Finals Week: Faust, Frank, and Two Tales of Hell

Christopher Marlowe's Faust and Clive Barker's Hellraiser compared - academically. By Kriscinda Meadows.

Two stories of tempting the agony of hell separated by centuries are interesting both in their similarities and their differences. In Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, Faust forsakes his earthly knowledge, of which he seems to have exhausted, for the forbidden knowledge of rituals, incantations, alchemy, and the summoning of demons to do one’s bidding. In Clive Barker’s film Hellraiser, like Faust, Frank Cotton also craves the forbidden, and although he follows the path of Faust in raising devils, his ends are distinctive and his desire unwavering. The initial desires of both men are similar in their intensity, but upon each man opening the horrid gates to their own hell, their willingness to continue sets the two men apart.

Between the two accounts, themes and characters converge; there are the objects through which contact with evil forces is made and how those objects come to be misused, there are the demons that come to convey Faust/Frank to hell, there are the sins and desires of our protagonists, and that of their assistants, and finally there are the ways in which Faust/Frank interacts with his surroundings and the action taking place. Here I will compare the two tales, showing resemblances and divergences of the various aspects, the main being the function of forbidden desire and the wholly different outcomes for our two main protagonists.

Faust, in order to summon the devils to do his bidding, uses a “conjuring book.” He places himself within a magical circle, and begins some ritualistic incantations after which a devil does indeed appear:

“These metaphysics of magicians,
And necromantic books are heavenly!
Lines, circles, schemes, letters and characters!” (Scene 1, lines 49-51)

And:

…Within this circle is Jehovah’s name,
Forward and Backward anagrammatized;
Th’abbreviated names of holy saints,
Figures of every adjunct to the heavens,
And characters of signs and erring stars,
By which the spirits are enforced to rise. (Scene 3, lines 8-13)

For Frank, the catalyst is an old, mechanical puzzle-box bought from an antique dealer.1 Frank, like Faust, follows certain ritualistic steps, setting himself with the box inside a square of candles. Instead of calling out words, backwards and forwards, in a blasphemic bastardization of the names of church figures, Frank manipulates the box, solving what is called the Lament Configuration, and opening the portico through which the Cenobites enter.

Later, in Faustus, the conjuring book falls into the wrong hands when Robin and Rafe steal it with the inexpert plan to use it themselves:

“O this is admirable! Here I ha’ stolen one of Doctor Faustus’
conjuring books, and I’faith I mean to search some circles for my
own use: now I will make all the maidens in our parish dance at
my pleasure stark naked before me, and so by that means I shall see
more than ere I felt or saw yet.” (Scene 6, lines 1-5)

Robin’s intention with Faust’s conjuring book leans more towards Frank’s objective of forbidden sexual experience than to Faust’s need for knowledge and power, and is reiterated in the following:

“…and more Rafe, is thou hast any mind to Nan
Spit, our kitchen maid, then turn her and wind her to thy own use,
As often as thou wilt, and at midnight.” (Scene 6, lines 25-27)

Here, these vulgar desires that are so prominent in Barker’s version are relegated to the frivolous cravings of the base and uneducated. Possibly because these desires are viewed as so insipid, the scene in which the devils actually appear to Robin and Rafe is comical—they are scared silly at the sight of Mephastophilis and, in the end, are turned into an ape and a dog, respectively, for their troubles.

In Hellraiser, the puzzle box also falls into the wrong hands, but accidentally so, as Kirsty, Frank’s niece, innocently and unknowingly solves the Lament Configuration. When she does, there is no laughing except maybe on the part of the Cenobites, but rather than being turned into anything, or dragged to hell as is the intention of the Cenobites, Kirsty bargains her way out of the mess—at least for the time being—by promising to lead them to Frank, who they have now learned has “slipped” them.

The Cenobites themselves deserve some attention. It is a group of four lead by one in particular, Pinhead. Each is a portrait of pain: nails hammered into the skull, throat torn and spread, eyes sewn shut, ears cut off and scarred over. While they are each physically tortured and deformed their very dress of leather and latex reflects the sadomasochistic real world these characters clearly stem from; a world where Frank would likely feel at home. The devils in Faustus, count three in particular—Mephastophilis, Lucifer, and Belzebub—but are also joined by a Bad Angel which tempts and taunts Faust, and a myriad of nameless devils that come and go. Like the Cenobites, they are harbingers, coming to collect their conjuror to the bowels of hell. Mephastophilis exists to serve his master, but more importantly, to serve the soul of his conjuror to his real master, Lucifer. The Cenobites, with Pinhead as ringleader, serve their master, Leviathan, leading mortals to the sins of flesh and chaos; they are “explorers in the further regions of experience—demons to some, angels to others.”

