Aristotelian Hero’s Essay, Research Paper

Don’t Aristotelian Hero’s Have Enlightenment?

An Aristotelian hero has a hamartia, downfall, suffering and enlightenment and

considering these points we asks ourselves if Dr. Faustus falls under this. In the book,

Dr. Faustus, Faustus has all but enlightenment, which is why he is not an Aristotelian

hero.

Faustus fatal error is that of wanting to have all knowledge and be able to do

magic and therefore selling his soul to the devil. One might say we might consider a deal

like his of having everything he wanted and Metostopholis as his servant but twenty-four

years isn’t enough. Most people wouldn’t even consider the idea of selling their soul to

the devil, but we all make mistakes. This is why I could understand that Faustus fell for

the offer and maybe didn’t realize at the time what he was doing. Throughout the

twenty-four years he thought about repenting many times but he never got the courage to

do it. This lead to his downfall, the fact that his temptation was stronger.

Faustus soon realizes that getting everything he wanted wasn’t exactly that and

the distractions of the devil kept him from doing the things he wanted which got him into

the mess in the first place. Even though Faustus could have repented at any time the

devil would always find things to occupy his mind. At the end of the twenty-four years

he still had one last chance to repent or tom stay with the devil and prefer Helen of Troy.

He didn’t have the courage to do so, therefore he chose the wrong path again.

After his twenty-four years of “fun” were over he began to suffer from making the

wrong choice to stay with the devil and he was to be in hell forever. Faustus never had

an enlightenment which means that he chose not to repent. He decided to stay on the

wrong path which discredits him as a hero. If he had been a hero he would have

repented even though it was difficult but indeed the right choice.