Faust: Out Walking

Summary

Mephisto tells Faust about Margarete's mother finding the jewels and how her mother gives them to the priest. Faust tells Mephisto to get her new ones.

Notes

Gretchen is a diminutive oth the German Margarete. She is refered to as Gretchen throughout the play. Goethe "requested that Margarete become Gretchen" (Champagne).

In line 2623, Mehisto is refering to the wooden horse that entered Troy and captured it; "Why look a gift horse, in the mouth?."(582).

Faust does not limit himself to power in any way: " he increases it through his seduction of Gretchen" (Van Der Laan).

Commentary

This scene shows Goethe's dislike for the church. Mephisto tells fasut how Margarete's mother gave the jewels to the priest. The priest says " The Church's stomach is very capacious, Gobbles up whole realms, anything precious" (582, 2631-2632)...."The Church alone, dear sister, God has named Receiver of all goods unlawfully obtained" (582, 2634-2635). It has been stated that " Although the conclusion of the play is essentially a religous one, it has nothing to do with the redeeming power of any church" (Montgomery 42).

Study Questions

1. What happens to the jewels?

2. How does Mephisto react to this?

3. What does Faust tell Mephisto to do so Margarete will not be sad?

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).