Learning Goal: Im working on a literature writing question and need support to help me learn. Choose one of the questions above and write 6 page essay about it.
Goethe draws on many works in the Western literary tradition in shaping the issues he raises in Faust. Compare his treatment of the relationship between God and Satan in conversation with the opening chapters of the Biblical Job.
The essence of Fausts pact with the devil Mephistopheles is to live each moment to the fullest and to let it pass; Mephistopheles will serve Faust so long as the latter constantly strives and remains unsatisfied with anything the devil has to offer, or with anything the world has to offer. Is Faust a hero?
Analyze Goethes use of light and dark imagery in Faust. The very titles of the scenes Prologue in Heaven, Before the City Gate, Night, Study, Evening, Auerbachs Tavern, Dungeon, and others denote stark contrasts in light and dark. The scenes that are brightly illuminated are associated with optimism and salvation, whereas the dark scenes signify distress, anguish, turmoil, and damnation.
Mephistopheles does not seem to possess an evil nature; at no point does he actually perform any evil deed, and for a great part of the poem, he appears as a witty, funny, sharp-sighted man whose function, like Fausts conscience, is to bring Faust to face facts and to make him face responsibility for his actions. How do you feel toward Mephistopheles? Do your feelings change? If so, when and why?
German Romantic writers emphasized the contradictory tension between the necessity of desire and the impossibility of its gratification. They had a craving for the infinite, and this love of infinity led them to the love of the night; a favorite Romantic symbol for infinity is endless night, the distant stars, and the Milky Way. One such writer, Novalis, felt that the eyes of the night look into the depths of the universe. The whole restless rhythm and eternal striving of Fausts life which demonstrates the value of the infinite is clearly Romantic. Analyze this theme in Goethes great epic play Choose one of the questions above and write 6 page essay about it.
Requirements: 6 page
