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Comment by fallinditch | Hacker News Reader

It seems to me that Mephistopheles' offer was a no brainer for Faust.

Who in their right mind would reject an offer of unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures?

Presumably if Faust refuses Mephistopheles’ bargain, he must resign himself to a life haunted by unfulfilled longing, existential frustration, and the bitter realization that some mysteries will forever remain beyond his grasp. Or worse, his life could descend into base forms of evil and criminality, which seems likely given what he did to Gretchen.

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Goethe's Faust does not make a diabolical bargain, he makes a bet: that all the power and pleasure and knowledge Mephistopheles can offer him will not slake the longings of his soul, that nothing will pierce his world weariness with one moment of which he could will that it last forever. He regards magical power, the traditional object of the Faustian pact, quite lowly (as shown in the witch's scene).

Marlowe's "The Life and Death of Dr. Faustus" was written 300 years before Goethe's version.

In Marlowe's version Faust goes to hell.

I always found Goethe's ending to be unsatisfying, and prefer Marlowe's where Faust not only accepts, but embraces his fate to be a far better resolution.

> Who in their right mind would reject an offer of unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures?

Christ Himself rejected various temptations by Satan when he was in the wilderness.

An interesting point, but it's not really a fair comparison: Jesus was the son of God and able to perform miracles, so maybe he felt he could afford to reject an offer of all the riches in all the kingdoms of the world (which tbh Jesus must have known that Satan was lying about anyway). Whereas Faust was just a man.

If you believe saintlike people are in their right minds - many. I use "saintlike" in a secular sense; I myself am an atheist.

> Who in their right mind would reject an offer of unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures?

Most people. Unlimited knowledge? So no mystery to life. Unlimited worldly pleasures? Sound exhausting. There is a reason why hedonism hasn't taken over the world. Frankly, "unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures" sounds like hell to me.

^Who in their right mind would reject an offer of unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures?

The bargain had a quid pro quo...you get knowledge and pleasure in exchange for perpetual servitude to a bad guy. I wouldn't make that trade

No me neither, but that's not the story. The deal was that Mephistopheles would come back at the end of Faust's life to claim his soul. As Faust dies, Mephistopheles tries to claim his soul, but angels intervene. Because of Faust's relentless striving and Gretchen's intercession, he is redeemed and ascends to Heaven.

So Faust enjoyed his life of pleasure and knowledge and got away with making his Mephistophelean deal.

Unless you are a crazy narcissist confident that you will get away with it, their point still stands. It's hard to put a price on your own soul since it's unclear what it actually means but it seems it involves going to a seemingly hostile place called Hell

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