In this article I will discuss Gretchen's role in Goethe's Faust and how she was innocent throughout the entire play, even though she made the wrong choices. The reason someone might stray from society's common path to enlightenment is love. When someone falls in love, they begin to act in ways that others may see as strange and unpredictable. It diminishes someone's ability to reason and takes away any desire to seek enlightenment. Love is based on faith, so it goes against the ideals of enlightenment that encourage individual thinking. Love brings out a feeling of contentment, which goes against the ideals of enlightenment which will produce a constant struggle in the individual to find the truth or reach a higher level of thinking. In the Age of Enlightenment, love is a temptation that man or woman must overcome to achieve enlightenment. “The Enlightenment meant in English literature a break from previous trends in literature and cultural philosophy, in views and ideas. The new spirit of the age was the strong faith 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 Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The main idea of ​​Goethe's work was to capture the ideal image of good versus evil and how easily they can be misunderstood. "Of all the great dualities of human experience, 'good and evil' have been most instrumental in shaping the beliefs, rituals and laws of Homo Sapiens." In the story the two main characters are both male, one is Faust and the other is 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 pact with God to test Faust. In the play Faust, Gretchen was the perfect woman at the beginning. She was devoted to the church, worked constantly to take care of her family, and kept herself pure in the eyes of the public. Gretchen attracts Faust because he is now a young man who wants to live life and explore all the opportunities before him. He has the power of Mephistopheles and is capable of basically achieving anything his mind can fathom. When Faust tries to talk to Gretchen on the street, she refuses, saying, "I'm neither pretty nor a lady, I can find my own way home." She was a properly educated young woman who knew right from wrong and had a strong background and strong religious beliefs. Faust, on the other hand, was searching for his purpose and was looking for something more to fill that void in his life. Gretchen was beautiful and she rejected Faust, and that's when her heart beats fast. “I've never seen her like this, a pearl! Also a good girl, possessed of a bright spirit, her manners are modest but sassy. 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 will ultimately lead Faust to redemption and save him from condemnation. Even looking at Margaret, who is also Gretchen, you can still see that the play is used to bring forward the issues of the female character and the women of that time. This is when a man of nobility finds interest in you, it is difficult to walk away from him, since at that time the title meant everything. If you look at the gender scheme of the play, Gretchen's story seems to be that of a seductive woman, for example in the scene in her bedroom, where Faust secretly gives her a chest of jewels, and instead ofhold the beautiful jewelry, Gretchen immediately tells her mother about the gift. His mother donates jewelry to the church. After hearing this, Faust makes a second attempt to give Gretchen a chest of jewels. This time, after consulting her friend Martha, she keeps the jewels for herself and does not tell her mother about the second set. Gretchen is filled with excitement and disbelief that someone from the upper class finds her attractive. According to the editors of the Bedford Anthology of World Literature, "Faust's search for the ultimate expression of his nature leads to tragic mistakes that lead to Margaret's destruction...". Faust is clearly responsible for ruining Gretchen's life. Faust realizes that he has taken part in the destruction of Gretchen's life when he goes to rescue her from the prison cell. Faust is filled with deep remorse and shows remorse for his actions when he says "I would never have been 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, twilight darkness of evening, as you steal through this sacred chamber. Possess my heart, oh sweet anguish of love, which lives in hope, must languish. Just 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 childlike intuition to establish the sanctity of her character. She is a little girl with little knowledge of the real world, a mother figure, worried about everyone, especially her new lover. Throughout the play the character of Gretchen displays 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, there is 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. Eve instead represents the figure of the fallen woman, the cause of man's suffering and damnation. It symbolizes death, destruction and human evil. Eva is the opposite of Maria, but together they correspond to both sides of Gretchen's character. When the play ends, you can begin to see how her character is shaped throughout the play to show the shape of the ideal woman or corner of the house. Margaret's brother was also very pleased and was proud of his sister's resistance to her nature and sin. . Her family was good and pure thanks to the female presence, but as soon as Gretchen surrenders to her nature, her family is shamed and mocked. As 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's Dictionary, manipulation can be defined as: "To control or exploit by cunning, unfair, or insidious means especially to one's own advantage." A male can say the right things to a woman and convince her to do things she may never have done before. Gretchen, now impure and a murderer of children, becomes a prisoner of the lies and sin in which Faust has trapped her. Now she is condemned and will be condemned in every aspect of her life as a woman, lover and mother. While in prison Gretchen is unable to distinguish between real life and fantasy, between past, present and future. She appears to be crazy, but for Faust, Gretchen in this state is the only thing that stops him from moving forward. She is a past she wishes to forget in order to move forward with her exploration of life, self and power. When she killed her son, she gave up the 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.