“Mrs. Faust” is a poem by Carol Duffy in which she updates and reimagines the story of Faust. Faust is the man who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for living in a world in which all his dreams came true, but only for a quarter-century, at the end of which the devil comes to collect and damn his soul to an eternity of suffering in hell.
As the title hints, this particular version of the oft-told morality tale is related from the point of view of the woman who marries Faust. The opening quickly establishes this fact while also kicking off the rhythm and pace of the story which is told very tersely and very rapidly. “First things first / I married Faust / We met as students, / shacked up, split up.” The lexicon of the vernacular subtly shows how this is going to be an updated version taking place in modern times. The fact that it is taking place within a contemporary milieu is especially significant since it shows how though time has passed, the basic selfishness of man has changed very little.
Mrs. Faust goes on to simultaneously reveal information that both reveals to the reader a lot about her marriage while also giving very little details. She and Faust get married, buy a house, earn college degrees, move several times according to an increase in financial status which allow them to purchase boats, a second home, computers, and toys. She admits to enjoying the lifestyle she shared with Faust but not the life itself. He becomes addicted to attention and honors and whores while she looks for meaning or escape in a variety of different ways including yoga and Feng Shui. One night she overhears voices in another room in which her husband is promised political power and great wealth and global influence. He becomes an arms dealer before getting in on the ground floor of advances in cloning technology. While this is all going on with her husband, Mrs. Faust seeks solace in vacations, plastic surgery, changing hair colors, exploring different religions and movements, and getting used to being alone. And then one night after both husband and wife have moved into middle age, Faust confesses to the deal he made with the devil and that the time has come for him to pay the debt. A serpent suddenly rises through the floor and disappears with the body of her husband. In his will, Faust left literally everything to his wife. She reaps the benefits of his financial legacy but mostly relishes in the ironic truth.
Her husband did not even have a soul to sell.
The tone of this retelling of the legend is comic but ultimately ironic. There is never any mention of actual love or even affection existing between Faust and his wife. The very short lines—the longest has only eight words and the bulk only about half that many—are only highlights of a well-lived life. They point to the practice of accumulation and consumption but no practical utilization. Faust’s bargain with the devil is all about gaining more wealth and power but there is nothing to suggest that he does anything with these attributes to make him, his wife, or anyone else happy or better. It is a story of getting things without those things really making one happy. Faust sells his soul in order to enjoy all this even though, as stated, there is never even the slightest indication of actual contentment.
The ironic twist at the end slyly upends everything that has come before perhaps in a way that is just a little too subtle for every reader to appreciate. While her husband has been accumulating things without making himself happy, Mrs. Faust has been busy experiencing things which she hopes will make herself happy. In her loneliness and relatively abandonment, she has busied with her mind and body with a variety of interests which quite easily fall under the umbrella of a such a woman attempting to “find herself” but never quite succeeding.
In the end Mrs. Faust laughs at both her husband and the devil because of the pact they made which brought neither what they really wanted. Her husband had all his desires met but gained no lasting satisfaction while the devil got a body without a soul. In the end, however, Mrs. Faust gets everything without having to sell her soul. And it is only at the end of the poem, after her youth has been spent with nothing to show for it, that she finds happiness, thinking her soul remains intact. But her happiness suggests that perhaps her husband was not the only one in the marriage without a soul.
