“Bezelbub has a devil put aside for me…” – “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Queen
Doctor Fausuts is a play that focuses on the main character, Faustus, and his pursuit of knowledge, which because of mortal limits he decides to pursue by making a deal with the Devil. There are two ways to view the Devil as seen in Doctor Faustus: on one side, the Devil is all-powerful, mysterious and dark. Yet, on the other hand, the Devil is also comical, humorous even in direct depiction and in action. These two supposedly conflicting views of the Devil are actually in surprising harmony.
At first glance at Faustus, we see the Devil, or Lucifer, as they are referred to in the play, as a mysterious and dark figure that is not seen on stage just yet. In fact, we do not directly see Lucifer on stage until Scene 5. Before this, Lucifer always speaks through Mephastophilis, giving them a greater air of mystery and power, sending their servant or underling to do the talking for them. At the same time, this also brings attention to the reason that Faustus made the deal with the devil in the first place: knowledge and power. Faustus found a supposed end to his learning, and therefore turned to the devil to find more, a darker or secret knowledge and power that was not available to him before. The distance between Faustus and the being with whom he makes the deal, especially one that involves his soul, brings to mind a being of pure evil, a monster that is so unbelievably powerful and above man. By maintaining this distance between the characters, and therefore keeping a distance between the audience and the character Lucifer, there is created a sort of mysticism or idea surrounding the character. We are left to create our own image, one that is guided towards a rather dark being, a stereotypically satanic figure.
Yet, this is not how the image remains in our minds. This sort of powerful and evil being that we create in our minds is then, in a way, turned comedic and light by Faustus. Faustus with his newfound powers does not use them for learning alone, but rather for pranks and humor more often. We often see him doing idiotic acts for his own entertainment, such as turning himself invisible and stealing food from the Pope, punching him, and then throwing fireworks around at friars. To any reader or audience member, these actions would all appear comedic in nature because that is exactly what they are! In all of Faustus’s actions and the use of his powers, he uses them for comedic measure. Likewise, other characters joke about the powers of Faustus, and therefore Lucifer, such as stablemen who find Faustus’s book and joke about conjuring wine to drink. Nothing about these scenes are meant to be taken seriously, which you could say only reflect on Faustus’s poor character and lack of seriousness and ability to make good decisions. However, these actions also reflect onto Lucifer’s character, undermining the powers of Satan and the gravity of the deal made.
Though these depictions of Lucifer within one work differ, one being laughable and almost inviting and the other being one that strikes fear, they both bring together a single idea: to laugh at Satan is to be against Satan. As one writer puts it, “…the comic mode in satanic representation allowed the medieval playwright…to grasp a shadow and…throttle it, to banish fear with a laugh” (Hartman and Nunnally 72). By taking a mysterious figure or thing and bringing it into light, we can expose every bit of it that had been left to the imagination. In this case, we take the figure of Lucifer, powerful, evil, et cetera, and pull them into the light and make them into a comedic figure. No longer do we fear the shadow that lurks just out of view to tempt us into the depths of hell and eternal damnation, because it is only a weak clown in our eyes. In this way, the depiction of Satan as comedy makes us turn away from temptation and from fear.
Citation:
Hartman, Michael, and Nunnally, Thomas. Laughing at the Devil: Satan as a Humorous Figure in Middle English Literature. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1994, http://search.proquest.com/docview/304115436/.