Preview

Arguement In Faust

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
815 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Arguement In Faust
In our daily lives, it’s not uncommon to be dissatisfied with our monotonous routines; working nine to five, going to class Monday through Friday, etc. However, dissatisfaction reaches an extreme when aside from our repetitive schedules, there isn’t much else that feels fulfilling. In Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe’s play Faust, the main character, Faust, faces this problem in all aspects of his life and craves something more than just existing on earth, waiting to die. Similarly, my feelings echo his in this search of a “something more.” I truly believe there has to be more to life on earth rather than just going through the motions, passing humanity by, waiting for death. In that sense, I feel discontent wasting any amount of time in my life …show more content…
However, I fall short of knowing exactly what I am to do or how I should go about it. Should I get master’s degree and a well paying job? Should I pack up my belongings tomorrow and travel the world, experiencing all I can? What is the right path and what will make me feel like my life was full and satisfying?
All of these questions and all of this doubt about what will provide my life with significance make me miserable. I know I should live in the moment and enjoy life for what it is but, like Faust, I find myself overwhelmed with an unobtainable purpose in life. However, similarly to Faust, I still waste time contemplating things beyond my understanding, knowing that I mustn't. Mephistopheles speaks of Faust, saying: “Drives madly on, there’s in him such a torment, / He himself is half aware he’s crazy;” (Goethe 104). While I don’t consider myself crazy in a literal sense, I know that my ideas about life are not necessarily common and I relate to Faust in understanding the pain it causes in one's self to dwell on these ideas. Nonetheless, I manage through my anxieties about life, with support from the people I’m closest to, although I never truly abandon the longing for a different world, and an enlightenment, so to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the excerpt from “The Meaning of Lives”, Susan Wolf presents a series of arguments explaining what it means for a life to have meaning. In this paper, I will consider her theory in relation to a specific example where someone has a choice between a meaningful life with difficulties and a simple, content life that is, according to Wolf, not meaningful. Let us imagine an opportunity given to a man called Galen, a former mechanical engineer who lives a remote life with his family on a small farm far from any civilization. He is offered the opportunity to live a relatively luxurious life in return for leading the construction of a new weapon that is a technological marvel far beyond anything else in existence. Though his life may improve as a result, Galen is aware that this weapon will be the source of pain and suffering for countless others.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everyone in their lifetime desires the comfort of a friend, but will settle for the attentive ear of a stranger. In the novel, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows how lonely people were during the 1930’s. He teaches a grim lesson about the nature of human existence, and how the characters in the story had to admit at one time or another to having a profound sense of loneliness and isolation. Although each character had their own secluded troubles, Curley’s wife, Crooks, and Candy, suffered the most from loneliness.…

    • 984 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Demon and Fact Faustus

    • 1012 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Faustus appears vulnerable and naïve upon conjuring for the first time, pathetic fallacy adding to the sombre mood, as 'gloomy shadow(s)' overcast the scene, obscuring what is about to happen, leaving the audience in the dark and instilling a sense of terror. Therefore when Mephistopheles appears as a devil it is presumably through fear that Faustus describes him as 'too ugly' such is the heightened sense of tension and feeling of the sublime he experiences. As opposed to reacting to Faustus' needs Mephistopheles immediately gains control and begins surreptitiously asserting his dominance over him, taking advantage of the fact Faustus is clearly out of his depth, and resorting to imperatives, commanding Mephistopheles to 'speak!' hinting that desperation is starting to creep in. Throughout the play it appears as though Mephistopheles is praying on Faustus' weaknesses, identifying his 'aspiring pride' as a pressure point and luring him towards the idea of becoming the 'sole king' of all the earth. Once overcome with the thought of being a 'great emperor' Faustus is obviously convinced that selling his soul is the best option he has and appears to disregard any rational logic, allowing Mephistopheles to sit back only issuing short replies like 'I will' in return to the overly ambitious notions filling Faustus'…

    • 1012 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Knowing what you want out of life is only half the battle. The other half is a real opportunity to keep you focused, accountable and on track to achieve it.…

    • 121 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    I often feel as though I should already have my life figured out. A lot of my peers already have plans for their post-high school careers, but I find myself shrugging my shoulders every time somebody asks me, "What are you doing after high school?" Not to mention the fact that I'm constantly bombarded with reminders from the adults in my life to choose a career path now, right now, specifically one that will make me lots of money and set me on a comfortable path for the rest of my life. Sadly, I feel I'm alone in my distress.…

    • 514 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    How do we know what do we want to do when we reach college? Do we have any clue what type of career we want to work in for possibly the rest of lives? How can one know the one thing we love to do if they have never discovered that one thing in your life, your true desire if you have not ventured throughout any possibly mean of education? We have to be open to all the possibilities out there. Open to ideas we may have never heard of, ideas that you may have of thought of negatively but willing to hear out why people think it’s right and therefore leaving your mind open by listening to other people other than yourself. Do things you have never done, give yourself a chance to be all that you can be, all that you want to be.…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I have worked in career field for twenty years. I still have career goals and I have hit a ceiling due to my lack of a degree. I want to further my education and continue to advance in career. Part of me feels that I am to old to get my degree, but I have decided that I can do this, I can get my degree and now it's about me succeeding educationally. I want to complete school and have a degree. I want to know that I can achieve my dream of graduating from college. I realize that I am never to old to reach my goals. I want to go back and graduate so I can say that I am a college…

