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Faust: Night (1): Difference between revisions
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With the appearance of the Earth spirit from Faust’s casting of the spell he has a moment of “knowledge and self actualization” (Melaney 464). It is here that he may essentially achieve“reconciliation to [the] mundane reality” [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/new_literary_history/v036/36.3melaney.html Melaney 464] which he experiences. It is this yearning that leads him into a deal with Mephistopheles. | With the appearance of the Earth spirit from Faust’s casting of the spell he has a moment of “knowledge and self actualization” (Melaney 464). It is here that he may essentially achieve“reconciliation to [the] mundane reality” [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/new_literary_history/v036/36.3melaney.html Melaney 464] which he experiences. It is this yearning that leads him into a deal with Mephistopheles. | ||
By conjuring the Earth Spirit and his inability to control it we see how Faust has in his own life failed. It is his efforts to “solve the problem by futile speculation about it, instead of studying it in life itself” (Andrews 44). Here we may examine the problem Faust now faces after living his life cooped up in his study having “an unproductive speculation about life, having no connection with life itself” (Andrews 45). | |||