Dr. Faustus Essay: The Role of Helen of Troy -- Doctor Faustus Essays

The Role of Helen of Troy in Doctor Faustus To adequately describe the role that Helen plays in Doctor Faustus, it is necessary not notwithstanding to look at the scene in which she features, but also all the instances that Faustus takes some form of pleasure from physical and sensual things. We need to do this because this is what Helen is emblematical of she represents the attractive temperament of evil in addition to the depths of depravity that Faustus has fallen to. It is fair to say that Faustus represents the quintessential renaissance man - it is his thirst for knowledge that drives him into his pledge with Mephastophilis, indeed it is the Evil Angel that best summarises this Go forward, Faustus, in the famous art, Wherein all natures treasury is contained Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky, Lord and commander of these elements. Scene I, lines 74-77 It is the restless spirit of the renaissance that drives Faustus to seek knowledge. He has already attained what he croupe through more established means, his bills (are) hung up as monuments, and his common talk found aphorisms. Faustus compares himself to the most famous figures of the classical period to Hippocrates, to Aristotle and to Galen. He sees himself as having come to the end of what he can learn through his human tools he needs something that will allow him to move outside the realm of nature, something supernatural. This is the reason why he came into contact with Mephastophilis, as he sought to use the new power that would come to him to further his own knowledge. It has been said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely - this is what has happened to Faustus. He ceases to baffle the seeker of knowledge, but become... ...ed in the use of capital punishment as the result of trying to break his end of the bargain. Faustus disorder against his deal (a repetition of his bodys rebellion against his signing of the contract) is only short lived, and his downfall is a ssured when Helen arrives. Helen, then, represents the dangerous beauty of evil, the seduction of the past, and the desire for things pleasurable. Faustus desire for her, for the most beautiful woman who has ever lived, seems comprehensible (though not reasonable) to us, because we all have a little bit of Faustus in us. It is, however, unlikely that any of us have a sufficiently Faustian nature to sell our soul to the Devil.Works CitedMarlowe, Christopher. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Eds. M.H. Abrams et. al. New York W.W. Norton and Co, 1993.