Two Doctors as Self-Fashioned Overreachers: Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Only a few themes in English literature may have the same profound symbolic significance such as the pursuit of human potential and the quest to surpass the human capability as employed Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus presents the perilous exploration of knowledge and power within the context of Renaissance, the era that is brave and fertile in terms of intellectual rebirth while challenging of the long-held truth about individualism. Similarly, Shelley’s Frankenstein reflects the Romantic period’s preoccupation with individualism and the breaking of societal and natural norms centered around an academic’s hubristic struggle to conquer the mysteries of life and death. Both narratives not only stand out more than horror stories, but also turn out to be an exploration of self-identity, morality, societal norms and the inextricable link between science and the notion of the self. Thus, both protagonists, Faustus and Victor Frankenstein, embody their eras’s ethos, with the former reveling in the Renaissance’s celebration of human potential and the latter mirroring the Romantic fascination with the sublime and the transgressive. Taking these perspectives into account, this article delves into how Doctor Faustus and Frankenstein critically engage with their characters’s attempts to transcend social, cultural and scientific barriers through their process of self-fashioning. Both works not only encapsulate the social atmosphere of their respective times but also serve as cautionary tales about the ramifications of overreaching ambition.