The "Good People"

Their consent in the end completely changed Babette.  They saw that as a young woman she had been beautiful.  And they wondered whether in this hour they themselves had not, for the very first time, become to her the "good people" of Achille Papin's letter (38).

The two sisters, Martine and Philippa, in Babette's Feast, are seen by their town as good people.  They themselves see themselves in this light as well.  "...they were poor and that to them luxurious fare was sinful.  Thier own food must be as plain as possible...(32)."  This is how they justified denying Babette to indulge in the artistry for French cooking she posessed.  They claimed that French luxury was near sinful.  The sisters do in fact give to chairity and never turn down anyone that ends up on their doorstep.  Babette is a good example of their goodness.  They do not know her, yet they take her in when Achille Papin recommends the sisters to Babette as good people that can help her.  Babette accepts their offer and submits to the sisters' requests. 

When Babette wins the lottery, the sisters' attitude change toward her.  They are afraid that they will lose her, meaning they will be losing a servant that they are not paying at all.  This makes the sisters selfish.  Although it may be best for Babette to leave, they don't want her to because it will be inconveniencing them and they feel that Babette owes them for taking her in, although that is not really being a good person.  When Babette makes the simple request to cook a French dinner for their benefit and decides to spend her money for the feast the sisters give in grudgingly.  This is when I realized that the sisters are not truly good.  This goes back to my argument in Good Woman of Setzuan: No one can be purely good.  Eveyone has their flaws, and Babette brought out the flaws of the sisters in this novela.  

Work Cited:

Dinesen, Isak. "Babette's Feast." Babette's Feast and Other Anecdotes of Destiny. New York: Vintage, 1988. Print.

Test

In the play The good woman of Setzuan written by Bertolt Brecht we see how the gods that appear in this play put people up to do to some things that are so tough for humans to handle. Throughout our whole lives many people worship their gods with all their will. In this play we see how the people are so helpful that the gods could help them with whatever problems it is that they have. The gods first expect for the humnas to work for what they want.
“Well, um, good-will. for instance, might do instead of love?" (80).
The gods sent Shen Te to carry their book of rules across a river and make sure it didn't get wet. In this quote wong is expressing his opinion on what the gods are doing to Shen Te. Wong is asking them to find a better way to care for Shen Te then to make her have to carry the heavy rule book. Wong feels like if the gods are testing Shen Te a little to hard. Just like sometimes us humans feel like god has given up on us but it is all just a test of our faith for him. Wong wonders if there is a simpler way that Shen Te could serve the gods instead of this punishment. Sometimes we as humans look up to the heavens and ask god "Why to me?" the true is that he is always testing us and no matter what the punishment that he gives us we should just put up with it and look forward cause after every hardship there is a great satisfaction. God will never give up on us and he would not test us to hard if he knew that we couldn’t handle it. Sometimes instead of asking why we should look up and thank him for everything that he has provided to us.
Brecht, Bertolt. The Good Woman of Setzuan. New York: Grove, 1966. Print.

Was an Alter Ego Needed?

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. .

Hypocritical Hypocrites

Nobody wants her. She's a woman of the street. She doesn't respect herself so why would anyone else respect her? Nobody knows the real Shen Te, but they are quick to judge. She goes through struggles but nobody cares. She's just a prostitute. Then the gods show up. They change her life. They help her out and she wants to change the direction her life is taking.
When Shen Te becomes economically stable, all of a sudden people that looked down on her are asking her for shelter. When Shen Te needed shelter, they turned her down, and they fear that she will do the same, but she didn't.

SHEN TE: They put me up when I first came in from the country.(To the audience) Of course, when my small purse was empty, they put me on the street, and they may be afraid I'll do the same to them. (To newcomers, kindly) Come in, and welcome, though I've only one little room for you – it's behind the shop. (13)

