Careful readers can see Faust everywhere; he continues to appear in film, in politics, and in various forms of popular culture. From Hrotsvit, to Spies, to Marlowe, Goethe, Mann, Mofolo and even Levins Rosemarys Baby, Faust is a fascinating subject because he is so human; the devil (in whatever form he takesfrom poodle to bald androgyne) is representative of our desiresmany of which we are fearful of expressing. He fascinates because he acts on the very desires we wish to repress and reveals the cultural milieu of desire in his damnation or redemption. It is from this angle that I propose to examine the Faust legends: redemption. Though this dissertation is, ideally, part of a much larger study on the redemption topoi in literature, Faust exemplifies the problems and definitions. Studied most often as a single text subject, say Goethes Faust or Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper, redemption lacks significant research on its own grounds, despite it prevalence in literature, except where it is encoded within the discussion of the function of literature itself. I propose, instead, that Redemption has a four related, but separate, uses in literature and literary interpretation involving sacred, secular, political, and aesthetic redemptions. In order to elucidate the matter, I will use the Faust legends and the appearance of redemption within them.