The Role of Gretchen in Faust by Goethe

In this paper, I will discuss the role of Gretchen in Goethe’s Faust and how she was innocent throughout the whole play even though she does make wrong choices. The reason someone might stray from the common path of society to enlightenment is love. When someone falls in love they begin to act out in ways that others may see strange and unpredictable. It decreases someone's ability to reason and takes away any desires he or she might have to seek enlightenment. Love is based on faith, so it goes against the ideals of enlightenment which encourage individual thinking. Love brings out a feeling of fulfillment, which goes against the ideals of enlightenment which will produce a constant struggle within the individual to find the truth or reach a higher level of thinking. In the Age of Enlightenment, love is a temptation man or women must overcome to reach enlightenment. “Enlightenment meant in the English literature a disruption from the previous trends in the literature and cultural philosophy, stand point and ideas. The new spirit of the age was the strong belief in light and culture as the only means of influencing the nature of man.”

The main idea of Goethe’s play was to capture the ideal image of good vs. evil and how easily they can be misunderstood. “Of all the great dualities of human experience 'good and evil' have been the most instrumental in shaping the beliefs, rituals, and laws, of Homo Sapiens.” In the story the two main characters are both male, one being Faust and the other being Mephistopheles. Faust ,who is the main character, falls head over heels for Gretchen, but he doesn’t really love her he just wants to fill a void. Mephistopheles is the devil, or a devilish spirit who makes a deal with God to test Faust.

In the play Faust, Gretchen was the perfect woman in the beginning. She was devoted to the church, constantly worked to take care of her family and kept herself pure in public eyes. Gretchen attracts Faust because he is now a young man wanting to live life and explore all the opportunities in front of him. He has power from Mephistopheles and is practically able to get whatever his mind can fathom. When Faust tries to talk to Gretchen on the street, she refuses by saying, “I’m neither pretty nor a lady, Can find my way home quite unaided.” She was a properly brought up young lady who knew right from wrong and had a strong religious background and belief. Faust on the other hand, was searching for his purpose and was looking for something more to fulfill that gaping hole in his life. Gretchen was beautiful and turned Faust down, that is when his heart fluttered. “I’ve never seen her like, a pearl! A good girl, too, with quick wit, Her manner modest yet pert.” Even Mephistopheles acknowledges her virtue, he says “She is the soul of innocence.” 

Many people who read Faust view Gretchen’s character as a selfless female who ruins herself for the love of her life, and in the end will lead Faust to his redemption and save him from being condemned. Even when you look at Margaret, who is also Gretchen, it still shows that the play is used to bring forward the problems of the female character and women of that time period. That is when a man of nobility finds interest in you it is hard to turn away from that, since in that time title meant everything. When you look at the gender scheme of the play, Gretchen’s story appears to be one of seductive female, for example in the scene in her bedroom, where Faust secretly gives her a casket of jewelry, and instead of keeping the beautiful jewels, Gretchen immediately tells her mother of the gift. Her mother gives the gift of jewels to the church. After hearing of this, Faust makes a second attempt to give Gretchen a casket of jewelry. This time after consulting her friend Martha, she keeps the jewelry for herself, and does not tell her mother of the second set. Gretchen is full of excitement and disbelief because someone from the upper class finds her attractive. According to editors of the Bedford Anthology of World Literature, 'Faust's search for the fullest expression of his nature leads to tragic errors that result in the destruction of Margaret...'. Faust is clearly responsible for ruining Gretchen’s life. Faust realizes that he took part in destroying Gretchen's life when he goes to rescue her from the prison cell. Faust is filled with deep regret and shows remorse for his actions when he says 'Would I were never born!'.

Goethe even identifies Gretchen as a saint when Gretchen’s bedroom becomes a shrine to Faust. Faust even uses religious language to describe the room. “Welcome, evening’s twilight gloom, Stealing through this holy room. Possess my heart, oh love’s sweet anguish, That lives in hope, must languish.” Just from being in her room, he feels spiritual purity. He goes on describing her room as holy and pure. Faust uses Gretchen’s devotion to the church and childlike intuition to establish the holiness of her character. She is a young girl with little knowledge of the real world, a motherly figure, concerned about everyone, especially her new lover. Throughout the play Gretchen’s character demonstrates aspects of the Virgin Mary and of Eve. Mary is known as the mother of all mankind, the pure and innocent woman who makes salvation possible and achievable, she has no evil in her at all. Goethe paints Gretchen as a virgin mother and that is where a large part of Faust’s attraction to Gretchen comes from, she is the ideal of feminine purity. On the other hand, Eve represents the figure of the fallen woman, the cause of man’s suffering and damnation. She symbolizes death, destruction, and human evil. Eve is the opposite of Mary, but together the two correspond to both sides of Gretchen’s character. As the play ends you can begin to see how her character is molded throughout the play to show the form of the ideal female or the angle of the house.

