English Renaissance Drama Essay

A central preoccupation of English rebirth Drama is the tension between individual surr residueer testament and the whole kit and boodle of fate. Compargon the treatment of this theme in Dr Faustus and critical point respectively.In the Elizabethan period in which both Dr Faustus and juncture were written ambition and rapacity was a big element of effecting as plenty essay to substantiate favour and power with Elizabeth and her approach, often resorting to stumble in severalize to move further up the social ladder and g per newsal much status, or in nearly cases, to stay at the status they had managed to carry out for themselves. The Tudor monarchies had made some progress in controlling outlawry but Robert Watson claims that there must have been some basis for the immovable jokes rough incompetent constables and watchers in Elizabethan uprisedies (ed. McEachern, 2002, pg.160).With so some crimes perpetrate by un-punishable criminals and many crimes once morest women, the poor and even different religious minorities, non even con arrayred to be crimes there is little wonder why tidy sum driveed such an appetite for strike back stories such as Hamlet which was written after(prenominal) Thomas Kyd had such a ample commercial success with The Spanish Tragedy around 1587, whose plot looks genuinely similar to that of the plot in Hamlet as the main fictitious showcase feigns madness in decree to get revenge on the the great unwashed who had killed his son and were socially high up than him.The themes of fate and free go away at bottom the story of Hamlet are based around the idea as to whether or non he was cursed to kill his uncle in revenge for his fathers death or if he is culpable for his actions and the many deaths he is responsible for within the play as he tries to substantiate revenge and if he was acting of his admit free testament or whether or not it is fate that Ophelia kills herself within the play or again she was acting of her bear free leave and could have potpourrid her fate .In contrast, Dr Faustus written by Christopher Marlowe is a tragedy with an end that the main character had the chance to change as the headland of fate and free will is based around whether or not he is destined to go to perdition beca handling of his pact with the devil and his actions, as well as ambition. passing reflecting the mood in Elizabethan society ambition was seen as a particularly alluring and dangerous sin (ed. McEachern, 2002, pg. 160) with people reflectively ridiculing opportunists and people trying to gain more than what is rightfully theirs. However the over side of the argument, which people tend to lean more on when analysing the actions of Dr Faustus is the opinion that he was acting of his avouch free will and that it was because of his pride in refusing to abye and ask forgiveness and mercy from God that led him to eternal damnation.Dr Faustus as a story pokes fun and ridicules the Catholic idea of heaven and hell and tries to reflect the feelings of the state at the term as Protestantism was, if not a little shakily, the dominant religion in England in 1600 when the play was written. inwardly the play, Faustus, a great scholar, who is the embodiment of the Renaissance man who came from humble beginnings to suffer a renowned intellectual individual who is highly respected in his field. However it is because of this climb from his humble beginnings that seem to have led him to develop his excessive hubris, which is finally his greatest flaw when he wants to become as mighty as God, not realising he is world tricked by friction matchs servant, Mephastophillis and does not have the powers he thinks he has, haven encumber to only another twenty-four years on earth to begin with eternal life in hell in return for God-like powers.Is Faustus fated to eternity in hell because of his deal with the personified devil, Lucifer or is it is hubris and own feelings of greed and ambition that stop him from repenting to God and asking for mercy, actions of his own free will, the modestness why he ends up serving Lucifer forever. inside the prologue of the play itself, Marlowe does not seem to see any question as to whether it was fate or the actions of Faustus himself that led him to eternity in hell as he states falling to a devilish exercise, and glutted more with larns golden gifts, he surfeits upon cursed necromancy (Prologue, lines 24-28) in which the use of the words falling and also the fact that he was glutted interpreted to mean greedy for riches, have led to his downfall, he could have chosen to change the destination if he had not been so blinded by greed and not fallen for the trickery of the devil.Unlike Dr Faustus, Hamlet is about a more conventional romantic hero who is Prince of Denmark and has just alienated his father, who we later find out was killed by Hamlets uncle Claudius. indoors the play we see Hamlet struggle with the burden he has had lay outd on his shoulders by the ghost of his father who wants him to avenge his death, something that the Elizabethan consultation watching would enjoy as it mirrored society at the time of the play as people tried to get revenge on people who had wronged them but could not be punished due to their higher status within society, especially concerning crimes against the poor by the aristocracy. Although he does not call upon the ghost as Faustus does with Lucifer, he does of his own free will decide to investigate the accusations that his father puts to him concerning his brother, Hamlets uncle, killing him so that he could marry his wife and become queen of Denmark.This murder for the upgrade within society is a common theme within Shakespeares plays as they again cleverly mirror the actions of the aristocracy at court that were continuously stabbing each other in the back and in some cases killing each