How do you do,
After writing about Jane Eyre, how it is the epitome of the redeeming love for the Byronic hero by an unpopular, yet moralistic girl, I thought of going in the same path of redemption stories. One idea that came to me over the past month is one that seems the opposite direction: where a good man comes to ruin after a Devil's bargain and the world suffers over his actions. Yet, like Jane Eyre, it features the love of a woman that influences the man.
Before Jane Eyre was written, there was the legend of Faust.
Background.
This is unusual to split the thing up in parts over one work, but I feel the need to give background on the legend prior to the penning of the story by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and especially the man himself.
Born in the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt in 1749, located in Germany, then a part of the Holy Roman Empire, Goethe grew up like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, being encouraged to explore his talents at a young age by his father. Where Mozart was limited to music, Goethe took up many talents: he drew pictures, studied anatomy, became a scientist, a theater director, a critic, a playwright, and novelist, and even statesman.
His literary career really took off in the 1770s, when he published Götz von Berlichigen, a controversial work famous for the line, "er kann mich in Arsch lecken!" (which most Americans would think of to mean, "he can kiss my ass/foot"). Then just before the United States declared independence, he published his novella, The Sorrows of Young Werther. Young Werther is best known as the story of a young man brought to grieve by unrequited love, how he goes through a turbulent emotional spiral, which ends with suicide and his passing marked by an uncaring world. This little book is hailed today as the starting point of the Romantic Period, especially the genre known as the Sturm und Drang ("storm and stress"), where many works of literature would challenge the largely stuffy, sensitive pieces commonly read by nobles, by having characters challenge social norms and add more expressions of emotions in the text. Ironically, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar made Goethe a noble, to which he would add the von to his pen name in later works. Goethe took on other works following Young Werther, such as Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (yeah, the one that inspired the iconic part of Fantasia), and Das Märchen. He also wrote science books, though some have passed out of knowledge. Yet, his work on the legend of Faust hasn't.
As a German, Goethe may have been familiar with Faust, likely set up as a legend based around the actual Johan Georg Faust, just as tall tales were made of America's own Davy Crockett. For centuries, the stories of Faust were simply the tale of a man not satisfied with what he has. He has climbed up the ranks of the world and advanced up to the top of the mountain, but it isn't enough for him. So, he strikes up a bargain with the Devil and from there Faust encounters many events while the Devil bides his time before collecting the latter's soul. The story became popular outside of Germany through Christopher Marlowe, in his The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.
No doubt, Goethe may have read Marlowe, as he lived two centuries after the latter. So at some point he took to writing out what became Faust. Following in the footsteps of Marlowe, he chose to write out Faust as a play, though most theater productions don't seem to venture on doing this. In fact, it's practically never done on stage and there doesn't seem to be many movies based on it (unless you count the film Bedazzled, in which the Devil takes form of a woman) yet the legend was retranslated by the opera Mephistofeles, and served the inspiration to Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid", along with a great deal of musical works (including TSO's Beethoven's Last Night album) in addition to the opera. So, when reading Goethe's Faust, one has to learn to read well and not too fast, lest he or she will miss something. It gets kind of choppy at some point.
Part I.
Before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows made it a rage to divide movies into many parts, Goethe wrote Faust in two parts. Part One was published in 1808, when Napoleon had conquered Germany, and Part Two wouldn't be published until twenty-four years later, just before Goethe died (and he lived long enough to see August Klingemann adopt the first part in Braunschweig).
Part One is a one act play, consisting only a sequence of scenes, so any staged performance might find some place to set up an intermission. It is this part this entry will cover and Part Two will be covered next.
After a short dedication, we are given a non-related scene of a director putting together a scene with the poet and the clown, which is followed by a scene in Heaven. Goethe writes it out in a remake of a similar scene from the Book of Job, herein Mephistopheles, or Mephisto, for short, presents himself before the Lord. Of course, we don't get the whole: "Where have you come from?" "From going to and fro in the Earth, and walking up and down it."
Marlowe's play has Satan and Mephisto as two separate characters, as expected in legends, with the former operating like Darth Sideous from Star Wars and has Mephisto serving in his stead the way Darth Vader handles the dirty work of the Empire. In Star Wars terms, the set up makes Mephisto just like Vader while Faust leans closer to Grand Moff Tarkin. Goethe's version of Faust merges the two into one character, just making him more active in the bargaining and awaiting the moment he gets Faust's soul. Not a surprising connection Mephisto is the break out character here, too.
