Faust

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Faust

This Book has many shady characters, only Gretchen is the one character you can feel sorry for, that is what makes this tragedy so horrifying yet gratifying .Her and Faust running around makes you happy, but you anticipate them to fall desperately into love with one another and finish their lives indulging with Mephisto. But this pure untainted soul is tricked into leaving behind the innocence of her youth and subsiding to the evil one for the promise of riches and a better life. So once again you have no one to root for, because although you understand Faust’s predicament he’s getting what he wanted. Next you really begin to hate Faust because once he has seen and had all that Gretchen has to offer his love becomes an infatuation spurred by his newly found youth. Then who are you left with; Gretchen a now pregnant charlatan desperately hoping her “lover” who has poisoned her mother and slain her brother will come save her from prison, and Mephisto the Devil himself.

The entire Gretchen Tragedy is there to invoke a feeling of temptation. A sort of “What if”, really what would you do if a good looking member of the opposite sex who has more money than anyone you have ever heard of approached you describing their love to you like a cheesy Julia Roberts movie. This proves the point that Mephisto made to God in Prologue in Heaven “If only it were grass he could repose in! There is no trash he will not poke his nose in.”(Prologue In Heaven p. 85). We must keep looking for better things, if Gretchen were to realize what a small price she was paying to sacrifice life on earth for life eternal in heaven. She was without sin until she allowed human nature to take over.

Gretchen upon her entrance into the play is stereotypical of a peasant woman of that time; she works all day, lives with her parents, and hopes to one day marry above her class so her daughter will not have to endure as she has throughout her life. But, she begins a metamorphosis when she meets Faust. First, she finds jewels that she can’t begin to describe, so she gives them to her mother typical of the times.

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