The sins within these two narratives have also shown similarities and differences. In Faustus, Faust actually meets all seven of the deadly sins—Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, and Lechery—and he runs the gamut himself before his time with Mephastophilis is up. For Frank, there is primarily Lust, or Lechery, but there are also signs that Gluttony is close to his heart. His body is slowly restored to him by consuming the fresh corpses of others. When he is, again, sufficiently functional, he savors the taste of a cigarette, and the pain of his newly grown nerves, demanding that his lover/assistant, Julia, allow him to touch her, even in his still disgusting state of skinlessness.

The assistants of the two men also have their parallels and variations. Faustus’ Wagner is an apprentice growing in arrogance and is, in essence, replaced by Mephastophilis, thus going off in search of his own assistant. He shows signs of following closely in Faust’s footsteps, budding with self-importance and a hunger for power. Frank’s Julia—his sister-in-law, whom he seduced on the eve of her wedding to his brother Larry—is at first put off by Frank’s barely human appearance, but agrees to help him become whole again by bringing men home and killing them. Before Frank even re-enters the picture, she is clearly resentful of her husband and desires to again be with Frank, their one-time passionate rendezvous having left an indelible mark on her. Once Frank has returned, she is under the impression that they will go on being together when he is fully restored; that she can again experience physical pleasure with him. “It’s making me whole again,” Frank says. “Every drop of blood you spill puts more flesh on my bones. And we both want that, don’t we?” And indeed they do, but for different reasons. In the end, Frank betrays and kills her. Before she dies, however, we get a brief glimpse of her, chains and hooks imbedded in her face and clutching the puzzle-box, indicating that she’s solved it, choosing to taste what Frank has tasted—something “beyond the limits.” Like Wagner, she aspires to power, and like Frank, yearns for experience further than what her husband, Frank, and this world can give her.

Faust himself claims he desires a secret knowledge, but despite asserting these grand wishes, in the end, he merely uses Mephastophilis for sight-seeing, practical jokes on the Pope, and impressing Emperors and Dukes (when, in fact, he could have been one himself). Faust seems to mismanage his power with Mephastophilis, possibly distracted by the constant reemerging fears of the damnation of his soul—what he’s lost in return for the powers he has.

Frank, on the other hand, desires nothing more than to further his physical experiences, to foster and broaden his own hunger—his conquests, he claims, are “never enough.” He describes the puzzle box that opened the door to his hell: “It’s dangerous; it opens doors. Doors to the pleasures of heaven or hell—I didn’t care which.” He continues regarding his own desires and what he’s received from the Cenobites: “I thought I’d gone to the limits; I hadn’t. The Cenobites gave me an experience beyond the limits—pain and pleasure, indivisible.” Frank, unlike Faust, indulges in exactly what he wanted, and then some, surprising, apparently, even himself. Faust, though, ends up wasting his powers and finds his desires unfulfilled by the end of his contract with Mephastophilis, his continuing doubt of his own actions dampening the enjoyment of his authority and resulting in nothing but regret.

Whereas Frank shows no real desire for anything other than the pleasures of the flesh, in the end, the closest Faust gets to Frank’s lust is his desire for Helen of Troy:

“One thing, good servant, let me crave of thee,
To glut the longing of my heart’s desire:
That I might have unto my paramour
That heavenly Helen which I saw of late,
Whose sweet embracings may extinguish clean
These thoughts that do dissuade me from my vow:
And keep mine oath I made to Lucifer.” (Scene 12, lines 72-78)

Despite his indulgences, we are reminded throughout that Faust can, if he wants to, repent. For Faust, it’s not a question of wanting to or not, as he often expresses the wish to do so. His dilemma is not knowing whether he can or not—he seems convinced that he’s gone too far and cannot be forgiven by God, though the truth is that he probably can.

Frank offers no remorse, and no repentance. He doesn’t want to escape the Cenobites for a chance at heaven and forgiveness, regardless the amount of religious paraphernalia around the house in which the action takes place. He merely wants to escape hell and the Cenobites, to go back out into the physical world and continue glutting his own lustfulness, apparently having had his fill of the kind of pleasure/pain offered by the Cenobites. He spites his brother, and uses his sister-in-law (who has troubles concerning her own desires) to his own ends—unlike Faust, Frank is completely without regret.

As Frank is discovered missing by the Cenobites and dragged back to hell, hooks on the ends of chains come from nowhere—as the room has been transformed into a small compartment of hell—which pierce his skin pulling in all directions. There is a pause as Frank licks his distended lips and states “Jesus wept,” laughing just before he is torn apart.

Throughout Faustus, Faust is threatened with being torn to pieces. The Bad Angel says: “If thou repent, devils shall tear thee in pieces (Scene 5, line 254).” Faust tells his friends when they ask why he didn’t tell them about these goings on: “Oft have I thought to have done so, but the devil threatened to tear me to pieces if I named God, to fetch both body and soul… (Scene 13, line 42-43).

