Deep Value

“The World can stay as it is if enough people are found living lives worthy of human beings” (7).

The world in, The Good Woman of Setzuan, is a very complicated place where all types of people live under the rule of the almighty gods. I can totally see how much it does relate to our own world. One thing that I found interesting was how three gods appeared in the play right from the start. Now this made me wonder if it has to do something with the divine trinity of the Catholic Church. The gods from the start seem to be on a mission. They want to either keep or destroy the world. They go to Setzuan where they believe they might find a good person. They come across the water seller and they immediately notice that he really isn’t a good fellow. What I like about the gods is that they don’t loose hope in finding a good person, but they leave it up to the measly water seller to be in charge of finding some descent person they can rest with. After many tries they come across Shan Te, a town prostitute, who gets rid of her nights entertainment to fulfill the gods needs. I had been missing out on the irony but when I came across the fact that the gods where going to stay with a prostitute I understood a bit more of the play. What I don’t understand is how the gods allowed for the water seller to give them a place to stay? If they knew he was a crook why would they ever trust him to find them a place to stay? What was more ironic was how much they really liked and enjoyed Shan Te’s company. Even though she was a prostitute they still stayed the night with her and in the morning had good conversation. This made me wonder if the three gods were looking for a good person that wasn’t defined by their occupation. Eventually the gods found out that she was a prostitute they reply with, “That’s not in our sphere. We never meddle with economics” (11). I really liked how the third god accepted that Shan Te was a prostitute. He might not have officially accepted that it was okay to earn your living by selling yourself but he didn’t criticize. He made it seem like it was just something you did for money and your morals had nothing to do with it. I do agree by what the gods had to say about jobs and how they don’t have to reflect on your persona. They even decided to give her money because she needed it. It seemed to me that they thought money was something trivial which is a good thing.