In this article I will discuss the role of Gretchen in Goethe's Faust and how she was innocent throughout the play even though she makes bad choices . The reason someone can deviate from society's common path to enlightenment is love. When someone falls in love, they begin to act in ways that others may find strange and unpredictable. This diminishes a person's ability to reason and removes any desire they may have to seek enlightenment. Love is based on faith, so it goes against the ideals of enlightenment that encourage individual reflection. Love gives rise to a feeling of fulfillment which runs counter to the ideals of enlightenment which will produce a constant struggle within the individual to find the truth or reach a higher level of thought. In the Age of Enlightenment, love is a temptation that a man or woman must overcome to achieve enlightenment. “The Enlightenment signified in English literature a break with previous trends in literature and cultural philosophy, views 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. » Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay The main idea of ​​Goethe's play was to capture the ideal image of good versus evil and the ease with which they can be misunderstood. “Of all the great dualities of human experience, 'good and evil' have contributed most to 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 Mephistopheles. Faust, who is the main character, falls madly in love with Gretchen, but he doesn't really love her, he just wants to fill a void. Mephistopheles is the devil, or an evil spirit who makes a deal with God to test Faust. In the play Faust, Gretchen was initially the perfect woman. She was devoted to the Church, worked constantly to care for her family, and remained pure in the public eye. Gretchen attracts Faust because he is now a young man eager to live his life and explore all the opportunities available to him. He has the power of Mephistopheles and is practically capable of obtaining anything his mind can imagine. When Faust tries to talk to Gretchen on the street, she refuses, saying, "I'm not pretty or a lady, I can go home without help." » She was a well-educated young woman who knew right from wrong and who had a strong religious background and convictions. Faust, on the other hand, was searching for his purpose and searching for something more to fill this gaping hole in his life. Gretchen was beautiful and refused Faust, that's when her heart fluttered. “I never saw her as a pearl! She is also a good girl, with a lively mind and modest but impertinent manners. Even Mephistopheles recognizes her virtue, he says: “She is the soul of innocence.” Many people who read Faust see the character of Gretchen as a selfless woman who ruins herself for the love of her life and who will ultimately lead Faust to his redemption and save him from condemnation. Even when we look at Margaret, who is also Gretchen, it still shows that the play is used to highlight the issues of the female character and women of that era. It is when a noble man is interested in you that it is difficult to turn away, because in those days the title meant everything. When you look at the genre scheme of the play, Gretchen's storyseems to be that of an attractive woman, for example in the scene in her bedroom, where Faust secretly gives her a box of jewels, and instead of keeping the beautiful jewels, Gretchen immediately tells her mother about the gift. Her mother donated jewelry to the church. After hearing this, Faust makes a second attempt to give Gretchen a jeweled coffin. This time, after consulting her friend Martha, she keeps the jewelry to herself and does not tell her mother about the second set. Gretchen is full of excitement and disbelief because someone from the upper class finds her attractive. According to the editors of the Bedford Anthology of World Literature, "Faust's search for the fullest expression of his nature leads to tragic errors which result in Margaret's destruction...". Faust is clearly responsible for ruining Gretchen's life. Faust realizes that he participated in the destruction of Gretchen's life when he goes to rescue her from her cell. Faust is filled with deep regret and shows remorse for his actions when he says, "Would I never have been born!" ". Goethe even identifies Gretchen as a saint when Gretchen's room becomes a shrine to Faust. Faust even uses religious language to describe the play. “Welcome, twilight darkness of evening, Crossing this holy hall. Possess my heart, O sweet anguish of love, Who lives in hope, must languish. Just by being in his room he feels spiritual purity. He goes on to describe his room as holy and pure. Faust uses Gretchen's devotion to the Church and her childlike intuition to establish the holiness of her character. She is a young girl with little knowledge of the real world, a motherly figure, caring for everyone, especially her new lover. Throughout the play, the character of Gretchen demonstrates aspects of the Virgin Mary and Eve. Mary is known as the mother of all humanity, the pure and innocent woman who makes salvation possible and achievable, she has no evil in her. Goethe paints Gretchen as a virgin mother and this is where much 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. It symbolizes death, destruction and human evil. Eve is the opposite of Mary, but together the two fit both sides of Gretchen's character. By the end of the play you can begin to see how her character is shaped throughout the play to show the shape of the ideal woman or the angle of the house. Margaret's brother was also very happy and proud of his sister's resistance to her nature and sin. . Her family was good and pure thanks to all the female members, but as soon as Gretchen gives in to her nature, her family is humiliated and mocked. As seduced and innocent, Gretchen represents the power and manipulation a man can have over the female body. According to Webster's dictionary, manipulation can be defined as "controlling or playing by cunning, unfair, or insidious means, especially for one's own advantage." A man can say the right things to a woman and persuade her to do things she might not have done before. Gretchen, now impure and a child murderer, becomes a prisoner of the lies and sin in which Faust has entangled her. She is now condemned and will be condemned in every aspect of her life as a wife, lover and mother. In prison, Gretchen cannot tell the difference between real life and imagination, between the past, present and future. She seems crazy, but for Faust, Gretchen in this state is the only thing stopping him from moving forward. It is a past that he wishes to forget in order to move forward in his exploration of.