The question of Gretchen is a question which is asked directly and generally directly to the interviewee. The question of Gretchen always has a content, the price of which is unpleasant to the interviewee. Frequently, the question of gretchen is also associated with a naive questioner, which, however, does not necessarily have to be the case in today’s language usage. The term goes back to Goethe’s Faust and marks a conversation between Gretchen and Faust.
The so-called Gretchen question in verse 3415 (Marthen’s garden) can be found in Goethe’s Faust. It is important in this context that Gretchen has been very heavily courted by academic Faust until this time. The scene is therefore played after several meetings of the two. It is unclear for the reader how far the physical relationship between protagonist and deuteragonist has advanced at this time.
In this scene the following exchange of words takes place between Margarete, that is, Gretchen, and Doctor Faust. This conversation must be the background to the question.
Gretchen’s question in verse 3415 (Marthen’s garden): How did you deal with religion?
Margarete: Promise me, Heinrich!
Faust: What I can!
Margarete: Now tell me, how did you deal with religion?
You are a very good man,
But I think you do not think much of it.
Faust: Leave that, my child! You feel I am good to you;
For my loved ones, I left my body and my blood,
No one wants to rob his feelings and his church.
Margarete: That’s not right, you have to believe it.
Faust: Do you have to?
Background of the Gretchen question
Gretchen asks Faust how he is with religion. In other words, Gretchen asks what Doctor Faust believes in his innermost core. But Faust does not answer and winds out of the conversation and does not answer the questioning in the following course any clear answer.
We must assume that Margarete has an important relationship with religion and that her life is shaped by Christian values and others judged by them. In contrast, we have Faust, who has abdicated all religion and entered into a pact with the devil.
If Faust answers the question of the Gretchen in a sensible and truthful way,
… he probably would not get to his goal – a liaison with Gretchen
… Gretchen probably could not understand his answer in its entirety.
This means that the question is aimed at the core of a problem and is not to be answered “true” by Faust when he places his own goals in the foreground.
Note: We must take into account that, at the time of the work, the question of the faith of a person also directly aims at one’s own reality, value creation and life language. When Gretchen asks the learned Faust, she also asks what attitude she must reckon on the part of the doctor, and what moral attitudes he has in his life.
Meaning of the question
As shown, Faust can not answer the question. Whoever does not answer a question of Gretchen wants to protect himself, so as not to succumb to the motives of asking questions.
It is important that we differentiate a question from other questions in that the respondent can answer and usually only get into a trouble because the answer is unpleasant and requires a confession of a situation (cf. dilemma).
It is not therefore that the question should not be answered or the interviewee is no longer possible, but that the latter wants to push around the required confession.
However, we can also understand the question of Gretchen in so far as it has an object as its content, of which a great deal depends on the questioner. Consequently, it can be a question of fate, even if it is not always so.
The original question of Gretchen aims at the relation to religion. However, Gretchen questions in language usage can also have other references.
Gretchen questions in the language
Nowadays, that is to say in general language use, a question of gretchen means that the respondent is reluctant to answer the real question or to make a confession.
Let us imagine a teacher holding a teaching unit on crime in youth and, at the beginning, posing the question as to how his students have gained experience or come into contact with it. The students answer truthfully.
Afterwards, a student asked the Gretchen question: Mr. XY, did they commit crimes in their youth?
Mr. XY was really delinquent in youth. Now it’s up to him to answer the question. If he cleans up and describes his offense, this may have consequences – perhaps the offense is disagreeable to him or he would not confess to his pupils that this is so – or does he deny any reference and lie? Mr. XY got into a pinch.
Further examples of the Gretchen question
Finally, we would like to give you a few examples in order to be able to grasp and clarify the entire range of such questions.
1. Example of a Gretchen question
Situation: In the year 2013 a report about the mail order Amazon made the round. The poor conditions of the employed temporary workers were revealed and they showed that they had lower working conditions and fewer collateral. The question to the group could be:
What about the employed temporary workers? Are they paid well?
The Group is addressed directly to the actual problem by this question. The answer requires an immediate confession of the mail-order company and can, of course, be unpleasant for the interviewee.
2. Example of a Gretchen question
Situation: Mr. A cheats his wife regularly and stops once a week in a deluxe house. He makes the contact with his cell phone, but his cheers are struck by him.
Tell me! How often do you go to the brothel?
Mr A can not make a meaningful reply to this question. At least not if he had to allow him to pay one day a week for love services.
3. Example of a Gretchen query
Situation: Magdalena and Jonathan get to know each other during an excursion. They intertwine, but both are in a relationship with another partner. In the evening, the two come to talk with a glass of wine and Magdalena asks Jonathan:
Are you faithful in a relationship and what do you think of loyalty?
Jonathan gets into a pinch. For, on the one hand, he would like to tell the young woman, whom he finds charming, that fidelity is important to him. But when he says that he is loyal to everything, he immediately closes a new relationship with Magdalena. This question is most probably due to the original Gretchen question from Goethe’s Faust.
The most important overview
The question of Gretchen goes back to Goethe’s Faust. Margarete asks Doctor Faust about his relationship to religion.
However, these days it is less a question of a direct relationship with religion than important questions that require a confession from the interviewee.
Answering the question of the Gretchen is usually unpleasant to the interviewee, but can have an immense significance for the questioner.
