Doctor Faustus: Character Mind Map & Summary
Everything you need on Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus: every character, the terms of the bond, the warnings Faustus ignores, the lines examiners love to quote, a scene-by-scene summary and the key exam facts.
The Character Mind Map
Tap any name to open the character’s role, key moment and famous line.
Doctor John Faustus
A brilliant German scholar of Wittenberg who has mastered logic, medicine, law and theology and finds them all too small. Hungry for limitless knowledge, power and pleasure, he turns to black magic and sells his soul to Lucifer in exchange for 24 years of service from the devil Mephistophilis. The great Renaissance over-reacher.
A sound magician is a mighty god.Fate: carried off to hell by devils at midnight
🔥 Hell
The devilsMephistophilisLucifer’s servant · Faustus’s attendant devil
Role: Appears when Faustus conjures, first in an ugly shape, then, at Faustus’s order, dressed as a Franciscan friar. He is strangely honest about his own suffering in hell, yet he tricks, distracts and threatens Faustus whenever he thinks of repenting.
Key moment: Refuses to say who made the world, because the answer is God.
Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
LuciferPrince of devils
Role: The ruler of hell to whom Faustus signs away his soul.
Key moment: Appears with Beelzebub when Faustus calls on Christ, scares him back into obedience and distracts him with a show of the Seven Deadly Sins.
BeelzebubA chief devil
Role: Comes with Lucifer to frighten Faustus. Faustus declares that his real god is his own appetite, “wherein is fixed the love of Belzebub”.
The Seven Deadly SinsA pageant staged by Lucifer
Role: Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth and Lechery each describe themselves in a comic parade, a device borrowed from the medieval morality play.
Key moment: Faustus is delighted: “O, this feeds my soul!”
😇 Voices for the Soul
Morality play elementsThe Good AngelVoice of conscience
Role: Appears again and again, urging Faustus to turn back to God and repent.
Faustus, repent; yet God will pity thee.
The Evil AngelVoice of temptation
Role: Tempts Faustus with wealth and honour and tells him it is too late to be saved.
Thou art a spirit; God cannot pity thee.
The Old ManFaustus’s last chance
Role: A holy man who begs Faustus to repent and says there is still an angel with a vial of grace above his head.
Key moment: Faustus asks Mephistophilis to torment him for his words. The devils can hurt his body but not his soul, because his faith protects him.
The ChorusPrologue & epilogue
Role: Frames the play. The Prologue compares Faustus to Icarus, and the Epilogue warns the audience against his fate.
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, / And burnèd is Apollo’s laurel bough.
📚 Scholars & Servants
Faustus’s worldValdes & CorneliusFriends who teach him magic
Role: Two magicians who encourage Faustus’s interest in the “damned art” and teach him the basics of conjuring.
WagnerFaustus’s servant & student
Role: A cheeky servant who copies his master, conjuring devils to force the clown Robin into his service, a comic mirror of Faustus’s pact.
Key moment: Faustus leaves his goods to Wagner in his will.
The ScholarsFaustus’s colleagues
Role: Worry about his magic at the start; later ask to see Helen of Troy.
Key moment: On his last night Faustus confesses everything to them. They go to pray for him in the next room.
👑 Courts & Spirits
What his power is used forThe PopeAt the feast of St Peter in Rome
Role: Made invisible, Faustus snatches the Pope’s food and wine and boxes his ear. The friars curse him with “bell, book and candle”. Anti-Catholic slapstick that pleased a Protestant audience.
Emperor Charles VThe German Emperor
Role: Faustus conjures spirits looking like Alexander the Great and his paramour to entertain him.
The Knight (Benvolio in the B-text)A sceptical courtier
Role: Mocks Faustus at the Emperor’s court, so Faustus makes horns grow on his head.
Duke & Duchess of VanholtNoble hosts
Role: Faustus fetches fresh grapes in January for the pregnant Duchess, a small trick that shows how trivial his great power has become.
Helen of TroyA spirit in Helen’s shape
Role: Summoned first for the scholars, then as Faustus’s lover. Critics note that embracing a demon seals his damnation.
