I can't handle you, Doctor Faustus

This is just based off of the class discussion last week, but I still just...I can't find it in me yet to like Doctor Faustus. I guess I can see where the hearts break and pity sets in for a guy who just wants a friend, but I mean. Come on there are plenty of ways to make friends that don't involve getting into bed with necromancy and calling forth a demon from Hell to follow you around for 24 years.

I guess his first monologue already really turned me off from him. He doesn't want to be a doctor anymore because he isn't getting the praises and "celebrity status" he feels he deserves for his work? Last time I checked, you should going into that field because you like to help people, not because you want to be awarded for it. I'm just not sorry that he doesn't feel he's being rewarded enough for doing his job. Especially when it's a job where I feel like the reward should be saving someone's life. So being a doctor is out the window. But then he throws out Law because...it's "too servile" for him. So he doesn't want to go unnoticed in his work, but he also doesn't to serve other people...so he turns next to the dark arts of Necromancy (a logical jump, I'm sure).

And then, with his new found love of demons and waking the dead, Faustus decides he's going to call forth a devil so he can become the King of Germany or some such nonsense. Because I guess if you can't make your own friends, you have to make people to be your friend, right (that's how that works, right?)? So some Latin words and loud shouting later, he calls forth this demon who seems less than ecstatic to be there, and asks for 24 years of this demon's servitude in exchange for his soul. His soul!

I feel like 24 years of forced friendship isn't worth an eternity of Damnation. So sure, his loneliness pulls at my heartstrings for maybe 5 minutes. Because then he turns around and makes this half-assed deal with Lucifer. It's like he called up Mephostophilis and simply picked 24 years because it was a lucky number on his fortune cookie that afternoon.

I just can't fathom ever making this deal, no matter how lonely I got. And if he had nothing to live for, you'd think he would use this deal with the hefty price tag of "one soul in eternal damnation" to make his life, I don't know...worth something to him? Not 24 measly years of control over a demon and a steak dinner.