Faustus' journey

This heading sums up what is covered in various ways in other sections of this guide: the central action of the play that takes Faustus from his standing as a learned and respected scholar to a trickster and practical joker and then a damned soul.

This progress is marked in a number of ways:

• The encounters between Faustus and Mephastophilis
• Faustus' soliloquies
• The comments of the Chorus and other characters
• The nature of the action in the comic and farcical scenes.

The first two of these – Faustus in debate with himself and with Mephastophilis – are the most important in understanding the meanings of the play and are discussed in the section Characters.