Good vs. Bad

Second God: And above all: be good! Farewell!
First God: Farewell
Third God: Farewell
Shen Te: But everything is so expensive, I don’t feel sure I can do it!
Second God: That’s not in our sphere. We never meddle with economics (11).

Usually Gods give a lot of freedom and leeway to sticky situations because they can make anything happen but not too much in this play. There is satire in the fact that the Gods do not “meddle” in economics. Why not? Why can’t the Gods end Shen Te’s troubles then and there and make her rich. The Gods do repay her for her hospitality and she is able to open a shop but later we see that being good is bad business. The shop could never be successful in the way she does business. Shen Te herself wonders why the Gods are so helpless when she sings “The Song of the Defenseless”:

The Good can’t defend themselves and
Even the Gods are Defenseless…
Oh, why don’t the Gods have their own ammunition
And launch against badness their own expedition…
Oh, why don’t the Gods do the buying and selling
Injustice forbidding, starvation dispelling…
You can only help one of your luckless brothers
By trampling down a dozen others (51).

Why are the God’s in Brecht play so helpless when usually Gods have the power to free people from any situation? The Gods are helpless because Bertolt wants the power to be in the people’s hands. What would a person do or more specifically what would a good person do to help a friend? How far would a good person go to help and provide? The audience would not be able to answer these questions if the Gods solved all the problems. Are the Gods naïve to suggest that everything would work out if you just be good. On page 46 there is hope for this idealism. The old couple gives Shen Te money so she may pay her rent and keep her shop because they see and admire all the good she does. Shen Te gets overwhelmingly happy not only because she can keep her shop but because maybe she can keep it and continue to be good. This brings up the question whether you have to be bad and cunning in order to help yourself or others financially? The hope dies when Shen Te must once again put on her mask to be the mean business man to help out her lover. She apparently sees no other way. In her song she realizes the Gods will not make everything just and that she must be reasonable. If she does not alter her good ways then it would not only be the end to her but to all she is trying to help. She must be bad to do good.














Work Cited

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