Morality and Goethe's Faust

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe the poet, thinker and dramatist of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century achieved his capstone literary contribution in the story of Faust. The drama Faust tells the tale of Dr. Faustus, a scholar who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for experience leading to power. Faust's pursuit for limitless understanding raises a question of morality. Goethe portrays Faust as a good man, but the sins he has committed should not grant him such a title. This blurred distinction between moral integrity and unforgivable sin is the soul of Goethe's masterpiece.

Goethe's Faust presents this question of morality in a drama that contrasts personal desire and social responsibility. The drama is widely known due to its ambiguity in dealing with issues such as moral obligation, ambition and emotion. Goethe's intentionally vague writing prevents his readers from determining a clear moral stance. A. Didier Graeffe, in his study of Goethe's drama states "the great work of literature is almost always morally shocking, and it embarrasses the critics and the public by the claims it makes upon their own moral integrity" (194).

The question of the moral level of Faust is evident in the Prologue in Heaven which depicts a conversation between the Lord and Mephistopheles. The Lord assumes the role of God in the drama while Mephistopheles is "the representative of evil" according to Richard Friedenthal, a Goethe scholar (493). The distorted distinction between right and wrong is evident even in this initial conversation between the two divinities. The Lord and Mephistopheles, the Devil character in the drama make a wager for the soul of Faust: "[THE LORD] I grant that you may try to clasp him, withdraw this spirit from his primal source [...] A good man in his darkling aspiration remembers the right road throughout his quest" (Goethe, 2164). The conditions are that Mephistopheles will serve Faust in the world and Faust will serve Mephistopheles in the afterlife with the Lord's permission. Here, even the divine characters of the drama have stooped to a pitiful level in waging Faust's salvation by extreme means (Friedenthal, 504-505). Mephistopheles himself depicts this atrocious behavior of the Lord when he states: "[the Lord] speaks humanely with the very Devil" (Goethe, 2164).

While Faust's immoral behavior is perhaps forgivable while under the direct influence of the Devil; the Lord has overseen Faust's flaws even before his encounter with Mephistopheles. Graeffe states that Faust has murdered and sinned even "before the Devil has appeared to draw upon himself some of the responsibility for Faust's later deeds" (179-180). When Faust finally does meet Mephistopheles, his 'quest' virtually begins with even more ambiguous characteristics between the 'right road' and the wrong. When Faust questions Mephistopheles character, the answer he receives is: "part of that force which would do evil evermore, and yet creates the good" (Goethe, 2186).

Faust himself admits to an indifference regarding the afterlife: "My joys come from this earth [...] once I have left those, I don't care: [...] whether beyond they hate and love and whether in that sphere one realm's below and one above" (2193). This is the first exposition Goethe offers of Faust's apathy toward moral behavior. Goethe clearly reveals the condemnable actions of Faust, but the drama is written in a manner that averts any attitude of moral interpretation and justification of Faust's actions (Graeffe, 182).

This averting paradox is evident throughout the text of Faust. As Faust continues his 'quest' he gains knowledge of the entire world to his satisfaction. In one particular episode, Mephistopheles is talking to Faust in the street and the Devil asks the man: "Oh, holy man! You are no less! Is this the first time in your life that you have testified what is not true?" Faust's reply is: "You are and you remain a sophist and a liar" (Goethe, 2225-2226). This kind of vague representation of the moral and the immoral is evident in many passages of Faust. This warped depiction of the controversial nature of man's morality is embodied in Faust's answer to Margaret, his love, upon being asked whether or not he believed in the existence of God. "I do not have a name for this. Feeling is all; names are but sound and smoke befogging heaven's blazes" (Goethe, 2236).

Even by the end of the drama, Goethe has still not provided readers with a clear portrait of correct moral integrity. In the finale, Mephistopheles claims Faust, and even Margaret's fate is left undetermined. At the last moment of the dialogue, Margaret pleads for her salvation and both a voice from above and Mephistopheles claim her saying: "[Mephistopheles] She is judged. [Voice From above] [she] is saved" (2263). Goethe has created a conclusion for readers with "polar opposites, of darkness and light" (Friedenthal, 509). Liselotte Dieckmann writes in her critical essay of Goethe's Faust that "Life on earth and man's awareness of it, according to Goethe, are not open to solutions" (13). Gregor Sebba, another Goethe scholar, explains that to the poet, man can not live with assurance of things that are to come after life here on earth (157). This is the very essence of Faust.

Man's moral dilemma is not a dilemma at all in Goethe's opinion. The answer lies in the ambiguity of morality in itself. Goethe does not see a question of right and wrong, instead he questions the very foundation of morality.

We can neither condemn nor condone without endangering our own moral equilibrium. [...] This inability, on the part of the public, to assume any moral attitude without risking its own moral security touches upon the essence of the play and, at the same time, transcends it. Faust's ambiguity is the ambiguity of the forbidden fruit, the eating of which gave us our knowledge of good and evil. (Graeffe, 195-196)

For this reason, critics and scholars have studied Goethe's work in depth. The moral ambiguity of Faust is the strength of the story. The indistinct moral stance of Goethe's work is what makes Faust a literary masterpiece.

Works Cited

Dieckmann, Lislotte. Goethe's Faust: A Critical Reading. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1972.

Friedenthal, Richard. Goethe His Life and Times. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1963.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Faust.The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. 2162-2263.

Graeffe, Didier A. Goethe's Faust: Ego and Alter Ego. Goethe on Human Creativeness and

Other Goethe Essays. Ed. Rolf King. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1950. 179-198.

Sebba, Gregor. Goethe on Human Creativeness. Goethe on Human Creativeness and Other Goethe Essays. Ed. Rolf King. Athens: University of Georgia Press,1950. 105- 178.