Themes

1. Themes Although man is a fallen creature, redemption and salvation are his as long as he continues to strive and grow. Throughout the epic, Faust slowly progresses. His great thirst for knowledge begins to shift focus during the Margaret (Gretchen) episode from earthly and selfish desires to spiritual and selfless desires that ultimately attain for him the salvation of his immortal soul. When the angels meet him in heaven, they receive a man who never ceased to strive and, in so doing, found his way to God. Man can never attain a full understanding of the mysteries of God and the universe, but his quest for understanding will take him higher and higher on the ladder of truth and goodness.  Like Homer’s Ulysses, Faust–indeed every human being–is willing to go on perilous journeys in pursuit of knowledge.  Life is worth living even though moments of despair can make it seem otherwise.  Earthly pleasures can never fully satisfy a human being.  Evil wears many deceptive guises that make it appear desirable even though it is ultimately ruinous. 

2. Climax. The climax of a literary work can be defined as (1) the turning point at which the conflict begins to resolve itself for better or worse, or as (2) the final and most important event in a series of events. The climax of Faust occurs, according to the first definition, when the guilt-ridden Faust pities the imprisoned Margaret (Gretchen) and attempts to rescue her. This episode represents a major turning point in his life and foreshadows his ultimate salvation. According to the second definition, the climax occurs when Faust finally realizes his highest moment of happiness–a moment that Mephistopheles promised to give him from the beginning in return for Faust's immortal soul–but Faust's moment of happiness comes when he does good on behalf of humankind, not evil on behalf of his own self-gratification. Consequently, the Lord accepts Faust into heaven. 

3. Study Questions and Essay Topics • 1. Why does Goethe's Faust remain timely and relevant in the modern world?  2. Why does God allow Mephistopheles to tempt Faust?  3. Faust shares in common with the rest of humankind an inborn desire to know as much as possible about the material and spiritual ....worlds. When pursuing such knowledge, does a person ever encounter boundaries that he or she must not cross? In other words, are ....there ethical and moral considerations that limit the scope of a person's quest for knowledge? 4. Does Faust's remorse at having wronged Margaret foreshadow any event Part II?  5. In Homer's Odyssey, the central character, Odysseus (Roman name, Ulysses) is an archetype of the wandering man seeking ....knowledge. In an essay, compare and contrast the journeys of Odysseus and Faust, their curiosity, the temptations they encounter, ....and the most important lesson they learn during their travels.  . • Goethe was the poet of Experience: he never wrote a line except about events and feelings he had himself undergone (including his imaginings of the unknown). • “The highest achievement possible to a man is the full consciousness of his own feelings and thoughts, for this gives him the means of knowing intimately the heart.”

4. StructureA poetic introduction:1. Dedication2. the Prelude on the Stage3. The Proglogue in Heaven A. The 4 fundamental facts: 1. the primal one 2. the alienated one: the double character of Mephisto: as a clown (comic) and as Devil (tragic) 3. the unaliented ones 4. the man Faust

5. Part One • Faust’s struggle to reach Truth • through Magic • through Death • A turn in Faust’s tendency: Easter Festival • the genesis of the poodle, the animal • the genesis of Mephisto in person—purveyor of sensual pleasure • completion of Mephisto who makes the contract with Faust • The First Soliloquy: the truth of knowledge or science • The problem of knowledge: the Truth • The spirits: 1. Earth Spirit: humanity, the soul of human activity • 2. Nature Spirit: the soul o fthe physical universe (instead of flight into free Nature) • * The Earth Spirit is the projection of his aspiration, in contradiction to his intellect • * Wagner: A mass of soulless knowledge of the Past • --a mere student of dead erudition, without th e fervent aspiration or denial • --a third phase of F’s nature: formal barren learning, a lifeless residum of much study • Wagner is an element of Faust, and yet is himself too. He has some belief in a world of reality which Faust has not. • The Second Soliloquy: the truth of immortality • Poison: a product of man’s intelligence • The Third Soliloquy: striving to know God • The love of man and th elove of God begins to stir • Word—Mind—Force—Deed

6. * Five grand transformations of Mephisto: • 1. poodle: a prodigious beast, the spiritual test of the ancient world, • Faust dispurses it with his spiritual strength, the might of exorcism, to bring out the real character of the beast. • 2. the three-fold glowing light: Trinity. Faust is himself a disbeliever • 3. Mephisto appears as a traveling scholar: He is the scholastic negative product of Medieval theology, the denier of the theology. • 4. Enjoyment: the caterer for the senses • 5. The free Devil in the free world.

7. The third Soliloquy: the striving to know God. The love of man and the love of God begin to stir.* Error, in the complete man, is a self-cancelling, self-cleansing process; it is his discipline unto completeness. His error must come through his striving for Truth.* Further Evolution of Mephisto: 1. the fine gentleman in gay apparel 2. a free person in a free world who can make a contract for his service.* Auerbach’s Cellar: transition—Faust quits his study and goes forth into the world. This world of reality has 2 sides, or elements, that of the senses and that of the spirit. *Denial: no truth—dwell in sensuous side in hostility to rational institutions—the Perverted World The Perverted Tavern: indulgence of the appetites and passions, no serious purpose about life.

8. No rational or spiritual element of the real world, no ethical order of society---negation.* This scene shows how man, yielding to the control of appetites and subordinating thereto his reason, turns to a persistent absurdity, and leads a life of folly.Witches’ Kitchen: the Perverted Family The woman, betrayed and banished from the true Family, organizes a new Family about her, based on sexual gratification alone, with no rational end. *The Animal Family: the rational elements are alienated. *The magic mirror: an ideal human shape: Faust begins to long for the Beautiful—the birth of Faust ‘s classic tendency.

9. The Story of Margaret, 1775Three stages: 1. Love with its essential conflict between the rational and sensuous elements in itself—a conflict both in Faust and Margaret. 2. Faust flees to get rid of the bitter conflict—his sensuous nature triumphs. Margaret loses herself in love (the Church is struck down by Faust) that she must become tragic. 3. The fall of Margaret, together with the destruction of her entire family. Then her piteous appeal to her Church to rescue her from the consequences of her deed, which appeal is and must be rejected.*In Faust, the intellect denying the truth of love hands the man over to passion, while aspiration, heated to a fresh intensity by love, affirms that truth. In Margaret, the instinct reason tells her to keep within home and Church, but her sensuous nature entices her out of their shelter.

10. Walpurgis NightThree capital points in the structure:1. the general movement of the multitude upwards, seeking the top of the mountain: “the great world” of Brocken.2. the movement sidewards, or contrariwards, to convert places: the “little worlds” of Brocken.3. Faust’s vision of Margaret on Brocken of the ideal, rising in this Perverted Society, at which the latter begins to vanish.*Three pictures:1. the snail, a symbol of backwardness and conservatism. (4 old gentlemen: grumblers, soreheads, and reactionaries. 4 classes of unappreciated geniuses: they are everywhere.)2. another femal figure: Adam’s first wife, Lilith: the original woman who begets devil and founds the first perverted Family.3. The enemy (philosopher) of Brocken on Brocken: culmination.

11. Walpurgis Night’s DreamLiterary Brocken: the extreme perversion*Mephisto, as his final endeavor in his present business, shows to Faust the intellectual Brocken of Literature, since social Brocken has failed to satisfy him. But, on the contrary, he calls up out of its own sensual depths, the pure image of self-sacrificing love, Margaret.*The Perverted Society has dissolved. The mad mountain has already grown clear, and Faust has had experience of it to the full.*A violent struggle: a great change of Faust--Mephisto is made into an instrument for the rescue of Margaret.