In Bertolt Brecht's play, The Good Woman of Setzuan, we are introduced to a prostitute named Shen Te. At the beginning, we see that Shen Te is very kind and she basically lets people run over her. She does everything to please others including allowing many of her relatives to come in and stay in her very small and crowded tobacco shop. But, then she sort of disappears and a new character is introduced -- Shui Ta, her cousin. Shui Ta comes in and sort of just takes control of everything and is basically the complete opposite of Shen Te. Later, when Shui Ta is accused of murdering Shen Te and trying to take over her business, we see him confess that he is Shen Te. Shen Te had simply dressed and created an alter-ego. But, why?
On page 103, Shen Te gives this long explanation as to why she fabricated the story of having a cousin. She says, to the Gods,
"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 us/When we help the lost, we are lost
ourselves/And
so/Since not to eat is to die/Who can long refuse to be
bad?"
Through this, Brecht tells what I believe is the whole point of his play. No one can avoid being bad. Even if someone tries to be perfect and good, something inside of them is always going to be bad. People are always going to somehow be prideful, lust what others have, and lie to get their way. As the story developed, it was hard to understand why Brecht would choose to make one woman seem crazy by having two personalities but then I realized what he was trying to do. I believe that his use of an alter ego was his way of using satire to prove a point. Although at first I didn't understand the satire in it, I then understood that it was that people have to create different personalities to live in the world. We don't need two personalities though. Everyone has both already. Sure most people prefer to be "good" rather than "bad" but everyone has their moments. The purpose of this play was to show that there aren't just bad people and just good people. Everyone has a little of each inside of them, you just have to accept it and learn to live with it to survive in this world.
Works Cited:
Brecht, Bertolt, and Eric Bentley. The Good Woman of Setzuan. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 1999. Print.
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