"Measure for Measure" :

So. "Measure for Measure" is actually really interesting! I've never personally read it before, but I know that it is actually my high school English teacher's favorite Shakespeare play as well. This is a fascinating connection between two teachers that actually might have a supernatural origin, but that's beside the point.
I've heard of it called 'a problem play' before, as well, when said English teacher was trying to describe the plot of it before. And, to be honest, I never really grasped what that meant. It was funny, like a comedy, but things weren't so black and white and twin-switchery and such. But that's about it.
Now, though, I think I'm beginning to understand the concept of a problem play, which is nice. It's funny enough, but with wayyy darker tones than most comedies usually have. I also am much more emotionally invested in these characters than I usually get with a Shakespeare comedy. For instance, in "A Midsummer's Night Dream", I really don't care what happens to the characters, as I know it's going to turn out pretty okay at the end. But with a play like "Measure for Measure", I'm genuinely concerned with what's going to happen with Isabelle, and her idiot brother.
This play hurts in a way that a usual 'comedy' would not. I don't want Isabelle to compromise her ideals and what she believes is moral and right in the eyes of God, but I also don't want idiotic Claudio  to die for having sex with the woman he loves. So I'm conflicted, and I can feel the problem here.

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Faustus the scum canoe

We talked a lot about the moment when Faustus could no longer redeem himself in the play, and I could be the jerk that says, "Well of course it was as soon as he signed the contract," but I do agree that if that wasn't the point, then I feel like it had to be when he turned from playing silly Pope pranks to just being a bully with no sense of reward.

In the very beginning, when Faustus makes the plan to sell his soul for some lame prize that he doesn't think through, he's visited by his shoulder angels. And every time these characters show up, I can only think of one thing--Kronk from Emperor's New Groove.

While Kronk's situation is a much more light-hearted one, (oh no, I don't want to kill the now-llama Emperor anymore!) I feel like the exchange is fairly similar. I don't believe the angels in either case really help make a decision. Kronk, while he works for the evil, ancient Ezma, he's generally a good guy at heart and I'm sure he would have saved Kusco regardless of whether or not his shoulder angels showed up.
And in the case of Faustus, I'm pretty sure, regardless of the arguments his shoulder angels make, he would have chosen the "path that rocks" (or you know, the path of eternal damnation). And that's not to say that Faustus started off as a bad person so clearly he'd make the bad choice, but I feel like he is also too prideful to turn back on his decision. Especially once he goes so far as signing the contract even though his own blood was trying to stop that from happening.
And so he takes a silly deal where he gets 24-years of cool magic for cool pranks, but he really just becomes a huge jerk at the end. In the beginning his pranks could be seen as fairly good, especially since they were against such nasty people. But then he moves on to pranking these innocent people that have done no wrong towards Faustus nor anyone else. And at the point I feel like he shouldn't have the opportunity to redeem himself. He's had four acts or so to do that, and instead he falls more and more prey to the "evilness" of the Devil.
So sure, Faustus could really redeem himself up until fairly close to the end of the play, but I'm not so sure if he would have taken God up on the offer. He was given the chance so many times and never took it, so his call for redemption when he was literally being dragged into hell seemed like such a pointless cry for help.
It's like the boy who cried wolf, except in this case he put off redemption and put off redemption until the time came where he realised the weight of his decision, but God was so totally over it at the point that he wasn't going to help Faustus.

Pity for the Not-So-Good Doctor

I have had Dr.Faustus on the brain for a good part of the day and I am starting to rethink my earlier callous conclusions about his redeem-ability as well as whether or not he is worthy of empathy. In hindsight, I'm actually kind of ashamed at my immediate dismissal of him as a character worth nothing but derision. Now I see a man disillusioned and lonely, who feels forsaken by God and, as Adelai mentioned, lacks the faith necessary to deal with uncertainty. His story mirrors that of an addict the euphoric beginnings, the slow degradation and the slide into certain hell. Through this lens he becomes an object of pity.

5 Ways Faustus is like an addict

1. He is desperately lonely and disillusioned leaving him vulnerable to poor decisions such making deals with the devil. Also, he shows a determination to this path even though the devil himself tells him it is a bad idea. Heck, his own body shows hesitancy when his blood congeals before he is able to sign the contract and yet he allows Mephistopheles to warm it back to inky consistency!

2. At first he is flying high - literally in a chariot pulled by dragons through the cosmos but...

3. All too soon he is reduced to a clown, begging for attention and playing cruel pranks on those whose circumstances lesser than his own. Which leads to -

4. He becomes so obnoxious that even Mephistopheles distances himself from him. In scene 4, his devil on loan is only found when called. He is becoming more alone.

5. He realizes too late that he has friends. It is not until his hour of death is nigh that Faustus recognizes the scholars as people who care about him. By then it is too late - only because Faustus himself believes it is. The old man tells him that redemption is right there in the form of an angel over his head and yet he refuses to believe it and has the old man punished for his efforts. God and man will forgive Faustus if only he would forgive himself.

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Utopia

When I started reading Book II of Utopia, I instantly thought it was better than the first section that we read because it was much easier to read and understand. Book I is very dull and boring, and I just found it difficult to get through because it is so wordy. I felt like Thomas More was just rambling a lot of the time, which makes it difficult to find the point he was making. I found Book II easier to read because More was describing this so called “perfect” world, and it wasn’t as hard to understand. At first, Utopia sounded interesting to me—not in the “I would like to live there” way, but more because it was a different take on what an ideal society would look like. But as I read on I realized that it’s not as perfect as Thomas More makes it out to be.

My cons list ended up being much, much longer than my pros list. The first aspect that hit me that I didn’t like was the fact that in this “perfect” society, there were still slaves. I know that during the 16^th century, slaves were a common thing, and were different from how we think of them. That doesn’t stop me from thinking that a utopia should not have slaves, because then this would not be a perfect world for everyone; only some. I also didn’t like the same routine every single day, no privacy, and the fact that everybody wore generally the same clothes. There is no individuality in this, and to me it seems like this world would get very boring, very fast.

Thomas More’s version of Utopia feels like the world itself is trying too hard to be perfect, if that makes any sense. Like someone just thought “Hey, if we make everybody look the same and have the same job, then there won’t be any problems in the world.” This reminds me of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 because in that world, the government made books illegal and burned them all to prevent the people from having individuality or having any opinions and beliefs of their own. To the people in the book, other than Guy Montag and Clarisse, this was a perfect world because there were no problems, and nobody argued or had a different opinion, but it was really a dystopia. I feel like More’s Utopia is going to eventually become a dystopia, because it is not, in fact, perfect.