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Hannah Margavio
Dr. McCarthy
UHON 1010
27 November 2016
Gods Private Suicide
Both Black Aperture by Matt Rasmussen and Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
explore oscillating speculations on sin and salvation in their protagonists. The narrator in Black
Aperture often references the death of God as a coping mechanism to rise past his brothers
suicide and is constantly struggling with reality versus artifice. Similarly, Doctor Faustus has
exhausted all known fields of study and turns to black magic to fill the void where he then finds
himself unable to repent, so his selfishness drives his uncertainty in worship. Each work uses
religious evaluation and self-conflict to capture the struggle of duality in each protagonist.
In Black Aperture, the narrator struggles with his faith as a result of his brothers suicide.
He promotes this idea throughout his collection of poems indirectly at first, using metaphors
comparing purity and ignorance to cold, stagnant anger, such as in in Trajectory, (3) the
opening poem, the narrator uses elegant, poised imagery to describe a bullet ricocheting through
the air only to tear into the neck of a deer: The bullet, spinning / to maintain a shallow arc, /
carves a hot thread / through the wind / until it breaks one hair / and the deers neck / splashes
open, (lines 5-12). The delicacy of breaking one hair leading into the splashing of blood and
gore cites the juxtaposition of pure simplicity and horrible reality. Again, this can be seen in the
first After Suicide, (4) where the narrator juxtaposes the purity of his brothers milky blood
with cold linoleum (line 13) and the fluorescent air, (line 16). The juxtaposition of purity and
tainted coldness in these two poems creates an uncertainty in the narrator driving him to

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explicitly outline the death of God and religion in And God Said, (11). Here, the animals are
exhausted from their hard work which is insufficient in the eyes of the creator, and, realizing this,
God throws himself into the sun, killing himself, blanketing the earth in ash which the animals
call snow. Comparing ash to snow perpetuates the ongoing juxtaposition mentioned previously,
but since God is the direct cause, purity versus filth can be modified to the theme of salvation
versus sin. The narrator often bounces between these two ideas: feeling trapped by the
obligations of his religion, and abandoning religion entirely. For instance, in X on page 35, he
foreshadows hope being possible only through the death of God. He does this by using his
objective self and its shadow to articulate his coming of grief as being the shadow which is a
part of the field in front of himthe field representing a large barren entity with potential to
grow, and the possibility of this regrowth but not being able to because God is the sky pinning /
me to my body, (lines 9-10). It is clear that in order for the narrator to overcome his grief of his
brothers suicide he must look past his religion that condemns the suicidal to eternal punishment.
Similarly, Doctor Faustus detaches himself from religion because it is prohibiting his
desired studies. For instance, he declares, The god thou servest is thine own appetite, / wherein
is fixed the love of Beelzebub, (2.1.11-12). To end his own hiatus in learning, he convinces
himself that the after-life is fake and insignificant. It is clear that his detachment is forced
because he was previously a scholar in religion and finds himself wanting to repent throughout
the play: When I behold the heavens, then I repent / And curse thee, wicked Mephistopheles, /
Because thou hast deprived me of those joys, (2.3.1-3). The death of Faustus religion is
particularly ironic, because while he shuns God and heaven, he worships Lucifer, but in Christian
religion, one of these cannot exist without the other. Faustus expressly ignores one of the poles of
his religion, while worshipping the other and convincing him that, My hearts so hardened I

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cannot repent, (2.3.18). In this self-imposed abandonment to fulfill his own selfishness, his
mental conflict has no hope of resolving since Mephistopheles has convinced him of his own
eternal suffering and punishment.
Overall, the works suggest that the death of God and religion in Black Aperture is a
healthy and progressive spiritual realization with hope and renewal being the ultimate goal,
whereas in Doctor Faustus God is forcibly removed out of pure selfishness leading to a
conclusively hopeless progression. The removal of religion from each protagonist leads to
conflict in the narrator of Black Aperture, as he battles between the polarization in reality and
falsehood, and leads to self-doubt in Doctor Faustus as he debates between good and evil.
The narrator of Black Aperture experiences extreme polarization in emotion as he
attempts to cope with his brothers suicide. He often uses theatre and drama metaphors to detach
himself from reality so the blow of the death seems less harsh. However, in doing this, he
struggles with discerning what is real from what is not, as theatre transports its audience into
another realm. For instance, in X on page 30, he paints death in terms of his brothers hands as
romantically tragic in lines 1-6, then immediately shifts tone in lines 7-12, exactly half-way
through the poem to hostile and eagerly confused, as he uses words such as punched and
evil. He claims in a movie he says, Inside all our hands are smaller, more evil ones. Even
though you / arent supposed to say anything true in a movie, (lines 11-12). Here, he admits he
has the dark thought that the power to harm ourselves is inside of everyone, but struggles with
depicting it as a real, conscious thought of his own. This poem in particular suggests his
polarization in that he depicts the suicide in a poetic, romantic way through drama metaphors,
but is then faced with the harsh reality and is engulfed in tragedy and terror.

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Doctor Faustus shift between sin and salvation stems from his over-confidence and
untouchable ego as a result of indulging himself in black magic, as when he says, What god can
hurt thee Faustus? Thou art safe, (2.1.25). However, his wavering stance is still present and
supported by the good and evil angels, which characteristically represent uncertainty in the self.
Faustus asks them, thus himself, Contrition, prayer, repentancewhat of them? (2.1.16) to
which the good angel, or the half of him who still sees good in himself, replies, O, they are
means to bring thee unto heaven! (2.1.17), while the evil angel, or the half of him consumed in
his wealth and prosperity refutes, Rather illusions, fruits of lunacy, / That make men foolish that
do trust them most, (2.1.18-19). Here, it is clear that his confidence is not entirely firm and
resolute, otherwise he would not be in self battle. Furthermore, it shows the two dominant
perspectives of Faustus represented by the angels: on the one hand, he knows that god is
forgiving and eternal and will always cast off sin, but on the other, his devilishly inspired
confidence tricks him into believing either he does not need or want to repent because it does not
exist, or even if the heavens did exist, he is not good enough to repent. Despite his confidence, he
is in conflict over what is good and right and what is evil, Homo, fuge! Wither should I fly? /
If unto God, hell throw me down to hell. / My senses are deceived; heres nothing writ. / I see it
plain; here in this place is writ / Homo, fuge! Yet shall not Faustus fly, (2.1.76-80). He
acknowledges his deception, succumbing to Lucifer and his ego and believing he is too sinful for
salvation. Doctor Faustus self-conflict is induced by selfishness and his unwillingness to grow,
as he has indulged himself too far in his wealth and honor whereas the narrator of Black
Apertures polarization is caused by an outside source with an ultimate goal of hope and renewal.

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Works Cited
Rasmussen, Matt. Black Aperture. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013. Print.
Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. Print.