After reading the play The Good Woman of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht I have a better understanding of what satire is. What seems to be the main satirized idea in this play is that it’s impossible to be a good person because people will take advantage of you. Shen Te, the protagonist of this play, believes this so in order to keep committing good deeds she develops an alter ego, Shui Ta that does what’s necessary to protect Shen Te from those that want to take advantage of her.
The reason I think being a good person is what’s being satirized in this play is that I don’t believe that just because you don’t let people take advantage of you means you’re a bad person. I think its possible to have good people who help others but at the same time know how to protect themselves. However, this isn’t what Shen Te believed; she thought that if she wasn’t selfless and thought about herself once in a while she was a bad person. For example, when she came upon money she just handed it out left and right. When I think about her doing that I don’t think about her being a good person, I think about her dumb and squandering her money. This is a very foolish way to use her money because, beside the obvious reasons, she could be using that money to invest it and create more of it. By generating more money she could her more people. But Shen Te doesn’t think about this, she thinks that if she doesn’t extend her hand to the needy right away she’s being a bad person.
In order to balance some of those “good” deeds she made she created Shui Ta, which, like Kersia explained in her blog, isn’t a bad person, he only does what he feels is necessary and logical in order to help Shen Te. It wasn’t long, however, before she confessed the truth.
SECOND GOD: What have you done with our good woman of
Setzuan?
SHUI TA: I have a terrible confession to make: I am she!
SECOND GOD: Shen Te!
SHEN TE: Shen Te, yes. Shui Ta and Shen Te Both./Your injunction/ To be good and yet to live/ Was a thunderbolt:/ It has torn me in two/ I can’t tell how it was/ But to be good to others/ And myself at the same time/ I could not do it/ Your world is not an easy one, illustrious ones!/ When we extend our hand to a beggar, he tears it off for us/ When we help the lost, we are lost ourselves/ And so/ Since to not eat is to die/ Who can long refuse to be bad? (102)
After doing some research I found evidence that explained Shen Te’s multiple personality disorder. In the article “split Personality” a Rapidly Growing Psychotic Disorder I found that “Typically a patient's primary identity has the person's own given name and is passive, dependent, guilty and depressed. Meanwhile, other personalities - or alters - that surface at different times are more likely to be hostile, controlling and self-destructive.” This exactly how it is with Shen Te. She herself was too giving, too selfless, so she created a more hostile, more controlling alter ego to defend her true self. If she hadn’t thought that not letting people take advantage of her meant that she was a bad person Shen Te wouldn’t have had to create this alter ego.
Work Cited
Brecht, Bertolt, and Eric Bentley. The Good Woman of Setzuan. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 1999. Print.
"split Personality€ a Rapidly Growing Psychotic Disorder." Free Articles Directory | Submit Articles - ArticlesBase.com. Web. 19 Apr. 2010.
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ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe that an alter ego was needed to make Shan Te’s quality of life better. I think the only reason why she created this alter ego was to make her new image of the respectable good woman of Setzuan permanent. Shan Te isn’t strong enough to learn how to stand up for herself and stop letting people walk all over her. She created Shui Ta as a defense mechanism to try and be though. In reality I think that she should have done this without the help of an alter ego. It defeats the purpose. I mean she is not changing she is just pretending to be though and ruthless when in reality she’s nothing but a push over. A good woman to me is someone that’s kind to others but because she feels like she has to; not because she can’t act mean.
ReplyDeleteWell, I must agree with Javier because I believe that just as easy as Shen Te chooses to become Shui Ta, she could just as easily choose to say no and stand up for herself. One of the greatest gifts that God gave man is the gift to choose and as a human, Shen Te also has that choice, but by choosing to be a totally different person than she is, she is voluntarily forfeiting her God given right to choose. By becoming Shui Ta is tough times, she is restricting Shen Te to being “good” while Shui Ta is forced to be the yang in the situation. A good person isn't someone who allows themselves to be run over, that is just foolish; a good person is someone who can make sound decision and live an admirable life.Oscar Wilde, a well known Irish poet once said, “I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.” I think that this whole one person pretending to be two people in order to make the claim that she is truly good is a great example of hypocrisy
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