The Prologue in Heaven The Wager The play begins with the prologue in Heaven.

In an allusion to the story of Job, Mephistopheles wagers with God for the soul of Faust. God has decided to "soon lead Faust to clarity", who previously only "served [Him] confusedly." However, to test Faust, he allows Mephistopheles to attempt to lead him astray. God declares that "man still must err, while he doth strive". It is shown that the outcome of the bet is certain, for "a good man, in his darkest impulses, remains aware of the right path", and Mephistopheles is permitted to lead Faust astray only so that he may learn from his misdeeds. That in itself is his main objective.(1) Faust Part One is a complex story. It takes place in multiple settings, the first of which is heaven. Mephistopheles makes a bet with God: he says that he can defect God's favourite human being (Faust), who is striving to learn everything that can be known, away from righteous pursuits. The next scene takes place in Faust's study where Faust, despairing at the vanity of scientific, humanitarian and religious learning, turns to magic for the showering of infinite knowledge. He suspects, however, that his attempts are failing. Frustrated, he ponders suicide, but rejects it as he hears the echo of nearby Easter celebrations begin. He goes for a walk with his assistant Wagner and is followed home by a stray poodle (the term then meant a medium-to-big-size dog, similar to a sheep dog). In Faust's study, the poodle transforms into the devil (Mephistopheles). Faust makes an arrangement with the devil: the devil will do everything that Faust wants while he is here on Earth, and in exchange Faust will serve the devil in Hell. Faust's arrangement is that if during the time while Mephistopheles is serving Faust, Faust is so pleased with anything the devil gives him that he wants to stay in that moment forever, he will die in that instant. When the devil tells Faust to sign the pact with blood, Faust complains that the devil does not trust Faust's word of honor. In the end, Mephistopheles wins the argument and Faust signs the contract with a drop of his own blood. Faust has a few excursions and then meets Margaret (also known as Gretchen). He is attracted to her and with jewellery and help from a neighbor, Martha, the devil draws Gretchen into Faust's arms. With influence from the devil, Faust seduces Gretchen. Gretchen's mother dies from a sleeping potion, administered by Gretchen to obtain privacy so that Faust could visit her. Gretchen discovers she is pregnant. Gretchen's brother condemns Faust, challenges him and falls dead at the hands of Faust and Mephistopheles. Gretchen drowns her illegitimate child and is convicted of the murder. Faust tries to save Gretchen from death by attempting to free her from prison. Finding that she refuses to escape, Faust and the devil flee the dungeon, while voices from Heaven announce that Gretchen shall be saved. Prologue in Heaven Summary Faust opens with a conversation between The Lord and his four servants Raphael,Gabriel, Michael, and Mephistopheles. Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael are all angels of heaven and begin the play by praising The Lords creation. Raphael praises the sun, extolling the way it intones (The Lords) ancient song. Gabriel praises the earths full splendor and how the rivers and the sea reflect The Lords power. Michael speaks of the fury of creation, how storms and lightening tear across the face of the earth and, yet, O Lord, your messengers revere / the gentle movement of your day. The three angels then praise all The Lords creation as glorious. Mephistopheles is introduced. He gives The Lord his own update on the state of earth, yet his does report not praise The Lord. He tells The Lord, I waste no words on suns and planets, / I only see how men torment themselves. Things would have been easier for humanity if they had not gotten a glimpse of celestial light and that now man only uses his gift of reason to be more bestial than the beasts. Mephistopheles calls humanity a grasshopper and he wishes man had never left the grass / to rub his nose in imbecility! The Lord does not understand why Mephistopheles only sees the wrong things of earth, and Mephistopheles assures him that he only finds the things that are thoroughly / revolting. It is so bad that he pities mankinds plight. The Lord then asks Mephistopheles if he knows of his servant Faust. Mephistopheles says he does and that he knows Faust serves The Lord in peculiar ways. The Lord assures him that even if Faust is not currently a dedicated servant, in the end he will be clear in his service to The Lord. Mephistopheles makes a bet with The Lord that the latter will lose him in the end. The Lord takes the bet and tells him that as long as

