Faustus Meets Bhagat Singh

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"Faustus Rewritten by Bhagat Singh"

Introduction: A Collision of Voices – Faustus and Bhagat Singh

Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus ends with one of the most haunting monologues in Elizabethan drama — a man’s final plea as he faces eternal damnation. Faustus, once a brilliant scholar, sells his soul to Lucifer for 24 years of power and pleasure. When his time runs out, he is consumed by terror and regret.

 This final moment, traditionally seen as a moral warning against hubris and blasphemy, can be reimagined when filtered through the bold, rational, and revolutionary insights of Bhagat Singh, particularly from his essay Why I am an Atheist.

Bhagat Singh, the Indian revolutionary martyred at age 23, wrote this essay while imprisoned by British colonizers. In it, he questions the role of religion in human suffering and challenges the idea that fear should guide morality. Bringing his sharp, fearless intellect into conversation with Faustus's fearful repentance offers a new, radical reading of the monologue — one that replaces religious dread with revolutionary responsibility and self-awareness.

Original Faustus: A Cry of Fear and Regret

In the original monologue, Doctor Faustus cries:

“O soul, be changed into little water-drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!
My God, my God, look not so fierce on me!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!”

This is a man shattered by fear — fear of Hell, of judgment, and of what lies beyond death. It is deeply rooted in Christian theology: sin must be punished, and redemption is now out of reach. Faustus doesn’t take responsibility in a rational sense; he pleads, he begs, and he tries to escape his fate.

Bhagat Singh: The Fearless Rebel and Rational Mind

Bhagat Singh, in Why I am an Atheist, dismantles the idea of divine justice. He writes:

“It is cowardice to believe in God, in the hope of getting a reward or avoiding punishment.”

Singh saw such fear as mental slavery — a tool used by those in power to keep the oppressed subdued. He championed reason over superstition, action over passivity, and moral courage over fear-driven repentance. He didn’t reject morality, but believed it should come from human responsibility and social awareness — not the dread of divine retribution.

Rewriting Faustus: A Revolutionary Reflection

Let us now imagine if Faustus, instead of crumbling under theological fear, had the clarity and courage of Bhagat Singh. His final words might then shift from helpless cries to self-reflective honesty:

“O soul, do not beg for mercy from powers you once defied.
You chose knowledge without chains, freedom without fear.
And if this be my end, let it be mine —
Let no god claim me as a cautionary tale.
Let me not shrink into silence,
But rise in voice even as darkness closes in.
Not for redemption do I cry,
But for truth — the truth I failed to bear.
I was given mind, and I misused it for power.
Not Hell, but ignorance was my greatest damnation.
May the next mind dare to think, and act, and live —
Not in chains of reward or punishment,
But in the fire of reason.”

 

The Shift in Tone: From Damnation to Awareness

This reimagined Faustus no longer grovels to a vengeful deity. Instead, he becomes aware of his own human failure — not theological, but moral and intellectual. Bhagat Singh’s influence transforms Faustus’s fear into responsibility. It turns the tragic ending from a didactic warning into a powerful reflection on the misuse of intellect and the cost of ungrounded ambition.

Faustus’s bargain with Lucifer, in this light, is not just a sin, but a surrender of intellectual integrity for temporary dominance. Like Bhagat Singh, who refused to beg for mercy from the British even when faced with the noose, this new Faustus accepts the consequences of his actions — not with fear, but with clarity.

Faustus as the Colonized Mind, Bhagat Singh as the Liberator

Looking deeper, Faustus can be seen as symbolic of the colonized or enslaved mind — seduced by illusions of power, manipulated by external forces, ultimately crushed when the illusion fades. Bhagat Singh, by contrast, represents the liberated consciousness — one that questions, rebels, and takes responsibility.

This rewriting doesn’t sanitize Faustus's downfall but reclaims it. Rather than dying in terror, he becomes a symbol of awakening — someone who recognizes, too late perhaps, that the real damnation is not Hell, but the misuse of freedom and reason.

Conclusion: A New Kind of Heroism

By merging Bhagat Singh’s fearless atheism and revolutionary thought with Faustus’s final lament, we create a new kind of tragic hero — one who doesn’t beg for salvation but confronts truth, no matter how painful. It’s a call to modern readers and thinkers: to reject fear-based morality, to embrace critical thought, and to live not as pawns of divine or political powers, but as active, responsible, and courageous human beings.

In a world still full of oppressive systems and blind faith, this Faustus — inspired by Bhagat Singh — doesn’t just fall. He rises, in thought.

Key Takeaways:

• Faustus’s fear of Hell represents a fear-based morality.

• Bhagat Singh rejected divine reward or punishment as a guide for ethics.

• Rewriting Faustus’s monologue through Singh’s lens shifts the message from theological repentance to revolutionary awareness.

• The revised monologue calls for responsibility, reason, and intellectual courage.

• It aligns Faustus with modern struggles for freedom — both mental and political.

Reference:

https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2016/08/online-test-renaissance-literature.html?m=1