Faust himself didn't get tricked. He was offered the chance to get out of it until the very last instant. There wasn't any sneaky wording. There wasn't anything to outwit.
At the beginning he somehow convinced himself that his soul didn't really exist, despite the presence of a literal devil in front of him, offering the power to do genuine magic. At the end he somehow just couldn't bring himself to repent.
In between he uses his power for absolutely nothing of interest. The most earth shaking thing he does is that he plays a prank on the Pope.
I'll be honest that I really don't get the point of the story. It's not about the devil being a trickster. If anything it reads kinda like a self critique by Marlowe, but that reading is also kinda shaky. It's more like people just wanted to see an academic get taken down a peg.
At the beginning he somehow convinced himself that his soul didn't really exist, despite the presence of a literal devil in front of him, offering the power to do genuine magic. At the end he somehow just couldn't bring himself to repent.
In between he uses his power for absolutely nothing of interest. The most earth shaking thing he does is that he plays a prank on the Pope.
I'll be honest that I really don't get the point of the story. It's not about the devil being a trickster. If anything it reads kinda like a self critique by Marlowe, but that reading is also kinda shaky. It's more like people just wanted to see an academic get taken down a peg.