When people hear the name of Elizabethan era writer Christopher Marlowe several questions (or rumors might be the right word) comes their mind. Such as “ Was Marlowe Shakespeare?”, “Was he a secret agent?” or “Why Marlowe was murdered?”. In order to find the answer of these questions we need to go to al least 455 years back. I think Marlowe’s “interesting” life began when he matriculates Cambridge University. While studying there his long absence noticed by the other students. Tough in those days no one knew why school management allowed him to do so. Some critics even thinks that these absences can be connected with “lost years of Shakespeare’s life”.But they are only speculations. What is known surely about Marlowe is that after graduating from Cambridge in 1587 he started to work for government. Around same year his famous play Tamburlaine the Great was performed in London where he moved after graduation. Two years later Marlowe began to write The Jew of Malta which is briefly about a vengeance of a Jewish boy named Barabas after Ottoman Empire enforces jewish people to pay high taxes. This play has a lot of similarities between Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice. Such that most people think that the writer of this play is Marlowe. Although there are some undeniable similarities between two play this cannot be the perfect evidence to prove that Marlowe is Shakespeare. For some Marlowe is just a writer who had an impact on his writings. Four years later on May 30,1593 Marlowe was murdered. The mystery behind his death is no one quite sure whether his death was ordered by Queen Elizabeth or it was just an unfortunate result of an ordinary bar fight.
Dr. Faustus or with its original name The tragicall history of the life and death of Doctor Faustus is thought to be Christopher Marlowe’s last play. It is published in London printed for Iohn Wright, and are to be sold at his shop without Newgate, at the signe of the Bible, 1616. This play is about how a man who is hunger for knowledge sell his soul to the devil when he realizes that what God offer for him is not enough. I think the best scene and also the most famous scene of the Dr. Faustus is scene 3 lines from 76 to 86.
In these lines just before Faustus sell his soul to the devil he asks Mephastophilis how he get out from the hell. The response of Meph. I believe the one of the best lines of the play. In his answer he identify himself with Faustus. Because once upon a time he was just like Faustus, innocent maybe even pure, deserves to be in heaven. Though back then no one neither warn him nor mention about the consequences of leaving there. However, he gives this chance to Faustus but he ignore this warning. When Mephastophilis says “Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.” he means no matter where he goes hell will follow him. Maybe even he returns his actual home the mistakes he had done in the past will always try to hunt him down. Lastly even though Meph. works for Lucifer and therefore automatically assumed to be the “bad character” in some ways he is more sympathetic than Faustus. He still hopes that if God gives him a second chance he would abandone Lucifer and swear off.
Zeynep