Faustus, Satan, and the Pride of Falling -Hanna A.

Milton quite brilliantly uses rhetoric to show the progression of the fall throughout Paradise Lost. As we discussed in class, Satan himself slowly degenerates into more and more muddled streams of thought as he progressively becomes more and more depraved. It seems that there could be a parallel drawn between Milton’s characterization of Satan, and Dr. Faustus.

            Just as Faustus slowly degenerates throughout the play, starting by selling his soul to the devil, performing for the emperor, and then slowly losing traction and performing for less and less important people and entering into less and less intelligent pranks, Satan himself continuously loses renown and position throughout Paradise Lost. He first impersonates an angel of heaven, then a lion, and finally a snake. He literally ends up crawling on his belly reduced to almost nothing. So, just as his rhetoric degenerates, he himself becomes less and less impressive throughout the epic.

            However, what is interesting about both of these characters is that it seems to always be possible to repent and be brought back into redemption, until it is too late. Both characters hit a point at the end of the work where redemption is no longer possible, all because of the pride before that moment. Pride then becomes the ultimate sin. Just as Eve falls in Paradise Lost to flattery and a sense of vanity, Satan falls because he thinks he ought to have been given everything the Son of God was given. He should have been given a place in the Trinity. And for Faustus it was all about status, money, and fame. All of these things boil down to pride as the ultimate sin, which bars people from heaven.

            Interestingly enough, Milton himself has the pride to believe he is actually writing what happened in the Garden of Eden. His version, according to himself, is more accurate than even the Bible. His pride, perhaps even his own small “fall,” shows itself in how he accidentally makes Satan the hero of the story, rather than the Son of God, God, or even Adam.  So it seems that as Satan degenerates throughout the epic, Milton also does, as he cannot help but make Satan the tragic hero. In Faustus, it is clear that Faustus is not the hero, and so perhaps Marlowe, unlike Milton, was not writing out of pride but out of a genuine desire to portray the brokenness of desiring too much of the world.