The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus originates from the late 16th century. In the play by Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, a scholar, sells his soul to the Devil in the belief he will discover knowledge more than other men and knowledge is power to Faustus. The play has continued to be successful until our own era, spawning the commonly used phrase a “Faustian bargain.” This phrase generally implies that someone has profited by selling their soul, akin to Faustus. It is a phrase that perfectly suits another literary work, Douglass Wallop’s Damn Yankees, originally titled The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. In this novel, later a popular Broadway play, like Dr. Faustus fifty-year-old real-estate salesman Joe Boyd sells his soul to the Devil. Joe’s incentive is not knowledge and power but to become a young star baseball player for the Washington Senators, Joe Hardy, in an attempt to keep the despised and powerful Yankees from winning the pennant. In both works the heroes are torn by longings that the authors seem to empathize with, though both remain a morality tale in the end: each advising the wise to heed the fate of those who sell their soul to the Devil. A comparison and contrast of the two works will focus on characterization and how these works help us to understand the societies and eras in which they were produced.
Characterization is very important to both of these works. Both Dr. Faustus and Joe Boyd make a pact with the Devil because they are not able to accept what they are. Dr. Faustus is unhappy that all of his knowledge will not allow him to transcend his mortal condition. Joe Boyd is unhappy with his middle-class existence and longs for the acclaim and privileges of a major league baseball player. In both works the story revolves around the struggle for the soul of each man. Both works use good and bad angels and a very appealing and rhetorically crafty Devil in the struggle. However, the...