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assured. As a result of Faust’s blandishments, Margaret gives her mother a sleeping potion, so that she and Faust can spend an undisturbed night together. But the potion causes the mother to die. Then Margaret’s brother is killed by Faust in a duel, with help from Mephistopheles. Later, Margaret bears Faust’s child, whom she drowns. She eventually goes mad in prison from the horror and shame of her situation. At the end of Part One of the work, Margaret dies, but her soul is carried to Heaven; she is saved. It must be said in defense of Faust that Mephistopheles has kept Margaret’s suffering from him by taking him off to a Walpurgisnacht; this is one of the most dramatic scenes in the play. Walpurgisnacht is, according to European tradition, a gathering of witches from all over Europe on the night of April 30, for a celebration of evil, sex with the Devil, and a general orgy. In Central Europe, Walpurgisnacht is especially well known, and in peasant communities it was celebrated with many local folk customs. It is something like America’s Halloween, though is not for children, and in rural areas it was dreaded by many.24
Part II of Faust, written later, shifts from the Germany of Goethe’s day to an entirely different environment. In this part, which has tended to be less popular (and which Freud cited much less often), Faust travels through an imaginary world of scenes and characters taken from the myths of classical Greece and Rome. He is still traveling with Mephistopheles, but the general atmosphere of ancient myths seems, shall we say, more “Jungian,” whereas Part I has a “Freudian” feel. At the end, four Grey Women approach: They are the personifications of Want, Need, Debt, and Care (Sorge). The last of these, Sorge, is a harbinger of Faust’s approaching death. As she leaves Faust she breathes on him, making him blind. (This is reminiscent of the fate of Oedipus.) Shortly afterwards the blinded Faust dies, and to the deep disgust of Mephistopheles, Faust’s soul is carried off to Heaven. Faust’s final salvation does not seem convincing to many readers (including myself): He never shows remorse for his actions, and indeed never renounces his pact—yet saved he is! Now there are various aspects of the play that would have spoken directly to Freud. The text is filled with references to dreams and fantasies; in fact, the whole atmosphere is dark, romantic, and dream-like. (In this respect, there are strong resemblances between Faust and Flaubert’s The Temptation.) Faust himself is an academic, a scholar, whose worldly, disillusioned attitudes would have struck a strong responsive chord in Freud’s pessimism and in his skepticism about any higher ideals. Faust is portrayed as a doctor, and in an early scene he expresses his awareness that many of his “cures” are not cures at all. That is, Faust is a “bad doctor,” providing false cures, or cures resulting from coincidence. Of course, the central theme and meaning of the entire work is Faust’s pact with the Devil—a pact portrayed by Goethe as worth making. This |