Shen Te has a warm heart, and she actually worries about the well being of others. But even while she takes care of them, they don't think of repaying her, not even by respecting her shop. The moochers that she let into her house not only took from Shen Te, but also tried to steal from the bakery near Shen Te's shop. This would make Shen Te look bad because she would be known for harboring thieves. But no one took her seriously still after all she did for everyone, so she had to transform into Shui Ta, her “cousin”. When Shui Ta arrived on the scene, the games were over. The hypocrisy levels sky rocketed. All of a sudden, the moochers, along with the non-moochers respected Shen Te, in front of Shui Ta, which is also Shen Te, but hated Shui Ta because of the mean things he did. The only thing wrong with that is that the people getting mad for Shui Ta's actions did the same or something similar to Shen Te. As Shui Ta, Shen Te's confidence went up, and she was able to order people around.
Days after Shui Ta got the thieves arrested for stealing bread, and kicked every person living in the shop out, Shen Te allowed the thieves to keep some of their tobacco in the back room of her shop. Once Shui Ta arrived on the scene, he pretended not to know anything about it and claimed it as his own. He threaten to call the policeman over to make sure that it belonged to him, but the thieves refused and gave him their tobacco. They weren't very happy about this, but when they stole a cigar, or two, or three from Shen Te, they didn't care. They were hypocrites.
The charade continued for quite a while. Shen Te's dual personality, showed her the others' dual personalities. Sure they didn't change their names and appearances like Shen Te did, but they acted differently around Shen Te and Shui Ta. Yang Sun for example, acted like he cared for Shen Te around her, but around Shui Ta, he showed his other side. He showed his selfish side. This benefited Shen Te because she now knew how he really felt about her, but she loved him, and she now had his baby in her stomach. So she couldn't really do much against him. But Shui Ta took care of Yang Sun.
But the play's biggest hypocrisy went further than anything that the mortal character did. In this play, the gods were the biggest hypocrites. It upset them that people didn't believe in them, but they didn't believe there was any good soul. The entire play is filled with hypocrites. People, or spirits, that get mad when others do as they do. The only person who wasn't a hypocrite was the good woman of Setzuan herself. She led by example to all from the mortal humans to the omnipotent gods.
In the last scene, Shen Te reveals herself to the gods who were acting as judges. They find what she did astonishing, but admire her for it. Wong, the water seller sees Shen Te and get excited to know that she is alive. They all missed her, but she knows that without her “cousin” everyone will walk all over her. Even though the play has no clearbv ending to it, which makes it hard to understand the moral, a wise conclusion would be that Bertolt Brecht wanted to persuade his audience to let go of that hypocrisy, and to be more understanding people that are less judgmental. The way he tried to persuade his audience was by showing us the opposite in all of the characters except one. Perhaps we should all take after the good woman of Setzuan, and make the Earth more tolerable.


Works Cited

Brecht, Bertolt. The Good Woman Of Setzuan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1948.

What is the Water Seller's role in the Play?

Yes he sells water, and has a more difficult time selling when it begins to rain, but Wong is not just preoccupied with quenching the thirst of innocent citizens who dare and buy his tainted water. To appear in every slot, every minute of the plot, Wong must be a pretty busy man. Is Wong some kind of facilitator?-By giving the latest news to the three Gods, usually involving Shen Te.

"Wong: She had to call on her cousin again. But not even he could help. I'm afraid is done for.
Third God (a little concerned): Perhaps we should help after all?" (70)

Perhaps we have been sleeping on Wong young fellow bloggers; Wong's purpose is much more pertinent than you might realize. Wong remains steady and consistent in terms of having talks with the Gods. Besides Shen Te, and at the end of the play where the court exposes the Gods to every character, Wong is the main character that interacted with higher beings (the three Gods).

Not bad for a water seller.

A Sudden Change of Heart

In the second part of The Good Woman of Setzuan, Yang Sun becomes more attentive to Shan Te towards the end of the play. Before as we had seen he did not care about her at all. All he cared about was the money that he would obtain from Shan Te once they were married. When Shi Ta wonder on why Shan Te is devoted to Sun he says, “Because I have my hand on her breasts. Give me a cigar” (56). Evidently he does not care about Shan Te enough to say something wordy of the Good Woman of Setzuan. A bit later Sun also makes it clear that, “Ill marry her, then bring me the three hundred. Or let her bring it. One or the other” (56). His cruelty is further demonstrated when it is said that Yang Su tears Shan Te’s weeding dress after they fail to get married due to Shui Ta’s absence. Although some people might not think that this character is not important but I think it is. I think that the author is portraying a very ugly side of men that we like to hide. Yang Su behaves in the most atrocious way the only person that loves him, Shan Te. Instead of waiting or postponing the weeding to another day he simply leaves and drags Shan Te out of the cheap restaurant. After Yang Sun wastes the money that Shan Te gave him she has to find a way to replay it. After Shan Te finds a way of expanding her tobacco industry. She begins to do well for herself but in the mean time her other self, Shui Ta files a police report against Yang Sun against failed marriage and the fact that he obtained two-hundred silver dollars illegally. I really started to notice the change in heart of Yang Sun when he goes back to Shan Te’s tobacco shop dragging his feet in defeat. All he says is that, “the money is gone” (83). Shui Ta offers him a job as a test of his goodwill and he accepts. He even asks to speak to Shan Te, which he had never just thought of her before. He works in the tobacco shop long enough for Shui Ta to promote him due to his effort and hard work. After this it seems like Yang Sun is more interested in the well being of Shan Te than before. It seems like he has suddenly been struck by good will and wants to be with Shan Te. I think this is important because it shows that some people are willing to change if some hope is put on them.

