shocking to note that Faustus, willingly

becomes alienated from his friends, associates and from the

world at large. But as his damnation approaches nearer, he feels

sorry.

FAUSTUS. Ah, my sweet chamber- fellow, had I lived

with thee,

Then had I lived still, but now must die

eternally.31

Even the scholars attribute his depression and despair to his

“being over solitary.”32 The isolation and unfriendliness which

Faustus earlier imposes upon himself “to get a deity,”33 become

his inevitable miserable lot at the cost of his soul in the end.

Alienation figures in Marlowe’s plays in one more broad

pattern which admits of two categories. Alienation and

attachment as two poles of a unit of contrast appear one after

the other in the same character in two different situations. While

in the first category, attachment succeeds alienation, it is just

 310

the other way round in the second one. In Doctor Faustus, the

contrastive juxtaposition of Faustus’s alienation from scholars,

from philosophy, medicine, law and divinity with the scholars’

active concern for him compel our attention:

FIRST SCHOLAR. Oh Faustus, then I fear that which I

have long suspected:

That thou art fallen into that damned

art For which they two are infamous

through the world.34

SECOND SCHOLAR. Were he a stranger, not allied to me.

The danger of his soul would make

me

mourn.35

Here alienation appears a source of Faustus’ fatal

isolation from and indifference to the world norms. Faustus’

alienation has a glaring contrast with the concern of scholars for

him. As against this, alienation as the source of wisdom is

contrasted with attachment as a source of pathetic folly. Faustus

who is attached to magic and Mephistophilis at heart, is stricken

with pathetic grief as he realizes that he has been separated from

God and heaven:

 311

FAUSTUS. When I behold the heavens then I repent,

And curse thee, wicked Mephistophilis,

Because thou hast deprived me of those joys.36

The contrast between alienation and attachment occurs,

at times in the same character with his alienation in one

situation immediately preceding his attachment in the other. The

character of Faustus clearly illustrates this doctrine.

Throughout the play he is alienated from God and attached to

the devils but, at times, he feels alienated from the devils and

attached to God. He goes to the extent of Saying:

FAUSTUS. I will renounce this magic and repent.37

In an outburst of remorse and in the wake of alienation from the

devils, he calls upon Christ:

FAUSTUS. Ah, Christ, my saviour, my saviour

Seek to save distressed Faustus’ sad soul.38

This pattern of contrast is most vividly illustrated in the last

monologue of Faustus. Faustus, who was totally attached to the

devils, now feels estranged from them, and offers to burn all the

magical books:
 312

FAUSTUS . My God, my God, look not so fierce on me.

Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while.

Ugly hell, gape not, Come not, Lucifer!

I’ll burn my books. Ah, Mephistophilis!39

The Jew of Malta depicts Barabas’ ruin at the hands of the

society whose laws he has broken. The emphasis on this theme

reflects a social disorder – anomie or misbehaviour or mis-

involvement or socially unapproved behaviour in the

sociological terms – in which common values have been

forgotten in the interest of seeking satisfaction by means which

are effective. Although, Marlowe has introduced human society

here as a factor which enforces its moral laws successfully

against the unrestrained egoism of the protagonist, Barabas is

thrown out of step with the sociable movement, and thus, he has

become alienated from things that take much more of his time.

Barabas has been represented as one who is against the world.

He is not less alienated than his predecessors. It is his insatiable

greed for riches which makes him alienated from religion,

society, culture, Christianity and finally from his own daughter,

Abigail, whom he kills by poisoning. He displays an abnormal

feeling in his desire to be the richest man of the world and also
 313

to kill all the Christians of the world just because the Governor

of Malta was a Christian. Alienation, thus, forces the character

to go forward in its queer and abnormal attitude.

King Edward is obsessed with perverted love. He

neglects the duties of this office and sacrifices his crown for

Gaveston. This clearly depicts his apartness from society. He

persists in maintaining his obsession in spite of the severe

opposition of his nobles. When Lancaster, representing the

feelings of other peers, asks him if he can expel him straight, he

rejects it out-rightly and says that he will “die or live with

Gaveston.”40 Bradbrook illustrates: “Edward in his refusal to

face the implications of his actions and his beliefs that what he

wants must necessarily happen, is close to that aspect of Faustus

which is usually overlooked, but which seems important as a

contrast to the fixed wills of Tamburlaine and Barabas. He

oscillates between the Lord and his favourites until, delivered

up to Mortimer he becomes simply a passive object of pity.”41

Alienation pervades the whole life of King Edward II.

The resultant emotional effect upon the reader is that of

depression throughout. Against the background of their

reciprocal dislike – the Queen’s dislike due to the King’s

 314

infatuation with Gaveston and the King’s dislike due to Queen’s

flirting with younger Mortimer – their external matrimonial

relations look pathetic. The signs of pathos are obvious in the

character of Edward II, when the captive sovereign, is bidden

to surrender his crown. He pathetically cries:

EDWARD. What are Kings, when regiment is gone,

But perfect shadow in a sun shine day?42

In the beginning Edward II is all the time surrounded by

his peers, followers, courtiers, soldiers and attendants. But as

soon as he become crazy for Gaveston sweeping aside

everything – be it to fulfill his duties as a ruler or as a husband –

he becomes an alienated figure. His revolting peers imprison

him and compel him to abdicate his crown which has the effect

of a pathetic isolation from the world:

EDWARD. But can my air of life continue long,

When all my senses are annoy’d with stench?