    • 125 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The article “Are You Deciding On Purpose” about the interview of author, speaker, and counselor Richard Leider really made me think about my life and what I want to do with myself. Leider brings up many great points in the interview and it was an eye opener for me after I finished reading the article. The first thing he mentions in the interview is how people are intimidated by all the choices we have now as career options. Nowadays, there are so many career paths to choose from that it overwhelms people and the decisions that they make. I think this is true for everyone and especially me. I thought about this for a while and I too do not have any idea what I want to do in my life. I have changed my mind many times about what I wanted to do as a career and I always thought about the money. After I finished reading the article, I realized that picking a career path is not all about the money. It’s about whether you enjoy what you are doing because you spend 60% of your entire life working. If I spent 60% of my entire life just working to pay the bills, I would be miserable by the time I’m retired because there wasn’t any satisfaction or fulfillment for me. I still don’t have any clue on what I want to do with my life but reading this article really changed my mind on a lot of things.…

    • 605 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As a high school student there’s a lot of work and event’s going on. Whenever someone says “so what are you doing after high school”? I always say I don’t know. Sometimes it helps me to think what I don’t want to do and it narrows it down for me. My dad has been in the fire department for 30 years and he’s always saying I should follow in his footsteps. I would love to commit to a job like everyone else, but I feel like once I get older my mind will change. My post-secondary goals are still unclear, but not because I don’t know what to do. It seems like there are a lot of careers I would fit into and would excel at. So why would I commit to one now. By the end of high school, I will pursue a career and I can see if I like it or not. I have spent my whole childhood thinking about playing college football but I don’t really see a…

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Electoral College

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators. There have been four presidents to win the presidency without actually winning the popular vote of the nation. The most recent incident of this was the 2000 election of President George W. Bush, and this sparked a new interest in changing the system. There are two states, Nebraska and Maine that currently use their electoral votes a little differently than the other 48 states. They allot two electoral votes to the statewide winner and the rest according to the winner in each congressional district. This is one change to the system that is currently being presented by legislators in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Another possible change is the “Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote”, or the NPV compact. It would require electors to vote for the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide. An issue with this change is that the president would most likely be elected from votes of more populated areas like big cities that have similar beliefs and the smaller states and rural areas voices’ would be lost due to them being so spread out. One major concern for the NPV compact is that it could lead to corruption of the voting process by candidates being blackmailed with the threat of losing votes if the blackmailer’s demands weren’t met. Also…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Faust as a Romantic Hero

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages

    And lastly, he is a icon for all humanity. Faust is continually striving, and reaching for more power, more knowledge and more experience (Mitchell, 5). While this continually leads to failure, he never quits trying to gain more . He is also versatile, becoming despondent when he can 't obtain what he desires. The reader might see these failures as Faust 's tragedy, as everything he is involved in turns out badly. But, in these failures he is representative of humanity. In the Prologue in Heaven the Lord states that "man errs as long as he will strive." (Lawall & Mack, 442)…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Personal Vision Paper

    • 4922 Words
    • 20 Pages

    While getting older you travel to different stages of life, and for a long time in your life you only dream of things you would like to become. For instance, when I was just a little boy around the age of eight I dreamed about becoming the president of The Netherlands. My teacher would always say wake up! Stop living in this fantasy world be realistic. But I kept on dreaming about becoming something important. I looked up to people with important jobs, how they communicate or give presentations and speeches to enormous crowds. That inspired me. But there comes a time when you are forced to stop dreaming at least when you are awake. And that moment came when I left high school. I began to realize that the time to think about my future profession had arrived. I had to think about a job and make that right choice, and then you realize that it is not that easy as: I want to be a doctor, pilot or even a president. You have to choice different paths, will I become a doctor or an economist and you realize you can’t be both. And you ask yourself the question, what do I want to be when leaving school? And you ask that question over and over again and it becomes more and…

    • 4922 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Meaning of Life

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Through one question I realized this great truth: what do you want to be when you grow up? For the longest time, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. What did it matter to me anyway? I was a kid (well, I suppose I still am) and didn’t like any of the generic jobs they told us about in elementary school. Police force, teachers, fireman, none of them interested me. Then, in middle school, my life changed, a lot. I got completely new friends, after the old ones left me behind. I slowly started to become more and more enclosed, I spent most of my time out of school alone. As I developed into this over-dramatic teenage state, life suddenly became meaningless. I would often find myself sitting bored in my room, mindlessly surfing the internet or playing videogames. I slowly started to hate it; it was like I could feel my brain melting inside my head. I needed to find a more constructive hobby, and so I found myself musical instruments and started creating more and more music every day.…

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As we grow up, our decisions change. We start out at a young age saying we want to be a princess, superhero, or rockstar. After realizing that we cannot ever be one of those, we start to be more realistic with what we want to be later in life. As a middle schooler, many of us tend to say we want to be a teacher, doctor, or vet because they make a lot of money. However, as we go through junior high school and high school many people tend to be completely lost as to where they want their life to go. As teenagers, adults should not expect us to have our entire life figured out. We are still learning and making regrets as we mature into adulthood. For several people, they do not figure out what they want to do with their life until the middle of college. However, I am completely different.…

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Most teenagers do not have a clue about what they want to be when they grow up. Most young adults also do not know where their path is in life. Even some full-blown adults are still trying to figure out their purpose. I was lucky. I knew exactly where I belonged from about the time I was seven up until now, at the decently young age of nineteen. I do not see my path changing anytime soon; in fact, I know it will never change. But, I did not just wake up one day as a child and know what my path was, while that would be impressive. Defining moments in one’s life defines who they are. There were lots of things I experienced in my life that made me realize my purpose, my absolute passion. I had four of these defining moments in my short span of…

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays