Faust: Evening

Summary

Faust and Mephisto are in Margarete's room. Faust puts a jewelry box in Margaret's closet. Margarete finds the box and puts the jewelry on and looks at herself in the mirror.

Commentary

This scene is where "Faust realizes that if he purses his designs on Margarete with the devil's help, he can only bring harm to her" (Montgomery 41). This alludes to the tragedy to come. Faust also wonders why he is doing and acting the way he is. He says "But me? What is it brought me here? See how shaken, how moved I am! What do i want? Why is my heart so torn? Poor Faust, I hardly know you anymore."(579, 2512-2515). He doesn't understand why he is lusting for Margarete so much. Before, Faust had no real emotion in his life and now he is feeling so much. He realizes that he is not the same man he used to be.

Study Questions

1.  What does Faust imagine while sittin in Margarete's room?
2.  What does Mephisto bring Fasut? What does Faust do with this?
3.  What is Margarete's reaction to what she finds?
4.  How does Margarete act when she enters her room?

External Resources

• Study Guide for Goethe's Faust

Works Cited

Barbler, Jules & Carre, Michel. Fasut. Opera News. (2005)

Bohm, Arnd. Goethe and Patriarchy: Faust and the Fates of Desire. Seminar--A Journal of Germanic Studies. (2005).

Champagne, Roland A. An Etical Model in a Postmodern Faust: The Daemonic Parody of the Politics of Friendship in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus. Style. (2000)

Montgomery, Paul. Goethe's Faust: Critiques of Literature. New York: Monarch Press, (1963).

Van Der Laan, J.M. Faust's Divided Self and Moral Inertia. Monatshefte. (1999).