Devil is so appealing because he offers to fulfill the desires of both men with a surfeit of luxuries and carnal delights. The acclaim, power, and perks that come to Joe Hardy after Boyd makes his contract are similar in excess to the ones offered to Doctor Faustus in his bargain, “So he will spare him four and twenty years,/Letting him live in all voluptuousness,/Having thee ever to attend on me,/To give me whatsoever I shall ask,/To tell me whatsoever I demand,/To slay mine enemies and to aid my friends/And always to be obedient to my will” (Marlowe 35).
Neither man is happy with what he is, and both lose their free will in order to acquire what they initially believe will make them happy. Without free will to choose what it is that makes them happy or their own morality through actions, both find the initially tempting offer empty. As Joe Boyd says of his first taste of power as Joe Hardy, “When he reached the phrase ‘redoubtable neophyte,’ the thrill was the same and yet…He was the star performer, but he was performing in a void, with nobody from his past life to applaud, unless it was a man named Applegate” (Wallop 48).
Both of these works center on the struggle of the soul of the heroes, a struggle that pits good against bad, man against himself, and man against the Devil. Doctor Faustus is dissatisfied with moral existence because the world is uncertain and its weak foundations are topped with gilded roofs. Faustus’ extraordinary abilities, like Boyd’s middle-class life, make him find little satisfaction in the trivial pursuits of man. In this way, both Faustus and Boyd search for more to life to give it meaning than is possible within the limitations of human existence. In this sense they become trapped by Lucifer, but it is they themselves who help ready themselves as prey by being unable to control their longings for more than they are. Both Doctor Faustus and Joe Boyd have a vitality that ...