So, Mephisto makes a bargain with God that he could ensnare an upright man, just like in Job. Then he departs from Heaven to carry out his wickedness. In another homage to the Bible, upon meeting Faust, Mephisto tricks a student in the university into thinking of him as a some kind of scholar. He then writes down for the student to read, Eritis secut Deus, scientes bonum et malum. What he wrote is Latin, and he's quoting what the Serpent says to Eve in the Book of Genesis: "Ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil." He even says to the student, "Follow the text of old and my relation, the serpent, your very likeness to God will yet make you quiver." As you may notice, he offers not an apple nor any substitute. He just writes it down in a book.
What happens after is what separates the story of Faust from that of Job. Job is stripped of his family and wealth, yet doesn't go into despair ("Naked I came into the world and naked I will depart...Blessed be the Name of the Lord," he says). He is then afflicted with boils, causing him to walk out and he goes into a philosophical discussion after several people claimed he deserved it. After some time of wondering how a just god permit this, he goes into a fit, calling upon God, who comes and contrasts the weaknesses with omnipotence.
Faust's journey is different. He begins the story still wanting to do more and more after spending half his life in study. He comes to the thinking like many who have obtained a higher education, or that long sought after job, or gotten rich after being poor for so long.
He doesn't say so in the play. Instead, we get a lengthily monologue establishing his character. "I've worked half my life away and I am not satisfied. There must something more here," is how it can be summarized. He almost commits suicide, only to stop at the toiling of a church bell for Easter. Out of curiosity, he finds a book with a symbol on it and tries to figure out what it means. As he contemplates the symbol, Faust summons a spirit (likely a demon from the way Faust recoils from it) and he quickly sends him away after claiming himself equal. The act of séance causes Faust's servant, Wagner, to check up on him and they eventually head out into the streets while people are celebrating Easter. After taking part in the festivities, Faust and Wagner begin talking of spiritualism before they notice a black poodle in their midst.
This part allows for some creepiness vibe to be felt. Faust has summoned a demon and now it seems a strange dog has come over to Faust while they talk. It adds meaning to the phrase, "Speak of the Devil and he shall appear." That literally is what happens. The scene also happens at a gate and likely at a crossroad, which in older folklore meant heading to the crossroads at midnight was where people made bargains with the Devil. Faust takes in the poodle, not caring that it might be a stray with rabies or if he had owner. In Faust's study, after Faust undergoes more reading and more demon summoning (and even tries to re-translate the Bible), the poodle reveals himself to be Mephisto and the bargain is made in his study.
Mephisto tells Faust a few things, causing in his mind the idea of a contract, which Mephisto draws up in the study. "Ich will mich hier zu deinem Dienst verbiden, auf deinen Wink nicht rasten und nicht ruhn; wenn wir uns druben wiederfinden, so sollust du mir das gleiche tun," is what he says ("I will to bind me to your services, not resting without your sign, and when we meet again in the land beyond, you will do likewise to me." In other words, "I do as you wish and you will pay in return with your soul."). So Faust agrees that he shall belong to the Devil should he become slothful, to which Mephisto says, "Done!" and has Faust sign in blood.
Since Disney has done a live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, I should point out the undertones of Ariel signing away her voice to Ursula is a remake of this scene from Faust. The 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen even has Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz" playing during the ballet sequence where the Sea Witch helps the Little Mermaid, which show the kinship in the two stories. Both stories deal with an everyday person making a bargain with the Devil as the expense of their souls.
After this dark scene, the first thing to happen is a trip to an inn, Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig, where Faust and Mephisto pretend to be travelers back from Spain. The scene is really a comedy. Some drunkards invite all to sing and even the Devil sings one about a king and his flea (which Modest Mussorsky later used in "Song of the Flea"). No doubt, the scene invokes the stereotypical image of German biergartens (which are more common in the southern regions) where people would drink beer and sing songs. A few nationalistic moments pop in, such as when Brander remarks, "A Frenchman is nothing a German can stand, but we favor their wine to drink."
The comedy does come near blasphemous however. A drunk named Siebel spills his drink in some fire, causing one to ignite. Mephisto then steps up and calms the fire, a parody of when Jesus tells an unclean spirit to leave a man alone. "Sei ruhig, freundlich Element!" he says, and the flame dies out. This scares the superstitious drunks, but Mephisto confuses their minds and erases their memories of the visit before whisking Faust away.
After the comedy, we are taken to the Witch's Kitchen, which is occupied by monkeys before a witch arrives. The witch plays up the image one might expect, being a lone woman with animals for servants, who does one a favor, while leaning over a boiling cauldron. In this case, she turns Faust into a handsome man and lets him see an image of a naked woman in a mirror. One thing of note is Goethe contrasts the witch from the scene earlier in which men behave as animals, yet this witch behaves more civilized. Considering how witches were negatively portrayed, it is somewhat forward if you ignore who is present in the scene. In both this and back in Auerbach, we see Faust taking delight, but not enough to slide into ruin, thereby keeping Mephisto from getting his due.
After that moment, Faust encounters Margaret (or Gretchen) in the streets in another comic moment. "My fair lady, may I be so bold to offer my arm and company?" he asks, to which Margaret answers, "I am neither a lady nor am I fair, and can go home without thee." Basically, it's an early case of accosting in the streets, but Faust is in love now and wishes she was his. That's where the tragedy really takes root.
Margaret is set up as an ideal woman, with beauty beyond compare as Faust sees it, while Mephisto points out she has almost no flaws, allowing us to know Margaret at first through the modern concept of male gaze. This saintly woman doesn't appear until this play is half way over and when she does, Faust is instantly in love and demands she be his, not even knowing anything of her. So, Mephisto gives him jewels to give to her while she is in her bed chambers (an invasion of her privacy, though she is behind a curtain the whole time) and disappears to let her wonder where they came from. Margaret's saintly nature is added with the fact she decides to donate them to the church, making the Devil mad.
So another chest of jewels is left, then pretends to be a traveler who heard of the death of Margaret's friend Martha's husband being killed, while bringing Faust forward to give testimony. Instantly, Margaret is in love with Faust as they flirt in the garden while Mephisto and Martha watch. I can get that they act as chaperons, which makes it symbolic of Margaret wanting to be rid of Mephisto not long after meeting Faust, for she is suddenly wanting to taste the forbidden fruit. Another way of it is woman's intuition of seeing the evil in the Devil, set in after Eve was seduced. However way it is, she finds Mephisto too evil for her liking and Faust promises to keep him away.
We find out over time about the girl we sometimes call Gretchen. She is set up as a naïve woman, very young, pure and simple, and innocent, while secretly dealing with a strict mother, having only Martha for a friend. It was her mother who told her to send the jewels to the church, largely suspicious of their origin. That leads to Mephisto to comment, "The Church has an excellent appetite. She who swallowed whole countries and no one questions if there arose indigestion. The Church alone can eat ill-gotten wealth up without ill-health." Faust answers, "Why, everybody does: a Jew and any king can also." It's not surprising that Mephisto should make the anti-clerical statement, but Faust's specifics are borderline anti-Semitic as well as anti-royalty (the former unnoticed in 1808 while the latter would have been, unlike today). This will become a plot point later.
The thing with the jewels is notable with the fact Margaret means "pearl" and this moment brings in the parable of a man who sold everything he had to buy one. Faust is doing the same, only for selfish reasons, and they will lead to tragic results.
A space of time passes and they are in a relationship. Margaret brings up religion at one point ("Nun sag, wie hast du's mit der Religion?" she asks), calling Faust "Heinrich" and telling him he is a good man, but doesn't think much of it. She tells him faith is needed, to which Faust claims to respect the holy sacraments, leading him to say this speech:
"Mein Liebchen, who may say I believe in God? Ask priests and wise ones, then they reply of sneers that mock and prod the questioning man. Do not mistake me, oh fair one, Him who may name? and who proclaim, I believe in him? Who may feel, who dare reveal in words: I believe him not? The All-Embracing, All-Sustaining, Does he not embrace and sustain you, me, himself? Does not the heaven vault above? Is not the Earth firmly based? And do not eternal stars rise? Do we not look into each other's eyes and all in you is surging to your head and heart, and weaves in timeless mystery, unseeable, yet seen, around you? Therefore be your heart filled with it all and your rapture is complete, and call it then as you will, call it happiness! heart! love! God! For this I have no name. Names are bout sound and smoke befogging heaven's blazes, feeling is everything."
This woos Margaret enough that she lapses in her holiness to let Faust into her bedchamber, made easier when he mentions giving her mother a sleeping portion that will keep her out. Before Faust goes in, he and Mephisto have a brief sparring match with words, though. Later, it turns out the potion is a poison and Margaret's mother, who is never seen in the story, dies off stage. We don't learn anything else of her or even her name, unlike Howard's mom in The Big Bang Theory.
