Knowledge

Luis Vargas
Ms.Peifer
English 10 IB
February 12-2011

    In the play Doctor Faustus   by Christopher Marlowe knowledge is the most important thing for Doctor Faustus. Doctor Faustus wants to more then he already does. Doctor Faustus  believes that he that will gain more knowledge through dark magic. Knowledge is the ability to learn something through the experience of life. Knowledge comes from the experience of doing things. The knowledge someone gain may be used  for variety of things; it could be used for good and evil. Doctor Faustus first intended to use his knowledge for good, but through out the book he used it for unnecessary  things. A example of a unnecessary thing Faustus did with his knowledge is when he tricked the Horse courser that he had pulled off Faustus’s leg “ O help help! The villain hath murdered me!”( Marlowe 4.5.43.). In this line we see that Faustus had used his knowledge of dark magic to trick the horse courser
     Knowledge is something that is out their to waiting to be found by someone, but the only way to obtain it is by creating it ourself. Doctor Faustus knew that their was more knowledge out their that could obtained, but the only way to obtain , a good comparison to this is the way that  money is obtained. Their is plenty of money out their but the only way to obtain it is by working hard. Doctor Faustus did this at first but then he wanted to obtain more knowledge by using dark magic; this could be the same as robbing a bank to obtain money which is against the law.
    The curiosity to learn something new establishes and motivates  research in a person. The ethical questions arise when a person has mastered everything and their curiosity awakes the ethical question.  Faustus had already mastered everything but his curiosity was the one the made the ethical question arise. He can see the ethical question arises when he is questioning himself when saying “ The end of physic is our body’s health. Why Faustus hast thou not attained that end? Are not thy bills hung up as monuments whereby whole cities have escaped the plague And thousand desperate maladies been cured?” ( Marlowe 1.1.16-20).
     The dark magic Faustus uses in the book can connect to the issues like splitting atoms to genetic cloning since it is curiosity and  knowledge mixed together. People may used the genetic cloning for good reasoning  other may used it for evil, which is the same as using the powers of dark  magic. This is the relationship between them.