The beauty of Renaissance literature is the innovative way it presents its meanings and the way it forces the reader to look within themselves for the real answers to the questions the work may present. Marlowe is trying to make his reader question tradition and the level of normalcy through the outlandish idea of necromancy and the price of curiosity. The fact that all humans have the drive to succeed and make a memorable difference is what separates us from animals, but the question is does it separate us in a positive or negative way? Animals would never sell their souls to the devil for twenty-four years of pure lustful and meaningless pleasure, but they also would never be able to make a difference in the life of the magnitude. Our soul is the supernatural being within each body that either connects us to heaven or in Faustus' case to hell, his curiosity forces him into the depths of hell forever, when he does eventually die. How does Faustus allow himself to reach this point, does he realize what he has truly stepped into and done to himself, and how important death is to the plays undercurrent theme, is to be examined.
The play begins with Faustus telling the audience about his idea that one should be able to cheat death and he will be the man to find the way to bring the
dead back and to create a way to live forever: "Couldst thou make men to live eternally,/Or, being dead, raise them to life again,/Then this profession were to be esteemed" (1.24-26). He is setting the stage for what is to happen to him, in the end he will die and continue on forever in the fiery depths of hell, so he does succeed in his plan but thankfully only for himself. Throughout the play Faustus deals with the devil's employee, Mephastophilis, who tells him that he will let Faustus do whatever he please for twenty-four years if he gives his soul to the devil, and Faustus agrees. During these twenty-four years peopl
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