Doctor Faustus Power Quotes Page 2

When Faustus calls Mephistopheles he's all about his expectation of commanding god-like power. But the response from Mephistopheles acts as a reality-check: all power has limits, even that of the spirits. This response should act as a warning to Faustus that what he desires is really out of his reach. He doesn't register that, though. He's too busy daydreaming about gold and far-off places.

Faustus thinks that something he has done caused Mephistopheles to appear. What Mephistopheles explains to him here is that his speech did cause him to appear, sure, but not because of Faustus's power. Mephistopheles appearance was just a side effect of Faustus's blasphemy. As Mephistopheles explains after this passage, devils always appear when someone rejects God, in the hopes of gaining that sinner's soul. In fact, Mephistopheles' appearance is as a master (Lucifer) hoping to win a slave—Faustus—and not the other way around, as Faustus believes.

Are we supposed to believe that Faustus doesn't know who Lucifer is? What, has he been living under a rock? What happened to all that studying he was supposed to have been doing?