Making Better Decisions

The Gods have chosen Shen Te because she is a good person. She has proved that she is not selfish by putting others before herself. She feeds rice to the poor, provides shelter for people who treated her wrong, and lends money to those who ask for it. All of Shen Te’s accomplishments are not enough because she can’t manage to have a successful life.

It seems that Shen Te is well respected in the district she lives in because of what she does for the rest of the people that live there. Every day, she feeds rice to those less fortunate and has gained the name of the Angel of the Slums (41). Feeding those who are less fortunate has gained her some respect from people like the barber, Shu Fu, but not from everybody. When Shu Fu discovered that Shen Te was about to lose her Tobacco shop he immediately offered to help without asking for something in return. He first let her know that he was aware of the unfairness behind her losing her shop, then made sure Shen Te knew that he respected the way she sacrificed herself for others, and then Shu Fu offered a blank check to her disposal (73). This check was the solution to keeping her Tobacco shop, but it wasn’t what Shen Te wanted.

Even though Shen Te is about to lose her Tobacco Shop, she faces other people’s problems. Wong, the water seller, came up to her for help. The Carpenter had lost his shop, was drinking, and his children were on the streets (75). Shen Te quickly finds a solution to the Carpenter’s problem. She manages to find shelter for the Carpenter’s family at Mr. Shu Fu’s cabins, but gets nothing in return. Shen Te’s personal problems are still active. The Carpenter is not going to worry about Shen Te losing her Tobacco shop, nor is going to compensate her for finding him shelter.

Another occasion when Shen Te tries to help others, even if she is not helping herself, is when she gives Yang Sun money. She knows that Yang Sun needs her money to be a pilot again, and she is willing to lose her shop to help him out. There is nothing more she wants than seeing her loved one’s dream come true. Shen Te knows that Yang Sun only wants her money because he confessed to Shui Ta that he was aware of the influence he had over Shen Te.

Yang Sun: “Shen Te is a woman: she is devoid of common sense. I only have to lay my hand on her shoulder, and church bells ring. (56)

What Yang Sun doesn’t know is that Shen Te is aware of his intentions, but knowing Sun’s intentions will not benefit Shen Te.

Shen Te’s good spirit only affects her because she is not doing anything to help herself in the long run. She is not benefiting from all the great things she does to help others. What she needs to do is bring out the Shui Ta she has deep inside herself. If she does, Shen Te will have the strength to make decisions that will make her better off.

Work cited: Brecht, Bertolt. The Good Woman of Setzuan. New York: Grove, 1947. Print.

Why two people?

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.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ariannameli/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

She's being naive

In the last few sections of the play I didn’t find any humor in it what so ever. In fact these sections make me angry. I don’t understand how Shen Te can be so ignorant and blind even after she heard Yang Sun tell Mr. Shui Ta that he wasn’t really in it for the love, but for the money that she could give him for his pilot job in Peking. The conversation starts on page 55 when Yang Sun talks to Shui Ta to get him to pay up the rest of the money for him to go to Peking and become a pilot.

Shui Ta: Two people can’t travel for nothing.
Yang Sun (not giving Shui Ta a chance to answer): I’m leaving her behind. No millstone around my neck!
Shui Ta: Oh.
Yang Sun: Don’t look at me like that!
Shui Ta: How precisely is my cousin to live?
Yang Sun: Oh, you’ll think of something.
Shui Ta: A small request, Mr. Yang Sun. Leave the two hundred silver dollars here until you can show me two tickets for Peking.
Yang Sun: You learn to mind your own business, Mr. Shui Ta.
Shui Ta: I’m afraid Miss Shen Te may not wish to sell the shop when she discovers that…
Yang Sun: You don’t know women. She’ll want to. Even then.
Shui Ta (a slight outburst): She is a human being, sir! And not devoid of common sense!
Yang Sun: Shen Te is a woman: she is devoid of common sense. I only have to lay my hand on her shoulder, and church bells ring.
Shui Ta (with difficulty): Mr. Yang Sun!
Yang Sun: Mr. Shui Whatever-it-is!
Shui Ta: My cousin is devoted to you… because…
Yang Sun: Because I have my hands on her breast. Give me a cigar. (He takes one for himself, stuffs a few more in his pocket, then changes his mind and takes the whole box.) Tell her I’ll marry her, then bring me the three hundred. Or let her bring it. One or the other. (Exit.)

