Now, it is blatantly obvious to anyone who's read the whole play through that Dr. Faustus that Faustus does, indeed, squander his power. We already discussed that this was meant to frustrate the audience, but was it also used as a way to further push the audience to want Faustus to burn?
I think that if the play ended with God descending from heaven and bringing Faustus up with Him, then the audience would be kind of peeved off. And by kinda, I mean very.
I just can't imagine seeing someone who already had such a good life, decide it's not good enough, and then sells his soul to Satan just to pull cheesy pranks on everyone instead of doing some good with his life. Granted, you still aren't doing much "good" with the power of Satan (unless, you're the Ghost Rider of course).
Still, Faustus still could've done something so dastardly evil, like wage war against heaven or something.
I guess, if the play was written where Faustus used his deeds for good, then I kinda have a feeling it would probably be really similar to the plot of Ghost Rider (you know, dude signs his soul over to Satan with good intentions...ends up doing other cool stuff instead...you get it). Also, they would not have had the technology to produce a scene as awesome as this one back then, so I guess it all worked out for the best.
Also, I just realized that with this hell power, Faustus could essentially be Ghost Rider. I mean, he did have the power, just not the desire to do good for anyone other than himself.
That's funny that you mention Ghost Rider. A few years ago in an introductory lit class we read a portion of Dr. Faustus and broke into groups to write alternate endings. My group turned Faustus into Ghost Rider, but I'm pretty sure it quickly escalated into "Come to the dark side...we have cookies!" I too was hoping that Faustus would do something worthwhile, but that does make his tale more tragic.
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