Margaret's brother was also very pleased and took pride in his sister's resistance to her nature and sin. His family was good and pure because of all the female members, but as soon as Gretchen surrenders to her nature, her family is shamed and mocked. As the seduced and innocent, Gretchen serves as a representation of how much power and manipulation a male can have over the female body. According to Webster Dictionary manipulation can be defined as, “To control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one's own advantage.” A male can say the right things to a woman and persuade her into doing things she may not have done before. Gretchen, now impure and a child-murderess, becomes a prisoner to the lies and sin Faust has entangled her in. Now she is doomed and will be condemned in every aspect of her life as a woman, lover and mother. While in prison Gretchen cannot tell the difference between real life and fantasy, between past, present and future. She seems to be insane, but for Faust, Gretchen in this state is the only thing stopping him from moving forward. She is a past he wishes to forget in order to move forward with his exploration of life, self and power. When she killed her own child, she gave up her right to live in this world, yes she was not in her right state of mind but Faust is the one who changed her. She was now known as the person who killed her own mother and her own baby, and for that she is punished by society. Her death was demanded and inevitable, it was an act of self- destruction, and giving herself up as a sacrifice for her lover, who can now go free and not have to worry about the crimes she had committed and, more importantly continue experiencing life the way he wanted all along.

Gretchen’s active role in the play was to destroy herself and her child. Gretchen then pays for this crime and self-destruction as a woman by accepting society’s punishment, execution. This type of sentencing in the religious undertone of the drama signifies deliverance to the Father. Her death sentence and by willingly accepting her fate is what cleared the way for Faust to continue his experimentation with life without being burdened by Gretchen’s incident and outcome.

Gretchen’s destruction, the relationship between mother and child, simply prompts a change in the drama. It changes the realistic setting along with the philosophical, magical and theological text that tells us about Faust. Gretchen realizes what she has done and has to accept the evil and sin that Mephistopheles and Faust have brought into her life. She has accepted her new life into a world of lust, murder and lies. She is being held responsible for the death of her mother and child, as well as the death of her brother. Even though the death of her brother was not exactly her fault because Faust was the one who killed him, but if she would not have sinned then he would have never came home. Gretchen realizes that she has not been thinking clearly, nor acting in the way in which she was brought up. She learns to turn away from Faust, and he resisted her advances. When she becomes a virtuous woman again it is questionable as to whether she ever lost her virtue, because when you do fall into the nature of your own desires there is not second chances, but why was Faust not forgiven for his sins? The only reason Gretchen was saved at the end, was because her soul was never really full evil. All along she knew right from wrong. Yes, she did bad things such as killing her mother, and newborn child, but she did it out of her love for Faust; who she believed was her lover and would always be there. She never made a deal with the Devil, she only followed her heart’s desire which did lead her down the wrong path. Whereas Faust intentionally turns off the path of righteousness in search of personal experience and gain. He slowly changes from a decent guy to a guy on the road of self-destruction. Gretchen was just a product of her society and the persecution to which she received because of Faust.

In the end, Gretchen saves herself and through her own salvation shows Faust how he must also save himself. By doing this Gretchen not only accepts the role that society has placed on her, but also the role of the hero. She alone faces the devil figure, Mephistopheles, and turns towards the path of the righteous. The story of her growing up in 'Faust' from and sweet innocent girl to a world ravaged woman and ultimately to her own salvation from society and evil. In this play Goethe gives Gretchen power that many people have not seen in this time. Gretchen shows extreme strength and power, Faust has broken all of her moral codes and has only used her for his desires. In the end, Faust is accountable for ruining Gretchen’s faith along with his own, through him wanting nothing more than personal gain and world experiences. “What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except our own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?”. Love is a certain attraction that very few people can resist, it makes us do things we would not normally do and can cause us to have “blinders” to wrong doings. Gretchen saw what she thought would be a painless and easy solution to all her problems in Faust. She did not realize how hurtful love could be when all along she was just being seduced by Faust.