Unlike Frank, Faust’s secondary concern was for his physical form, and the state of his soul caused him the most grief. Mephastophilis often threatens Faust with the tearing apart of his flesh:

“Thou traitor, Faustus: I arrest thy soul
For disobedience to my sovereign lord.
Revolt, or I’ll in piecemeal tear thy flesh.” (Scene 12, lines 57-59)

In an extended text3, that makes use of later quartos from 1616, 1624, and 1631, indeed, his friends find Faust in pieces (much like Frank):

(His friends) arose and went into the hall,
in the which they left Doctor Faustus;
where notwithstanding they found not Faustus,
but all the hall lay sprinkled with blood,
his braines cleaving to the wall,
for the devill had beaten him
from one wall against another;
in one corner lay his eyes, in another his teeth;
a pittifull and fearefull sight to behold.
Then began the students to waile and weepe for him,
and sought for his body in many places.
Lastly, they came into the yard,
where they found his body lying on the horse-dung,
most monstrously torne and fearefull to behold,
for his head and all his joynts were dashed in peeces. (Verse 175)

Faust’s body is left for his friends to discover, strewn about the room, but the condition of his soul is left for the audience to decide.

The tearing apart of Faust’s flesh has been threatened not upon entering hell, but for merely attempting to repent. We can be lead to believe that in the closing moments for Faust, he made a final appeal for forgiveness, and hence the grisly consequences met by his friends the following morning. We might be able to conclude that not all souls dragged to hell end up torn to shreds like Faust because, in the end, he attempted one last ditch effort to appeal to God’s mercy. When the Bad Angel explains the tearing apart of the flesh should Faust attempt to repent, the Good Angel says: “Repent, and they shall never raze thy skin.” (Scene 5, line 255) This ambiguity leaves room to question whether Faust followed Mephastophilis to hell at all, or was saved spiritually at the last minute while his body was torn to bits. For Frank, there is no ambiguity, and he himself laughs at the pathetic, violent end of things.

In the case of Frank, we find we are not so much concerned for his soul, as we are his physical body. There is no need to repent, as we see there are means of escape from hell if one is lucky enough to stumble upon the opportunity. Mentioned above, Frank’s closing line “Jesus wept,” speaks of the New Testament, John 11:35—Jesus weeps over Lazarus, and although there are a number of interpretations, the context in which Frank speaks, and the fact that he seems to find it ironically amusing suggests that the weeping is not for Frank’s soul. Lazarus indeed comes back from the dead, just as Frank has come back from hell. For Frank, Jesus weeps more for his demise, his resurrection, and his being dragged back to hell a second time. In Frank’s world and the world of the Cenobites, there is no blissful afterlife in the company of the Lord, the loss of which is reason for Jesus’ biblical lamentation. Frank enacts a kind of reverse resurrection, where he is not returned to life, but consigned to death (and hell) twice. He is physically torn apart, but unlike the Christian hell which deals in souls, Frank gets to take his body with him, albeit, in pieces.

In the end, while there are conceptual commonalities in the paths that the two men follow to quench their desires, the desires themselves and their outcomes couldn’t have been more different. Possibly products of their own times, the moral of Faust’s tale impresses upon the audience that while dabbling in these things might seem advantageous, the consequences are terrible—eternal damnation of the soul. But more importantly, if one should fall from the graces of God, at every step there is a chance to repent, even up until the very end. This would have been a useful tool for the church in the 16th-17th century—stray from it’s protection and be damned; only God’s forgiveness (through the church) can save your soul.

Hellraiser, on the other hand, posits that, while the venture is still a tricky one that could end badly for the gambler, one may indeed travel to the nether regions to wallow in forbidden experience, and if one is clever enough, one might trick the fates and return relatively unscathed. As previous centuries were concerned primarily with the state of the soul, the 20th century gave room for exploration of physical curiosity, without much concern for the spirit. Like the underworld of sadomasochism, the hell in Hellraiser can pull one in, never to return, or one can taste the waters and return to the ordinary world to go on living as usual.

Faust desired forbidden knowledge and therefore power, whereas Frank desired extending the pleasures of the flesh to, and then beyond “the limits.” Though the differences between the two tales set them apart, they also run parallel to an extent, primarily in that a trip to hell is the final threat in both cases—one may have escaped, hell being a one-way ticket to the torment of the soul and eternal damnation out of the sight of God (for which Jesus really did weep), but the other was delivered straight to hell, a pit of agony for the corporeal body, yet an escapable torment, if one was physically capable of doing so.

Works Consulted:

Greenblatt, Stephen, Ed. “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. London: W.W. Norton & Company. 2006.

Hellraiser. Dir. Clive Barker. Perf. Sean Chapman, Clare Higgins, Andrew Robinson, and Ashley Laurence. Cinemarque Entertainment BV, 1987.

“The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus.” Gutenberg Project. 1997. Champaign, Il.