After a lifetime of learning, an aged alchemist despairs of worldly knowledge: he has discovered nothing that can restore youth or forestall death, a mystery for which he would sell even his very soul. Suddenly, the devil’s representative appears to tempt him with that very possibility. The bargain is struck—signed in blood—and the doctor’s youth is restored. He has fame, money, and love until, one day, the demon reappears, claims his due, and carries the fool off to an eternity in Hell.
The story, based on the theme of Mark 8:36 (“For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?”), is familiar even to those who have not read the German legend of Faust, which has its origins both in the historical 16th-century person of Johann Georg Faust and in the life of the 6th-century cleric St. Theophilus of Adana. In the earliest version of the Faust legend, the doctor and the demon are figures of comic fun, and were even presented in mummeries and puppet shows like a sort of German Punch & Judy. These early tales were the basis for Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. But the later tradition—and by far the better known today—is that of Goethe’s early 19th-century closet drama, Faust.
In the early legends, Faust is ultimately damned. But in Goethe’s final rendition of Faust, written in two parts, he is ultimately saved. Even this, however, was a literary development—Faust’s salvation, as with humanity’s, comes only in time. In Goethe’s earliest drafts, Faust and his lover, Gretchen, are both damned. Then, in the completed version of part one, Gretchen’s salvation is assured, although Faust may still be damned. Finally, in part two, Faust’s salvation is obtained through the intercession of Gretchen and the Virgin Mary. Goethe’s conclusion thus mirrors the salvation of St. Theophilus of Adana who, having sold his soul to obtain a bishopric, repented, did penance, and was saved through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin.
Faust’s initial despair comes after a life spent accumulating human knowledge. Goethe depicts him as a Job-like figure, one of God’s favourites, who comes under diabolical scrutiny for that very reason. But human knowledge is insufficient for the satisfaction of a soul which by its created design yearns for union with the eternal Good. In like wise, “Vanity of vanities,” laments the opening verses of Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity.” That same expression of the world’s futility finds its way into the opening of Gounod’s opera Faust (based on Goethe), where Faust questions in vain, hears vain echoes, and curses vain hopes. “There is nothing new under the sun,” Ecclesiastes declares, and again Faust seems to echo as much with his opening cry of “Rien!”—Nothing! “I see nothing! I know nothing! Nothing!”
Gounod’s Faust follows the plot of Goethe’s Faust, Part I, even including the ambiguity of the ending: Faust sells his soul to Mephistopheles, who gives him youth and vigour. Then Faust seduces and abandons the innocent Marguerite (Gretchen, for short). When she gives birth to a child, the realisation of what has taken place drives her mad. In her insane state, she drowns her baby and is sentenced to death. Faust, his conscience at last piqued, conspires with Mephistopheles to rescue her. However, Marguerite has gone irretrievably out of her head; she refuses to escape and is led away to be executed, although heavenly voices from above cry out, “She is saved!” Faust and Mephistopheles are left behind as the curtain descends.
Goethe’s Mephistopheles spirits Faust away from the approaching guards in the penultimate line, shouting, “To me, here!” even as Marguerite, from a distance, calls out Faust’s name. Read thus, it seems that the devil could be carrying Faust away either to safety or to damnation. In Gounod’s opera, the ambiguity is present after the chorus proclaiming the salvation of Marguerite’s soul dies away, leaving Faust and Mephistopheles on stage in the moments after the final “Christ est ressuscité!” The director must decide what happens in the last moments before the curtain falls.
Goethe clarifies Faust’s ultimate end in Faust, Part II, because it is a work which has theological and political preoccupations that generally are not of concern in Faust, Part I. Goethe may be trying to establish the theological point that there are no ‘unforgivable’ sins, provided that the subject is genuinely contrite and penitent. Goethe is also engaged in introducing the concept of the eternal feminine—reflected in his depiction of the Virgin Mary and the three biblical holy women who intercede on Faust’s behalf—as a transcendental, and thus effective, force. It is therefore essential to his theological programme that they successfully obtain his salvation.
For his part, Gounod may have been untroubled by lofty philosophical considerations, but he did have to confront the reality that his opera would be performed by people and before audiences entirely unknown to him. Perhaps the role of Faust would be portrayed sympathetically; perhaps not. Each performance would have to be judged differently, and hence the director would need to be empowered to decide how to conclude the last moments of the opera: whether with Mephistopheles triumphant or with Faust saved—perhaps through the intercession of Marguerite herself. There is wisdom in both approaches to the tale’s conclusion, but Gounod’s circumstantial ambiguity seems better fit for a performance with real people occupying the roles. Goethe was writing a closet drama and did not need to contend with that possibility (although there have since been performances of his Faust).
But there is another aspect worth considering: the directorial power afforded in the ending to Gounod’s opera allows us always to encounter Faust’s salvation in a spirit of apprehension—the same apprehension that should be afforded to our spiritual state, not to take it for granted or to despair of it, but to treat it as an ongoing project which requires true contrition and penitence in order to redeem us from our sins, however vile. In this way, the conclusion of Gounod’s Faust is a metaphor for our own lives, of which we are the directors: like Faust’s ultimate destiny, our endings are ours to decide.
