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Abstract Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (1589?) has not had the chance of a secular reading outside the conventionally context-bound and, therefore, religious scope of classical Marlovian criticism. Nonetheless, Carl Jung’s archetypal psychology raises the possibility for a brand-new psychological understanding of the play, particularly that the motif of the Faustian pact holds a special place in Jungian psychology as one of the most accurate mythological portrayals of the role played by the trickster (shadow) archetype in human individuation. However, ironically enough, this understanding has not inspired any archetypal examination of the play, expect for Kenneth L. Golden’s brief 1985 essay: “Myth, Psychology and Marlowe’s ‘Dr. Faustus.’” That is why the thesis depicts the role played by the Jungian trickster, personified by the devil Mephistopheles, in the damnation of Faustus, offering the first detailed Jungian reading of the play. Furthermore, it makes use of the recent theories of Jungian film scholars to apply the same archetypal understanding of the Faustian pact to two comic cinematic adaptations of Doctor Faustus that cast a female devil: Harold Ramis’ Bedazzled (2000) and Alec Baldwin’s Shortcut to Happiness (2007), taking into consideration the main shifts they introduce to the Marlovian trickster and their significance. The structure of the thesis is divided as such: an introduction of the overall idea and perspective of the thesis, chapter one: The Archetypal Trickster/ Trickstar in Therapeutic Drama and Cinema, chapter two: Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus Revisited, and chapter three: Successful Individuation and the Female Trickstar in Faustian Comic Satanic Films: Harold Ramis’ Bedazzled (2000) and Alec Baldwin’s Shortcut to Happiness (2007). The first chapter arranges the detailed itinerary of the journey. It presents all the theories employed by the thesis in the study of the Faustian trickster on both the stage and 176 the screen, establishing the connection between them. The chapter begins by contrasting the traditional views of mythologists, folklorists, sociologists, cultural philosophers, and theologians on the trickster figure with Jung’s trickster/shadow archetype that rectifies the figure’s indefinability from their perspectives through his universality. It, then, elaborates the high position of the Faustian myth in Jungian psychology, which qualifies it for providing a 21st -century reading of Marlowe’s play and its film adaptations, particularly with the aid of its latest cinematic development: the Jungian-informed screen studies. In order to set the stage for this process of semiotic psycho-cinematic analysis, the chapter introduces the hybrid subgenre of the comic satanic films with a female devil the two films represent as well as the theories utilized to clarify their cathartic comicality and femininity. Finally, it concludes with demystifying the therapeutic process of Jungian film analysis that tracks the role played by the trickster in the fulfillment of the individuation of the film protagonist, which in turn leads to that of the spectator as well and the tools of semiotic film analysis employed in the process. Chapter two begins the practical application of the Jungian framework established in chapter one by carrying out the first detailed archetypal study of Marlowe’s version of the Faustian myth in an attempt to depart from the customarily religious nature of classical Faustian criticism. That is why it begins with calling attention to the critical injustice characteristic of the five- century history of classical Marlovian criticism in general, which it presents in the detailed “Marlovian Reader” appendix, before it reviews the essentially theological scope of this criticism as the most conspicuous feature of its injustice. Therefore, it offers its alternative archetypal reading of the play with the object of showcasing a sample remedy to this injustice. Finally, it elaborates on the original 177 cathartic/therapeutic influence of the play on its immediate Jacobean audience with the aim of providing a better understanding of its postmodern counterpart exerted by the Faustian cinematic adaptations scrutinized in the third chapter. The third chapter continues the practical application of the Jungian framework through the application of the psycho-cinematic approach devised by the thesis in the first chapter to the two selected works. It demonstrates the competency of the new female trickstar/anima archetype as an effective agent for individuation via tracing the role she plays in achieving the successful individuation of the postmodernist cinematic Faustian hero and, by extension, the spectator. Meanwhile, it capitalizes on the tools of semiotic film analysis to disclose how the archetype’s characteristics and role are mirrored technically on the screen. |