Faust: Part 1: Walpurgis Night Summary & Analysis

About a year has passed since Valentine’s death. It is April 30th, Walpurgis Night—a dark celebration in the devil’s honor, held on Brocken’s summit in the Harz Mountains of central Germany. Faust and Mephistopheles are hiking in a labyrinth of valleys among welling and plunging waters, elements of nature that make Faust feel energetic and alive. He feels spring in his limbs, but the devil feels like it’s winter inside of him, and the red moon seems dreary. Mephistopheles summons a will-o’-the-wisp, a fairy-like flame, which guides the two to Brocken.

As they hike, Faust and Mephistopheles see many wonders, like the glowing, mist-surrounded palace of Mammon, a devil of wealth. A storm begins to rage and Mephistopheles instructs Faust to grab a nearby rock so he isn’t hurled to the bottom of the gorge. Witches riding on both broomsticks and pigs approach, all singing in a chorus, followed by warlocks. Mephistopheles, however, is master here, and he tells the mob to make way so that he and Faust can join a small club of naked witches who are accompanied by their veiled elders. It’s an ancient practice, he says, to make small worlds inside the great one.

With his cloven foot, proof of his identity as the devil, Mephistopheles serves as spokesman for the tongue-tied Faust. First the two approach a group of old gentlemen who complain about how one can trust neither the Government nor the People, how nothing’s stable, and how impudent the young have become. Looking suddenly very old, the devil anticipates that the Judgment Day is near, when the physical world will be destroyed and the kingdom of heaven revealed. A witch tries to sell to the devil a variety of objects that have done great harm to people and society, but he tells her that she is behind the times and should sell not objects of the past, but novelties instead.

Faust hopes his mind remains intact, because he’s never seen such a lively carnival as this. Lilith, the first man Adam’s first wife—now a temptress and demon—is there along with dancing witches. Faust and Mephistopheles join in with them, with Faust singing about apples in a tree (a reference both to breasts and the fruit which Adam and Eve ate in Eden, leading to the Fall of Man from paradise), and the devil singing about a gaping hole in his tree, which suits him just fine. A mortal who doesn’t believe in ghosts approaches, and says it’s impossible that these supernatural beings should be dancing together—and yet here they are.

Faust leaves his dance, disturbed when a red mouse leaps from his partner’s mouth. He also confides in Mephistopheles that he saw a deathly-pale lovely girl who looks like his own dear Gretchen (whose fate he has no knowledge of at this point). Leave that alone, the devil advises. He says it’s mere sorcery, a woman who appears to every man as the woman he loves. This sorceress, he points out, can also transport her head between her arms. The devil observes that Faust has not yet lost his craving for illusions, and urges him on to a theater he sees, where a play is scheduled to begin.