Faust: A Prison: Difference between revisions

# The character of Margarete was inspired in the first place by a real-life story Goethe had heard of a young woman who was seduced and abandoned, who killed her illegitimate child, was condemned to death, and whose repentant lover joined her in prison to share her fate. In what important way does this scene differ from the original incident?

 

# Having been either directly or indirectly responsible for the death of her mother, brother, and baby, Margarete has gone insane with guilt. She madly performs this action in her prison cell, in this she blends the classical myth of Tereus and Procne (which involves cannibalism and rape) with a similar Germanic tale in which the victim is turned into a bird. What is Margarete doing and why?

 

# Who does Margarete think is coming when she hears Faust and Mephistopheles enter the prison?

 

# How does Margarete speak differently than she might have if her madness did not prevent her from recognizing Faust, and how does that create a powerful effect on him?

 

# What has Margarete learned that she did not understand earlier that explains why Faust seduced her?

 

# Margarete imagines that someone else has stolen and killed her baby, and complains of the sensational street ballads that are being composed about her crime. What evidence is there that Margarete, though mad, has recovered much of her sensitivity to evil?

 

# In what way does line 4490 say more than Margarete intends?

 

# At what point does Margarete seem to emerge from her madness into relative sanity?