Again, Faust isn't a novel but a play in verse, so we don't see anything next, but have it mentioned in dialogue. We next see Margaret (suddenly called Gretchen in the text) speaking with a friend named Lieschen. A space of time has gone by since Faust and Margaret met again and the former professed his love and faith. It's implied that Faust and Margaret had sex when he entered her bedchamber, and it's confirmed with Margaret having premonitions of being pregnant. At the well, she hears Lieschen gossip about some girl whose honor is compromised and now is ruined. Margaret admits she used to be willing to spill of such and now only pities them.
Goethe really brings up the sexism of the times with how the man goes in to do wickedness and yet a woman who has one lapse is slandered and considered damaged goods, made worse when Faust disappears for a time, leaving her alone. Margaret even goes to the city wall, to an image of the Virgin Mary, where she prays. The once virtuous Margaret is now seeing herself brought down and she wails out like a wet rag, "Hilf! Rette mich von Schmach und Tod! Ach neige, du Schmerzenreiche dein Antlitz gnadig meiner Not!" (Help! From shame and death, save me, incline O Mother of pain, your face in grace to my despair!). No doubt something many a rape victim says each day, or any who are pregnant out of wedlock and no man is around to help.
One man comes to avenge her, her brother Valentine, back from his soldiering days, and he challenges Faust to a duel, and dies at Mephisto's hand. Now Faust and Mephisto run for their lives as the law will come upon them, yet once again Margaret is shamed as her dying brother denounces her as a whore before the crowds. When she appeals to God, Valentine basically adds, "Leave God out of this! What's done is done!" He refuses to hear his sister weep for him, tells Martha he wishes her gone, and says he dies, "a soldier and an honest man."
Alone now, Margaret is tormented by a demon, even when she enters a cathedral, the one place of sanctuary. Goethe likely does this to shatter the notion of spiritual security, going right to where people think are save, thus making this a good Halloween story (it even includes the choir singing "Dies Irae", a Gregorian chant whose tune has become associated with death and darkness). Even as Margaret clings to the safety of organized religion, the demon torments her, something that atheists might find interesting. Eventually, Margaret faints, symbolically showing her fall. Given Goethe's view of organized religion, it does seem heartbreaking to watch this and not see any sign of hope, not even the image of God's light coming.
Much of it can be considered criticism for focusing on Hell and Damnation rather than God's love. It is meant to be a warning, but to most people the constant talk of Hell is enough to make religion sound scary, which even in Goethe's day was common. One thing of note, when Goethe was a boy, the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake happened, an event that had a profound impression upon Europe. Here, one of the most devout cities in the world destroyed as though it weren't. The Enlightenment thinkers, such as Voltaire, came out questioning Christianity at that point, and even Goethe found his faith shaking, as he wondered how God who watches all and only punishes those that are evil would do this to Lisbon.
While Goethe provides no answer here, he provides other moments of note as Margaret falls (like Fantine in Les Miserables).
After Margaret faints in church, we are given the Wulpurgis Night scenes, where we see many other specters of the Devil show themselves and present themselves to him. Wulpurgis Night is the eve of an old festival for St. Wulpurgis, held every April 30 at Harz Mountains, where it's believed witches, ghosts, goblins, and the like run loose and are sent back to Hell by the saint. Deems Taylor in Fantasia compared it to the American version of Halloween, which is half the story. Some of the elements of Wulpurgis night found their way into Halloween during the 19th Century in the United States, mostly the obsession with witches and ghosts, while the rest has it origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian All Hallowstide.
The scene is very Bacchanalian in design, featuring witches singing songs, someone literally telling another to "Go to Hell", and moments that couldn't be printed originally. In the original German text, you'll see some words having dashes in between letters, largely as the censor objected to the wording:
M: Der hat ein --- --- ---; so - es war, gefiel mir's doch.
A: Ich biete meinen besten Gruss dem Ritter mit dem Pferdefuss! Halt Er einen --- --- bereit, wenn Er --- --- --- nicht scheut."
(Walter Kaufman translated M with "It had the most tremendous hole;" and A with "Provide the proper grafting-twig, if you don't mind the hole so big.") I'll let the reader decide why that was censored.