Faust is alive, Mephistopheles can lead him downward on your road. The Lord is confident that in the end Faust will be a true servant of goodness and glory. The Lord tells his servants that he is glad to give freedom to the rogue Mephistopheles because mankind becomes self-satisfied too easily. The Lord is pleased to give (man) a companion / who must goad and prod and be a devil. Mephistopheles ends the Prologue by saying to himself that it is good to see The Lord because he is very decent to be so human with the devil. Analysis Goethes Faust is based around two supernatural wagers. The first of these wagers occurs in the Prologue and sets up the overarching conflict of the narrative. The scene opens in heaven with two contrasting visions of the world below. The angels give God a report that his creation is beautiful. They paint scenes of the powerful forces of nature and the ways in which Gods magnificent creation reflects his benevolence and glory. Each angel represents a particular cyclical process of the earth: the sun, night and day, and the power and calm of weather. All of these connote the completeness of Gods creation and God himself. Mephistopheles, however, offers a different view. His viewpoint comes not from a view of nature but that of humanity. Mephistopheles does not look at the world and see beauty and goodness; instead, he looks at the world and sees the misery of humankind. Gods argument with Mephistopheles comes from his divine belief that, in the end, humanity will transcend the evil of the world and be faithful to their creator. God brings Faust into the conversation as an example of such goodness. Mephistopheles is skeptical that Faust is that good of a servant to God, and the two make a wager for Fausts soul. This scene in heaven is an alternate telling of the story from the Hebrew Bibles Book of Job. In the biblical story, Satan makes a wager with God over Gods servant Job. Satan is sure that he can make Job curse God, but God has faith that Job will remain loyal to him. Satan then destroys everything in Jobs life, taking his possessions, family, and health. Job, however, does not curse God and in the end receives Gods double blessings. As in Job, the overarching theme of Faust is a reflection on the essential characteristics of human nature and the relation of human nature to the divine. The Prologue takes place out of the realm of human nature, suggesting that higher powers are ultimately responsible for the salvation or damnation of human souls. Nevertheless, throughout the play, Fausts interior struggles between his desire for power and knowledge and that of his better self constitute a major tension in the narrative. Goethe also raises the question of the humanness of God. In contradistinction to the omnipotent and omniscient God of Calvinism and the Protestant Reformation, Goethes God displays very human characteristics. God must have his own faith in humanity in order to make the wager with Mephistopheles, and the reader understands that the drama of the play depends on whether Gods gamble does or does not pay off. Even Mephistopheles notes that he enjoys conversing with God because of Gods humanness. The Prologue also has some political symbolism. Scholars have noted that one should not take the scene as a theological statement of Gods relation to man, but rather as a political allegory. The feudal court, over which a benevolent God reigns, is a staple theme in Renaissance drama, and Goethe borrows from those themes here. By this reading, God is the king, and Mephistopheles, instead of playing the part of a powerful evil creature, is more of a court jester meant to entertain both the audience and the king. Major Themes The Enlightenment Tradition The Age of Enlightenment was a broad movement of intellectual culture and philosophy that arguably began with Ren Descartes' philosophical work Discourse on Method and culminated in the revolutionary works and actions of the eighteenth century such as the American and French Revolutions. While the Enlightenment included a vast array of thought, one of its central intellectual themes was that of reason and the role that reason played in science and the arts. As a poet and artist of the Enlightenment age, Goethes literature argued against the shift towards radical rationalism. Faust is the culmination of this argument. As a man of the Enlightenment, Faust seeks to escape the extreme rationalism of his academic and medical life, but Goethe shows this tradition ultimately cannot satisfy without emotion and art. Science and Spirituality Faust is a scholar and a man of science who feels that he has reached the limits of what rational thought can contribute to his life. One of the concepts of Enlightenment thought was that humanity would eventually perfect itself through the advancement of knowledge and technology. Faust argues against this line of thinking. Faust attempts to perfect himself through learning and science, yet he finds that at the end of his intellectual journey, he has destroyed his faith and his reason to live. What Faust