Brown Girl, Brownstones 735against false doctrines and independent thought. In
the opening scene, when Faustus ponders his choice
of occupations, he casts aside divinity, using Scrip-
ture as evidence for its ineffectiveness. The problem,
however, is that he takes verses out of context and
therefore misinterprets the text. “The reward of sin
is death,” he reads, ignoring the conclusion, “but the
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord” (1.1). By determining first his own beliefs
and then interpreting the Bible to fit them, Faustus
represents the official view of the new Protestant
sects and the danger in allowing ordinary persons
to interpret the Scriptures independently. Although
Faustus believes that his conjuring has called up
Mephistopheles, he is informed that the devil
always comes of his own accord whenever he hears
the Scriptures, God, or Christ abused. The play is
blatantly anti-Catholic as well. Faustus commands
Mephistopheles to exchange his devil’s appearance
for that of a Franciscan friar, for “that holy shape
becomes a devil best” (1.3). In the third act, Faustus
and Mephistopheles create havoc at the pope’s ban-
quet, tossing about platters of food, boxing the pope
on the ear, and beating the friars who curse him.
This not only mocks the gluttony of the cardinals
but suggests that the rituals of the church—the pope
crossing himself for protection, the friars’ chanted
curse—are ineffectual.
Faustus relies on his intellect to convince him-
self to sell his soul to the devil, even when the
most obvious evidence should warn him against
it. Mephistopheles tells him directly not to pro-
ceed, warning from his own experience that once
one is separated from God, hell is everywhere. But
Faustus insists that hell is a fable. In a mockery
of Christ’s “contract” with God the Father (dying
for the sins of mankind), Faustus is required to
sign the devil’s contract with his own blood. The
blood, however, congeals; although Faustus rightly
interprets this as a warning, he completes his sig-
nature and blasphemously declares, “Consummatum
est”—“It is finished,” the last words of Christ on the
cross. Immediately, he sees an inscription on his arm
warning him to flee, but Mephistopheles distracts
him with gold coins and dancing devils.
At several points throughout the play, Faustus
doubts the wisdom of his decision and struggles
with his conscience. His Good Angel advises him
to cast off the devil and call upon God for mercy,
but his Bad Angel easily convinces him that the
power he has gained is worth any price and that his
sins are too great for God to forgive. As the end of
the contract nears, an old man attempts to persuade
Faustus to repent but, instead of praying for mercy,
he asks for time to think. When Mephistopheles
arrives, threatening to tear him to pieces for his
disobedience, Faustus asks Lucifer’s pardon and bids
the devils to torment the old man. Mephistopheles
replies that although his faith will protect his soul,
they will inflict what pain they can upon his body,
“which is worth but little.” Again, Faustus misses the
point: that physical pain is temporary but the soul is
eternal. In a final soliloquy, Faustus seems to under-
stand what lies ahead. He wavers between calling
on Christ and begging Lucifer’s forgiveness, but the
play ends as he is carried away by devils.
Deborah MontourimarSHaLL, PauLE Brown Girl,
Brownstones (1959)
Like Betty Smith’s a tRee gRoWs in bRooklyn
published 16 years earlier, Brown Girl, Brownstones
is an autobiographical künstlerroman, focusing on
a girl growing up in Brooklyn, New York. Paule
Marshall’s heroine, Selina Boyce, is a black daughter
of Barbadian immigrants. By adding the dimension
of race, Marshall expands the scope of the conven-
tional coming-of-age narrative; by focusing on West
Indians, she complicates the exploration of the
American dream; and by examining a girl’s efforts
to negotiate gender and sexuality, she contributes to
the growing canon of feminist literary texts.
Brown Girl, Brownstones is written in lush,
highly figurative prose. Marshall freely uses dialect
to capture the accents and idioms of her Baja (the
colloquial name for Barbadians) characters. Set just
before, during, and immediately after World War
II, the novel uses the war as a backdrop to intensify
its exploration of numerous conflicts: black versus
white, rich versus poor, immigrant versus native,
male versus female, realist versus idealist. Within
Selina’s family, a war rages between her mother and
father—the mother grounded in a pragmatic effort