Would you call the character of dr,faustus heroic?give reason for your answer
Answers
Dr. Faustus, believe it or not, can be categorized as a hero, only he would be a Tragic Hero.
He is a hero because, as all heroes denote, they are born with unique qualities, amazing potential, immense power and a wealth of knowledge. However, a TRAGIC hero uses all these innate elements to destroy himself, and make his life miserable.
In the case of Faustus, here we have a superbly intelligent scholar with tremendous influence among the academic community. He has a talent for arts, music, everything. He has a great job, he lectures, teaches, travels...he is the epitome of the Renaissance man: One who can do it all.
Yet, he completely overrules all these great qualities and opts for aspiring to "have it all" through becoming a magician. An illusionist that could bring about anything he ever thought of...but..for what reason exactly? He didn't even know himself!
He wandered through life, and even made that ridiculous pact with the devil, also not knowing exactly why, until he finally died in fear loneliness and misery. If anyone was a winner, was the devil himself. Faustus was also victorious: Victorious in ending his quest of destroying his life.
Hence, here we have the typical tragic hero tale of a man too big for himself, and too smart for any capacity of common sense.
The way Marlowe portrayed Dr. Faustus in the novel; he can be surely categorized as an epic hero. In the very beginning, we see that he is a man with great academic knowledge and his main attribute is to work hard for his dreams. He even sells his soul in order to achieve miraculous abilities and unique qualities as well. These features match with the portrayal of any hero as depicted in epics such as The Iliad, Odyssey, and more. We have to bow down to this theory that he is a tragic hero and celebrates the theme of Renaissance through his actions. This is because any tragic hero utilizes his innate attributes to annihilate himself which causes misery in his life.
In this work about Dr. Faustus, his talents are in the subject of music, art, and many other subjects academic gamut. But, he overrules all these abilities, and over-ambition plus greed destroy him at last.
Hence, Dr. Faustus is the archetypal tragic hero who happens to be too immense for himself which decreases his ability to reason and logically think over what he can do with what he possesses.