Well, Goethe's Faust is a play written by a German poet/ writer/ philosopher. It's divided into two parts.
Why am I suddenly having such an interest to read about this kind of classic literature? hehe.. I won't if I am not forced to. It's actually a presentation topic that has been assigned to us. And.. we are going to present it today.
Yeah.. So I will do my practice here. Not an oral one.. but just to show that I am able to explain things and present it to those who have never heard of it before.
Basically, we focus more on the first part of the play because we could find more information about it online. Well, the story begins when a devil has a wager with God to win the soul of Faust (the main character). The God, however, believes that if a person is rational, he will still be himself although he is misled by others. Even at the darkest side, that person will still be able to find his way back to the right path. Then, the devil transforms into a poodle and he follows Faust home. When Faust is discussing a sentence in the bible with his friends, the poodle transforms into a human-being like character. He then tells Faust that he will bring Faust to experience things that Faust has never seen before. Due to some benefits that Faust would gain from the Devil (e.g. ability to attain some knowledge that he is not good at), Faust agrees with the Devil and he signs the pact with the devil, with his own blood. {in fact, this will be explained by one of my group mates}
My parts begin here.. (from a romantic love story --> a tragedy at the end)
Well, after the agreement with the devil, Faust is given a magic potion which turns him into a handsome young man. Faust is having more confidence towards himself now. On one fine day, when he is walking with the devil on the street, he meets with Margaret. He falls in love with Margaret at the first sight. He then demands the Devil to procure her. What the Devil does is to attract her by jewelery. He puts a box of jewelery in her cabinet. Once Margaret discovers that, the innocent Margaret quickly brings it to her mum and finally they decide to donate it to the church. The first attempt has failed. The devil tries the second time. This time, instead of showing it to her mother, Margaret brings it to her neighbour, Martha.. Martha advises her to wear it and gives Faust an opportunity to meet with her. Later on, she gets to meet with Faust at the garden. She confesses her love to Faust. Faust then takes this opportunity to seduce her to sleep together. Margaret actually admits Faust to her room. But they face one problem, that is Margaret's mother is staying with her. In order not to let her mother knows about Faust, Margaret accepts Fasut's suggestion to give her mother a bottle of sleeping potion. Unfortunately, even Faust himself, doesn't know that the sleeping potion is actually poisonous and this is when the tragedy begins.
Later on, Margaret discovers that she is pregnant. She is quite worried about it because she is an unmarried woman. So she approaches Martha and discuss the problem with her. What a coincidence that her brother, Valentine, hears their conversation. He gets very angry with Faust and he challenges Faust for a duel. Eventually, Valentine is defeated and he is killed. After murdering Valentine, Faust runs away with the Devil.
Margaret feels that she is abandoned by Faust. Later, she drowns her new born baby as she feels that there's no hope for Faust to return to her. Due to that, she is found out and arrested for murdering the baby. She is then kept in the dungeon (the underground prison).
After having to know that Margaret is arrested, Faust requests the Devil to save Margaret from death. This shows that Faust still loves Margaret. The Devil gives the guards, again some sleeping potion and put them to sleep in order to get the key to save Margaret. However, Margaret is not convinced and both Faust and the Devil are forced to flee away. Anyway, Margaret's salvation is proven by voices from the above announcing that "she shall be saved". After the rescue, it comes to the end of the first part of the story.
请注意: 华人传统习俗有时真的可以与奢侈画上等号。上头仪式祭神的东西也未免太多了吧！