strives for is a taste of the spiritual, either in his own life or in a life beyond. His life of science and medicine and the vast array of knowledge that he has collected keeps him from this spiritual state. He conjures spirits yet cannot join their world. He soon discovers that his own nature contains a spiritual dimension, that of love, which he finds in his relationship with the young girl, Gretchen. Goethe argues that love and tragedy can conquer the tyranny of extreme science and rationalism. Signifier and Signified Goethes literary and theological argument in Faust concerns the disconnect between the signifier and the signified. When Faust attempts to explain his spiritual beliefs to a skeptical Gretchen, he tells her that he can find no name for what it is he believes. Some might call it God, while others call it Nature or Love. Because Faust is not able to truly name what he believes, Gretchen is likewise unable to believe in Fausts spirituality. This is the result of the disconnection between words and the concepts or objects that they signify. Goethe is asking a deeply

philosophical and theological question: if humanity cannot adequately name God, does God actually exist for humanity? Fausts own subjective experience of this problem destroys his faith and leads him to an extreme nihilism and the verge of suicide at the plays beginning. The Nature of Life and Death Faust is a man who must confront his own existential crisis. The questions that he ponders as a scholar and doctor have destroyed his faith and his belief in the progress of humanity, and his extreme nihilism lead him to the verge of suicide. The question that Faust must answer is whether life is worth more than the peace that death offers. Goethe creates an extreme example of the logic of philosophical rationalism. Rational thought alone can never perfect or complete humanity, Goethe argues, because human knowledge has fundamental limits when it comes to the spiritual world. Humanity simply cannot name or understand that which is higher than it. Therefore, humanity would only have the question of whether life should be continued or simply ended. This point is a critique of Modernism and a theme that runs through much of Modern philosophy even into the twentieth century. The Romantic Tradition Goethe's Faust, while not strictly a piece of Romantic literature, nonetheless displays characteristics of the genre. Faust's extended speeches on the qualities of Nature and the reasons that he cannot be a part of it show Goethe's faith in the spiritual qualities of the world that the Romantic tradition elevated. In an important scene, Faust returns from his walk through nature with Wagner to his study and, for the only time in the play's first half, feels a satisfied spirit within him. By contrast, his removal from the natural world and entry into the world of rational thought kills this spirit. Goethe sees in Nature the true spiritual and moral foundations of humanity. Humanity's depraved condition comes not from some innate sinfulness, but from a disconnection with the spiritual and divine aspects of Nature. Only a return to these true qualities of the world leads to completeness for the individual. Moral Ambivalence One of the consequences of Modernism, according to Goethe, is that if modern rationalism destroys the need for religion or social constraints, then this creates a moral vacuum in the human condition. Faust's condition is not only one of intellectual despair, but also one in which his character is transformed into a morally ambivalent libertine, as in his love affair with Gretchen. Gretchen, who is morally pure before meeting Faust, is tempted into a life of immorality just as Mephistopheles tempts Faust. When Gretchen accepts Faust's declarations of his postChristian faith, she loses the moral qualities of her previous life. Faust destroys Gretchen's faith and moral support through his own moral ambivalence. Goethe argues that such a condition can only lead to tragedy, just as it does for both Faust and Gretchen. Subjectivity Goethe characterizes the modern world as one in which meaning revolves not around the action of the collective but around the introspection and imagination of the subjective self. While the classical epic poem always portrays action emanating from a great hero, all action in Faust depends on Faust's own subjective experience. Faust falls into existential despair through his own subjectivity. Likewise, he cannot understand his own chance at salvation through his love of Gretchen outside of his own subjective experience. Goethe characterizes the separation that occurs between people who are unable to speak in similar languages of faith or love because of their own subjective selfishness. This leads to tragedy for both characters since, as Goethe suggests, they can never truly capture the love of the other. The turn toward the subjective is therefore a turn towards tragedy.