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.
Notes
When Margarete comes back in her room, she feels like something is not right and is frightened. She sings Thule, a ballad written by Goethe in 1774.
It is metnioned that Margarete's room is very neat. This is because of her mother. She bascially has to keep the house. She knows what is expected of her so she does it without compliant. She strived to do her best and as long as she has "a lifelong striving towards greater and greater realms of knowledge, action and feeling; and those who stay true to this call, even when they stumble into excesses and error will not go unrewarded by God"(Champagne).
The floors were scattered with sand after cleaning:'Scatter the sand on the floor, housewifely, in a pattern?" (579, 2501)
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. Faust has an inner division:" Faust cannot interact in any unified or integrated fashion with the world outside himself. His inner division, his alienation from himself coincides with an alienation from others as well" (Van Der Laan). Faust has difficulty getting in touch with his feminine side:"Faust sets before us the central problem of Faust's soul, his difficulties in relating to the feminine side of his being" (Bohm). Masculinity and Femininity are two opposites, but they do come together: "This union of Masculine and Feminine, transcending gender in a redemptive return to a primal unity" (Barbler).
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
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).