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Good And Evil Revealed In Goethe's Faust

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In the end of Goethe’s book Faust, Faust is redeemed and not sent to hell even though he did some pretty bad things. Some of these bad things include taking advantage of a girl named Margaret, who was only 14. He made her accidentally kill her own mother so he could sneak in and fulfil his lustful desires, killed Valentine, her brother when he found out, and ran away to go party. But even after all of this he doesn't go to hell, shouldn't bad people, who did bad things go to hell? Before Faust was going after young girls and killing their brothers, he was an older-man, a scholar who kept to himself in his tower. He didn't align himself to any religion but was an interesting character that always wanted more from life so he was a hot topic between Mephistopheles and God. Mephistopheles asks God for permission to lead Faust down a path of sin and God agrees, saying “For while man strives he errs” meaning that as long as man tries, he will make mistakes, but those mistakes are important to the growth of man and complacency is the worst sin. Revelation 3:15-16, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” Mephistopheles and Faust meet for a second time, but this time Mephisto makes him an offer. The offer is that he will …show more content…

This flies in the face of conventional wisdom which suggests that if you are good you go to heaven, otherwise you won’t but Faust proves that in this situation its to not be the case. Since he was striving for happiness when he got caught up with Margareta and was trying to better the people with his project and got the couple killed, he may not be a “good” guy but he kept on trying and never grew

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