Don't Be Prejudiced

Something that has really been frustrating me about the play we are currently reading, The Good Woman of Setzuan, by Bertolt Brecht is that I don’t understand the satire that it presents. I think that part of this is due because I tend to associate satire with comedy. Although satire can be comic it isn’t all the time; also what I think is comic depends on my own personal taste.

So basically, as I’ve been reading the play, I’ve been looking for examples of satires. The only one I’ve recognized, though, is the one that Susan pointed before we started reading the play: how Wong the water seller of Setzuan is looking for a good person to take the Gods in for a night and that good person ends up being a prostitute, Shen Te.

This is a satire because the author is showing us through irony how people are stupid in having a preconceived idea of what a good person is. Unfortunately society tags people and places them into very broad categories, two of these are good and bad. People like prostitutes are classified into the bad category. However, its unfair to tag someone as being a bad person simply because they live this kind of life style. Sure, you could argue that even if they are extremely poor they could find other ways to make money, but that still doesn’t make it ok to judge them without even knowing them. The following scene proves that Shen Te, in spite of being a prostitute is a good person:

WONG: Godless rascal! Have you no religion, gentleman of Setzuan? Patience, illustrious ones! There’s on ly one person left. Shen Te the protitute. She can’t say no. Shen Te! Shen Te, it’s Wong. They’re here, and nobody wants them. Will you take them?

SHEN TE: Oh no, Wong, I’m expecting a gentleman…Oh very well! I’ll hide till my gentleman has come and gone. Then I’ll take them. (8)

Wong the water seller meets the Gods when they are entering the city of Setzuan. They tell him that they need a place to stay and Wong says

WONG: The whole town is at your service. (6)

However, Wong asks many people to take in the Gods and they all decline. Shen Te on the contrary accepts. She also does this in spite of having to work. She knows that she has to work in order to eat but she chooses to not send the Gods away. Now that we know this we can easily see how Shen Te is a great person in spite of being a prostitute. This shows us that we should never judge a person before we get to know them.

Works Cited

Brecht, Bertolt, and Eric Bentley. The Good Woman of Setzuan. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 1999. Print.