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Goethe In Faust And Shelley In Frankenstein: Still The Wretched Fools

Goethe in Faust and Shelley in Frankenstein: Still the Wretched Fools They Were
Before

Jeremy Burlingame


Goethe in Faust and Shelley in Frankenstein, wrap their stories around
two men whose mental and physical actions parallel one another. Both stories
deal with characters, who strive to be the übermensch in their world. In Faust,
the striving fellow, Faust, seeks physical and mental wholeness in knowledge
and disaster in lust. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein struggles for
control over one aspect of nature and disastrously, through the monster, nature
controls him to a much greater degree. Many powers are much too mighty for
mortal souls, a lesson that Frankenstein and Faust learn by the end of their
tales. While voluntarily excommunicating themselves from society, both
characters accomplish a portion of their goal and yet they remain unhappy
because they never control the "perfect" life they have built for themselves.
In Faust, the intelligent gentleman Faust, seeks spiritual wholeness in
knowledge. Through years of hard study, Faust becomes knowledgeable in math,
sciences and religion and yet he becomes inept and incapable of having any
romantic or physical relationships with the outside world. As Faust strives to
become the "over man" through knowledge, he realizes that books will not
satisfy his curiosity and that maybe sensual pleasures will. Therefore, in
the process of creating his new life, Faust, becomes distant and unconcerned
with all reality and humanity around him.

Do not fancy anything right, do not fancy that I could
teach or assert what would better mankind or what might
convert. I also have neither money nor treasures, nor
worldly honors or earthly pleasures; no dog would want
to live this way!(p. 95)

Obviously, Faust has fallen into a inhumane state of living, through the
pursuit of the unattainable. He becomes greedy, desperate and feels justified
in whatever it takes to achieve a...