Faust: A Prison

Notes

Faust

While Faust has clearly recognizable human characteristics, he is larger than life. He embodies the best and the worst in man, and in many ways he is a symbol of all humanity. Faust is involved in most of the scenes, but he probably reveals himself most clearly through his monologues and through his conversations with Mephistopheles. The monologues show a man without satisfaction or inner peace, always striving. He is continually reaching for more knowledge, more power, more experience. He is also changeable, given to despair when he can't get what he wants. His striving leads inevitably to failure. But in these failures he represents humanity, for, as the Lord declares in the Prologue in Heaven, man must make mistakes while he strives.

Margarete

Margarete, or Gretchen (a favorite name in German folk tales), is a more lifelike character than Mephistopheles and Faust; she is a person you would recognize if you met her. She is a sweet, simple, modest girl, who lives at home and helps her mother. She knows right from wrong and has an innocent religious faith of the kind idealized by Romantic writers. Gretchen's story was based on a court case known to Goethe. He uses her story for social purposes, to make the point that she is a victim of an attractive man of a class higher than her own. Some girls might have been strong enough to resist the temptation or even to put up with the guilt, but they would not have been sufficient for Goethe the dramatist. He needed a fragile girl like Gretchen who trusted in a simple religious faith and her own feelings.

Mephistopheles

Mephistopheles, the Devil, is a cynic, and cuts things down to size with his quick wit. He calls the Lord an "old gent," satirizes the university faculty, teases the mythological creatures he meets, and ends scenes with comments that puncture inflated sentiments. In Faust, Mephistopheles is the spirit of negation, "the spirit that always denies." In that respect, he is the exact opposite of God, who is the spirit of creation. Mephistopheles is a servant, both of God and of Faust, and has the soul of a servant, of a person who must obey but resents it and takes every opportunity to assert what domination he can. He is a servant of God because he is a part of Creation; he has to exist in order for good to exist. He is a servant of Faust because God allows it. But he isn't always willing to do what his master wants, especially at critical moments. He messes up orders, often with disastrous effects and thinks he knows better than his master how to woo women and takes over the wooing of Gretchen. At the same time, he exercises his own authority when he can.