In a moment worthy of a parody, Faust even encounters Medusa, redone now as a beautiful woman. That part connects to her myth very well. Medusa was once a beautiful and virtuous girl, set as a temple virgin in the Temple of Athena. Yet, she was seduced (or raped, depending on how it was told) by Poseidon, right in the very Temple, and that made Athena angry. Yet, Poseidon escaped punished while Medusa was made into a gorgon, so horrible that one look from her would turn any living creature into stone. She doesn't get any mercy, either, as her appearance frightens away everyone and looking at her turns one into a statue, unless one counts her beheading by Perseus as merciful. The fact she reminds Faust of Margaret allows the audience to see a kinship, the way one can compare Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre to the Beast.
Faust also spots Lilith, the woman claimed to be Adam's first wife, who broke off from him rather than be the submissive one. Her appearance is enough to make even the Devil lead Faust away and have him dance a waltz with a witch.
The story then takes a break from the action to show Wulpurgis Night's Dream, which features Oberon and Titania, who became known in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. It serves no purpose to the plot, so there is nothing more to say. As to Faust, he learns Margaret is locked away in a dungeon after giving birth to their child, and did away with by drowning. For the first time, Faust feels shame, especially as Mephisto tells him he brought her down to perdition. Like in Revenge of the Sith when Darth Sidious tells the now suited up Darth Vader that Padme was dead and he killed her before fighting Obi-Wan, causing him great grief. At least, Faust decides to rescue her.
The climax thus becomes like in a prince rescuing Repunzel from the tower, only it doesn't work out that way. Margaret is now far gone, reduced to a weeping woman waiting her execution, while sick. She notes Faust, barely recognizes him, and sees the love gone. Rather than flee with Faust, she looks up to Heaven and exclaims, "Gericht Gottes! Dir hab ich mich ubergeben!" (Judgment of God! I give myself to you!"). When Mephisto comes in, she prays to God once more while tearing herself from Faust. Then she dies.
The final lines of Part One are revised, as I learned when finding a copy of Faust published by Wordsworth Classics. In the translation of John R. Williams, there is an early draft called Urfaust, included in the volume with both parts, said to be so dark, so blasphemous that Goethe chose not to publish it in his life time. But the one change is in the final lines.
After Margaret speaks one last time, Mephisto pulls Faust aside and says, "Sie ist gerichtet!" ("She is judged / condemned") and then a voice is heard calling out, "Heinrich! Heinrich!"
I don't know why or how, but Goethe seemed to decided to make one last minute change to her fate. In the final version we have, Mephisto doesn't take Faust right away, but still says, "Sie ist gerichtet!", but now a voice from Heaven contradicts him, "Ist gerettet!" ("Is saved!") Once again, Margaret is so saintly that even as her sins weigh upon her she is granted a place in Heaven, leaving Mephisto to take Faust away as his consolation, Margaret's voice is still heard saying, "Heinrich! Heinrich!" as the curtain comes down on Faust Part One.
Margaret dies and goes to Heaven, something that most readers will debate on. Cliffnotes even claims that Margaret's last words are less a personal prayer and more "...an effort to make him abandon the Devil and throw himself in the merciful arms of the Lord." In this revised scene, Margaret is saved because her crimes weren't too great, largely due to her naivety and inexperience, only led into sin by Faust, and a sign that to err is to human. A feminist might have a problem with it as it only makes the woman blameless by rendering her as a child, whereas men can be good on the inside to have some redemption.
Who mourns Margaret? We don't know how she is buried, if the gossip will die down, and Faust doesn't bring her up in Part Two, as we will see (though her spirit takes form in a few places). It's really tragic to see Margaret fall from grace and even more sadder to see her cast aside while the focus remains on Faust. Yet, it can only be justified in that she plays a small part in a larger story, which is on the man and his bargain with the Devil. The fact she doesn't wind up in Hell is either a cop out, deus ex machina, or a happy ending, depending on how one interprets it. One thing is for certain she does have a lasting influence in another way, which will be picked up in Part 2.
It does jar with Christian beliefs, considering that Goethe thought redemption was made possible through individual relations to God and his own efforts. What makes that jarring to Christians is that it leads to a dark thought: if people could achieve salvation on their own, they would have no need for a savior, and therefore wouldn't even have needed Christ's sacrifice on the Cross. Of course, it doesn't seem that Goethe is preaching that. On the other hand, Goethe mostly had his beef with the church, going at it for the materialism within and the corruption of the clergy, a common charge done by many men of letters. No doubt, Goethe's stance would still be preached today as so many scandals have come up.
I'll speak more in Part Two, along with concluding thoughts.