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
🤡 Comic Characters
The parody subplotRobin & RafeClowns · stable-hands (Dick in the B-text)
Role: Steal one of Faustus’s conjuring books and accidentally summon Mephistophilis, who turns one into an ape and the other into a dog. Their low comedy parodies Faustus’s high ambitions.
The Horse-courserHorse dealer
Role: Buys a horse from Faustus that turns into a bundle of hay in water. When he tugs at the sleeping Faustus, Faustus’s (false) leg comes off.
Memory Hook: 3 Warnings He Ignores
Heaven gives Faustus clear signs to stop. He brushes each one aside.
The Bond: 5 Conditions
The deed of gift Faustus signs in his own blood. In return, after 24 years, Lucifer takes his body and soul.
Famous Lines: Who Says What
The most frequently quoted lines in competitive exams, in the order they appear.
Scene-by-Scene Summary
The whole play in six stops. (The 1604 A-text is not divided into acts.)
Stop 1Prologue & the First Soliloquy
- The Chorus introduces Faustus: low-born, a doctor of divinity at Wittenberg, whose “waxen wings” (like Icarus) take him too high.
- In his study, Faustus dismisses logic (Aristotle), medicine (Galen), law (Justinian) and the Bible, misreading “The reward of sin is death” to conclude that everyone is doomed anyway.
- He turns to magic; the Good and Evil Angels appear; Valdes and Cornelius offer to teach him.
Stop 2Conjuring & the Pact
- Faustus conjures Mephistophilis, who comes of his own will, drawn by Faustus’s abuse of God’s name.
- Faustus offers his soul for 24 years of power. His blood congeals, “Homo, fuge!” appears on his arm, and still he signs.
- Parallel comic scene: Wagner binds the clown Robin to his service.
Stop 3Doubts & Distractions
- Faustus asks for a wife; he is offered a devil dressed as a woman, and courtesans instead.
- He questions Mephistophilis about the heavens, but gets no answer on who made the world.
- When he calls on Christ, Lucifer arrives and entertains him with the Seven Deadly Sins.
Stop 4Travels & Tricks
- Faustus tours the universe and the world, and plays pranks on the Pope in Rome.
- He conjures Alexander the Great for Emperor Charles V and puts horns on a knight.
- He tricks the Horse-courser and brings grapes to the Duchess of Vanholt. Robin and Rafe’s stolen book causes chaos.
Stop 5Helen & the Old Man
- Faustus shows the scholars Helen of Troy.
- The Old Man begs him to repent; threatened by Mephistophilis, Faustus renews his vow in blood.
- He asks for Helen as his lover: “Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.”
Stop 6The Final Hour
- Faustus confesses to the scholars, who leave to pray.
- In his great final soliloquy, the clock strikes eleven, half past and twelve. He begs time to stop and wishes his soul could turn to water drops.
- The devils carry him off. The Chorus: “Faustus is gone. Regard his hellish fall.”
Must-Know Exam Facts
The details that keep coming up in UGC NET, SET, PGT and state PSC papers.
Full Title & Texts
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Written c. 1588–1592 (the date is debated). Two versions: the shorter A-text (1604) and the longer B-text (1616) with added scenes.
Source
The English Faust Book (1592), an English translation by “P. F., Gent.” of the German Faustbuch (1587), which told the legend of a real 16th-century German magician.
Genre
A Renaissance tragedy built on a medieval morality play frame: Good and Evil Angels, the Seven Deadly Sins and the Old Man. It shows the clash between Renaissance ambition and medieval Christian belief.
Verse & Staging
Written mostly in blank verse; Ben Jonson praised “Marlowe’s mighty line”. The comic prose scenes parody the main plot. The first great Faustus was the actor Edward Alleyn (Admiral’s Men).
Key Themes
- Ambition and the pursuit of forbidden knowledge
- Sin, damnation and the (im)possibility of repentance
- Hell as a state of mind
- Renaissance humanism vs medieval faith
- Power wasted on trivial tricks
Marlowe at a Glance
A University Wit (1564–1593). Other works: Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, Hero and Leander and “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”. Killed in a tavern fight at Deptford in 1593, aged 29. Goethe later retold the legend in Faust.
100+ Key Works of English Literature
All the character mind maps in one printed book.