other in order to ain favours with the Tudor Queen E lizabeth. Hamlet deliberately feigns madness in order to find out the truth about the death of his father and the reason why his uncle so hastily and irreverently married his mother after his brothers death. The deliberateness of his actions forces us to question whether or not it was fate that led to Hamlet killing Claudius and many others through the play, his irresolution and inability to act is his greatest flaw and gives credibility to the argument that he was in complete control of his actions and therefore fate had little to do with the way out of the actions in which most of the characters are dead on layer at the end of the play.In contrast to this it could be commented that the actions of Faustus in Christopher Marlowes Dr Faustus was the work of fate and that he had no control over how he was going to end up at the end of the play. If he was meant to go to Hell and serve Lucifer for eternity, as what happens at the end of the play, historic Faustus repenting and aski ng for mercy and forgiveness from God would have no concern whatsoever on his imp resultant death. Within the epilogue of the play it is discover Faustus is gone. Regard his hellish fall (line 4) which could be interpreted by the auditory modality who have watched the play to mean that he was tricked by the devil and by God and he fell for their tricks and failed to repent for something which never actually materialised in terms of gaining the powers of God and becoming his equal. The fall of Faustus is interpretedb y Marxists to be his penalisation for trying to rise above his station in life as they believe the position you are born into is he position you should hold for the rest of your life and people should be punished for trying to change the natural order of things.This belief was also upheld within Elizabethan society as England had been through turmoil with the changing of the official religion for the buy the farm twenty years because of the current queens father Kin g Henry VIII who created the Church of England so that he could marry his mistress, Elizabeths mother, whos uncle and father, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, became very important men in the English court as they were the relatives of the King Henrys wife, for the limited time she held the claim and rose above their natural stations in life, only to be exiled and executed when they made a fatal error and crossed the King. Dr Faustus kinda cleverly mirrors society and their feelings of ambition and greed and so Marlowe has made his ending fit into the climate that his play would be performed in. The element of fate with Dr Faustus does not seem to be as prevalent as it does in some other plays as free will has more control and it is ultimately his actions that condemn him.Within Hamlet, as a contrast to Dr Faustus there are many elements that can be questioned as to whether Hamlet was asking of his own free will or whether or not the events that occur were apart(predicate) of fa te and her plan for Hamlet. Was he destined to die at the men of his uncle Claudius due to his failure to act on numerous occasions to gain revenge for the murder of his father. In addition there is also the question of the deaths of both Gertrude and Ophelia as they are both extremely close to Hamlet, the power being his mother and the latter being his love interest within the play. Gertrude dies at the end of the play when she drinks from the up containing the poison that Claudius has placed in it meant to kill Hamlet, was she destined to die because of her unfaithfulness in the eyes of her son by marrying so soon after the death of her husband, or is it because she chose of her own free will to save her son as she knew of the plot that Claudius had to murder his nephew, just as he had his brother.The incident in which Ophelia is order in the fountain shows her death to be suicide after she fails to cope after being rejected by Hamlet and also the death of her father, unknowle dgeable to her killed by Hamlet himself when he thought he was stabbing his uncle Claudius. Did she endue suicide after being unable to cope emotionally or is it more of a matter of fate that she was meant to die and that the fact that she is found in a fountain is a smoke screen as fate was never going to let her live and see the end of the play as she could have cottoned n to what Hamlet was doing and ruined the ending that fate had planned for the characters within the play.The themes of fate and free will are prevalent within both Shakespeares Hamlet and Christopher Marlowes Dr Faustus which delegacy that the actions of both protagonists are greatly debated by scholars today and in the past centuries since they were first written. Both plays are very reflective of the society in which they were written and first performed, with the antagonists being killed for trying to change the social order within their society. As discussed within this essay the author as come to some sort decision that in the play of Dr Faustus the theme of fate, spot apparent, did not have a big contributing factor to the outcome of the play and it was mainly through actions and decisions that Faustus made with his own free will that led him to spending eternity in Hell and serving Lucifer.In contradiction, in Hamlet, the author has come to the decision that is almost impossible to determine whether or not the protagonist was acting of his own free will or was just acting as fate decided and the deaths that Hamlet directly or indirectly causes were nothing other than collateral ill-treat as fate tries to right the order and balance out the in-balance that Claudius created when he killed his brother, with the tension between both fate and free will being so strong that any other move could create more instability than anyone could predict.