Power in "Dr. Faustus," "Twelfth Night" and "Volpone" Comparison Essay by scribbler

This paper looks at Christopher Marlowe's play "Dr. Faustus" and how it attempts to answer how a human being uses absolute power. The paper goes on to discuss Faustus' arrogance and how poorly human beings use power when blinded by their ego and shows how this is also seen in William Shakespeare's comedy "Twelfth Night." The paper points out differences between these two works, a chief one being that Shakespeare's play is a comedy and not a tragedy, and then compares them to Ben Jonson's play, "Volpone", that like Shakespeare's, shows a moral reckoning at the end. The paper discusses how in Jonson's work, the law punishes those who would use their social power unjustly; in Shakespeare, individuals who abuse power receive social censure, but only Marlowe acknowledges that when someone's reach exceeds his grasp, as in the case of Faustus, the human justice system is seldom capable of fully making the victims of his crimes whole, or of truly punishing the guilty.