Within a dungeon England’s king is kept,

Where I am starv’d for want of sustenance.

My daily diet is heart – breaking sobs,

That almost rents the closet of my heart:

 315

Thus lives old Edward not reliev’d by any,

And so must die, though pitied by many.43

Deprived of glory, power, crown, and even his Queen,

Edward looks misery incarnate. What can be more pathetic than

this? Alienation has done its worst for Edward. In Edward II

there runs throughout the story the contrast between the King’s

attachment to Gaveston and the peers’ and the Queen’s

alienation from him. King Edward is so obsessed with his

perverted love that he does not pay any attention to the threads

of his nobles. He clearly declares:

EDWARD. I cannot brook these haught menaces:

Am I a king, and must be overrul’d?

Brother, display my ensigns in the field:

I’ll bandy with the barons and the earls,

And either die, or live with Gaveston.44

He expresses the intensity of his love for Gaveston:

EDWARD. Thy friend, thyself, another Gaveston!

Not Hylas was more mourned of Hercules

Than thou hast been of me since thy exile.45

 316

Each contrasting element in the play-the alienation of

lords from Gaveston and the King’s interest in him-assumes

either of the opposite colours, dark or white according to the

reader’s outlook. Such drastic variations in the juxtaposed

colours impart a new beauty to the contrast.

Other major characters of the play are also alienated

figures. They are estranged from either morality or society or

self. Gaveston is estranged from the moral and social norms and

his exile from London is the result of his estrangement only.

Mortimer and Queen Isabella also display the seeds of

alienation. Mortimer’s unscrupulous plots, his decrees of King’s

removal to Berkeley Castle and his brutal assassination within

its walls, clearly bring out his estrangement from morality.

Queen Isabella’s ready consent to Mortimer for her husband’s

destruction presents her as an alienated lady who overlooks

moral principles in her vein of cruelty.

To sum up, alienation constitutes a vital part of the

artistic vision of Marlowe. Cast in the Machiavellian mould, his

heroes are all supermen. They belong to a cut above the

common run of men by virtue of their lofty aspirations. They

make us feel small before they by their iron will, power and
 317

tenacity of purpose. No impediment can make them swerve

from their path. Tamburlaine dreams of trampling the whole

humanity under his foot; Faustus aspires to omnipotence

through omniscience; Barabas has an insatiable lust for gold;

and King Edward II distinguishes himself by his uncommon

perversity. But they are so obsessed by their earthly vision that

they fail to perceive the imbalance of their life. Their excessive

involvement in earthly affairs results in their spiritual alienation

which causes tragic frustration in them. Tamburlaine, Faustus,

Barabas and Edward II are all reduced to pathetic figures at the

end of their life. While gaining all on this earth, they lose the

Kingdom of God. It is this pathetic alienation from an important

value of life that forms a significant part of Marlowe’s artistic

vision and this what has strengthened his claim to be

remembered by posterity as a great interpreter of human

dilemma in regard to their choice between earth and God.

 318

End Notes

1. G. Petrovic. “Alienation.” The Encyclopaedia of

Philosophy. 1967 ed. 78. Print.

2. Paul H. Kocher. Christopher Marlowe: A Study of His

Thought, Learning and Character. New York:
Russell, 1962. 302. Print.

3. Ibid; p. 301

4. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
 319

Carthage Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,

The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 176. Print.

Paul H. Kocher. Christopher Marlowe: A Study of His

Thought, Learning and Character. New York:
Russell, 1962. 305. Print.

5. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido, Queen

of
Carthage Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B.Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 257. Print.

6. Ibid; p. 267.
7. Ibid; p. 268.

8. James Smith. “Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.” Scrutiny. 8

(1939): 49-50. Print.

9. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido Queen of

Carthage Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B.Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 268. Print.

10. Ibid; p. 268.

 320

11. Ibid; p. 281.

12. Ibid; p. 275.

13. Ibid; p. 275.

14. Ibid; p. 275.

15. Ibid; p. 275.

16. Ibid; p. 279.

17. Ibid; p. 279.

18. Ibid; p. 279.

19. Ibid; p. 279.

20. Ibid; p. 328.

21. Ibid; p. 268.

22. Ibid; p. 274.

23. Ibid; p. 274.

24. Ibid; p. 283.

 321

25. Ibid; p. 283.

26. Nicholas Brooke. “The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus.”

Cambridge, Journal. 5 (1951):662-87. Print.

27. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido Queen of

Carthage Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B.Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 275. Print.

28. Ibid; p. 267.

29. Ibid; p. 338.

30. Ibid; p. 332.

31. Ibid; p. 332.

32. Ibid; p. 268.

33. Ibid; p. 272.

34. Ibid; p. 272.

35. Ibid; p. 285.

36. Ibid; p. 285.

 322

37. Ibid; p. 288.

38. Ibid; p. 338.

39. Ibid; p. 439.

40. M.C. Bradbrook. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan

Tragedy: A History of Elizabethan Drama. Vol. 1.
London: Cambridge UP, 1960. 163. Print.

41. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays: Dido Queen of

Carthage Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus,
The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second, The
Massacre at Paris. Ed. J.B. Steane. London:
Penguin, 1969. 508. Print.

42. Ibid; p. 518.

43. Ibid; p. 439.

44. Ibid; p. 439.

 323

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