Satan,as The True Doctor of Rebellion:A Nietzschean Reinterpretation with Faustus

Abstract

Within the Western literary canon, Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and John Milton's Paradise Lost explore humanity's enduring desire to transcend the limits imposed by divine authority, social convention, and moral law. Both Faustus, the ambitious Renaissance scholar who trades his soul for knowledge and power, and Satan, the fallen angel who rebels against Heaven, emerge as iconic figures of defiance.Yet when examined through Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch, their trajectories reveal significant differences. Faustus ultimately remains constrained by Christian guilt and moral anxiety, preventing him from achieving the radical self-affirmation that Nietzsche associates with human greatness. Satan, by contrast, demonstrates a more persistent commitment to self-determination through his rejection of divine authority and his attempt to create meaning through his own will. Although the title of Doctor formally belongs to Faustus, the symbolic role of a teacher of rebellion belongs more convincingly to Satan, whose rhetoric and example inspire continued resistance against established order. By applying a Nietzschean framework to both texts, this paper argues that Milton's Satan functions more effectively than Marlowe's Faustus as the true Doctor of rebellion in the Western literary imagination.