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Course Hero Literature Instructor Russell Jaffe provides an in-depth summary and analysis of Part 2, Act 1, Scenes 1-3 from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play Faust.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play Faust depicts the consequences of a deal between the title character and the devil.
The Lord doesn’t believe the Devil can corrupt Faust’s soul, but the Devil bets he can. Things look promising for the Devil when he learns Faust is bored with the life of a scholar.
Mesphistopheles tempts Faust with a deal in which he will serve the scholar until such time he is completely sated by his earthly experiences. If this occurs, Faust will belong to the devil and spend eternity in hell.
Faust accepts and with the devil's help becomes young again. He seduces and impregnates young Gretchen, who is later punished for killing the child she was to bear out of wedlock.
Faust is then taken to the court of the German emperor, who commands that he raise the souls of Helen and Paris, figures from Greek mythology. He does so, but they soon disappear after Paris attempts to rape Helen.
After a journey through time to ancient Greece, wherein he finds Helen and impregnates her, only to have their child die in a failed attempt to fly, he returns to Germany. There, he is given lands and sets up a trading empire.
He then feels a moment of satisfaction and the devil attempts to snatch his soul. Angels thwart him and Gretchen guides him to heaven.
German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust was first published in 1808. In Faust, Goethe explored much of what fascinated him—alchemy, politics and the human soul. It took him around 6 decades from when Goethe first started working on Faust to when the last part was published.
The allegoric play Faust contains many powerful themes including the pursuit of knowledge, as Faust learns that true knowledge does not come from books but from living; imprisonment, as prison is not bars and walls but a state of mind; and sin & redemption, as no character is free of sin, but redemption comes to those who keep striving. Important symbols include Faust’s study & Wagner’s Lab, nature and women.
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