Dr.FaustusQ7

**7. Explain the Elizabethan concept of "The Great Chain of Being" and explore how understanding it could illuminate the play.**




 * The Great Chain of Being:** a powerful visual metaphor for a divinely inspired universal hierarchy ranking all forms of higher and lower life; humans are represented by the male alone. From Didacus Valades, //Rhetorica Christiana// (1579). Reproduced here from Anthony Fletcher's //Gender, Sex, & Subordination.

In this Elizabethan Hierarchy of life, each element has its own unique attribute or meaning:

God -> "Everything and More" Angels -> Intuition Mankind -> Existence, Growth, Passion, Reason Animals -> Existence, Growth, Passion Plants -> Existence, Growth Minerals -> Existence
 * Element Attribute**

Understanding of The Great Chain of Being is essential to understand Marlowe's __Dr. Faustus__.

In the Elizabethan age, i.e. the age of Shakespeare and Marlowe, this metaphor was very important to the people. As mentioned before, each of the elements has its own attribute or meaning, and this is synchronous with Marlowe's use of certain characters in the play, such as the Good Angels (to provide intuition), and the Seven Deadly Sins (a more direct meaning).

Furthermore, since the Great Chain of Being ranks forms of life as being higher or lower than each other, this indirectly relates to the the alterior motive in the book of "overreaching", seen through Faustus's attempt to gain knowledge, and perform magic, i.e. to do that which man cannot, and is not supposed to.

Marlowe's play is extremely religious, spiritual, and supernatural, in the sense that Faustus is confronted by and interacts with a whole host of supernatural characters, such as devils, angels. Also, Faustus is also able to perform magic in the play. This relates to the fact that the Elizabethan society's perspective of their lives and their world (in this hierarchal spiritual sense) was the same as the world presented in Faustus; the society was able to relate very well to the setting of the play. None of the happenings in the play would have seemed too ridiculous or farfetched to the audience.

The moral of the play is that humans shouldn't overreach, and thus, the play can be argued to build a feeling of contempt towards Faustus. With the mindset that they have, the Elizabethan society would have agreed with the moral of the play, and looked towards Faustus's doom as deserved, and seen Faustus as a wrongdoer, whose mistakes should be learned from.

Seen above, one of Mankind's attributes is supposedly Reason, and it can be argued that the play reflects a problem in Faustus's character; he doesn't have or use reason correctly. Through the society's understanding of man, the play would be seen as an example of failure, an example of man gone bad, one who lacks reason, and thus, meets his doom since he does not satisfy the requirements and definition of "Mankind".

Another feature that can be seen in Dr. Faustus is the "omnipotent" nature of God. Throughout the play, Faustus has the ability to repent and ask God for forgiveness. While he, at times, believes that God will not accept him back, even the Devil and Mephistopheles know that God has ultimate power to do as he wishes. He is above all creatures and things, including the Devil, as is shown in the the Great Chain of Being. With this ultimate power also comes the expectation that all those things under God obey and respect his wishes. Overreaching, then, is not criticized for the ambition it shows in Faustus, but for the disrespect of God that it shows. Overreaching is seen as wanting more than God gives, when he alone knows how much we need.//