Yang Sun out right tells Mr. Shui Ta that Shen Te is dumb and that he is not really in love with her, but he is just going to use her to get what he wants. Shen Te hears all of these things and still decides to marry him. How can she be so naive when she already knows that the only reason Yang Sun is there is to get the three hundred from her and then he is going to take his mother with him to Peking. Not worrying about how Shen Te is to make a living after giving everything she has to him. She even goes all the way to actually getting ready to marry him.
How can she want to be with a man who has no love for her and not even look at the man who is willing to give up all he has for her and her good will, I guess a little bit of the irony here is that Shen Te has fallen in love with Yang Sun, Who doesn’t love her back, and Shu Fu has fallen in love with Shen Te and she doesn’t love him either. But yet in the end Shen Te is forced to choose Shu Fu in order to keep her business running and because he is the only one who offers her the money to pay for- anything she needs. Which leaves Yang Sun in the same predicament that he started of in, with no money to become a pilot and looking for a way to get the rest of his money, but not only that she thinks she is pregnant with Yang Sun's son. Which if she tells Shu Fu of this it will mess up her chances of getting the money and the help she most desperately needs to get back on her feet and to pay back everyone who she was in debt to.

Alter Ego

Bertolt Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuah introduced a very confused, yet determined character. Shen Te, the prostitute whom the gods have deemed the only “good” person in the world, seems to have the problem of being too good. She is unable to deny those who need assistance, even though they take advantage of her goodness. Throughout the play, not once does Shen Te display any aggravation or complain about giving everything she's worked for to those less fortunate; she helps everyone to the best of her ability without hesitation. Shen Te's cousin, Shui Ta, on the other hand, is not bad, but he is rash: He does what he feels is necessary and logical in order to help his Shen Te. It is not until the end of the play, however, that we come to know that Shui Ta is really Shen Te in disguise.


When Shui Ta reveals himself as Shen Te to the gods in the courtroom, the gods are still convinced that she is good. Even when she confesses:

SHEN TE: … I am she!... 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 not to eat is to die/ Who can long refuse to be bad?/ As I lay prostrate beneath the weight of good intentions/ Fuin stared me in the face/ It was when I was unjust that I ate good meat.../ Why are bad deeds rewarded?/ Good ones punished?/ I enjoy giving/ I truly wished to be the Angel of the Slums.../ The time came when pity was a thorn in my side/ And, later, when kind workds turned to ashes in my mouth. And anger took over/ I became a wolf/ Find me guilty, then, illustrious ones.../ For your great, godly deeds, I was too poor, too small. (102).

Shen Te is trying to explain that no one can be good because it is too hard on them. Helping others is good, but you can only help so many and for so long. This is why Shen Te came up with an alter ego: Shui Ta. Because she would disguise herself as Shui Ta, she was able to release some of the anxiety that she dealt with as Shen Te. Also, as Shui Ta, she was able to preserve some of what Shen Te had worked hard for herself without ruining the good image she had as Shen Te. Even then, the gods accept Shen Te and her alter ego and head back to heaven to announce that there is a good person in the world and leave her, only advising that she not use Shui Ta so often.

This whole episode was meant to show that there are good people, but people are also self absorbed. The gods understand this, and this is why they did not reprimand Shen Te. Her intentions were good, but she could not get past the fact that she herself needed things too. A good person is one who puts other before themselves, which Shen Te did, but she could not keep it up which is why she concocted the alter ego of Shui Ta. Either the gods saw nothing wrong with this, or they were exhausted in searching the world for a good person and settled for Shen Te.


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

Who Is Good?

Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Woman of Setzuan is a very humorous play. The idea of three gods in search of a good person in order to prove that religion still exists is hilarious, especially when the gods say that this dispute is being held in heaven as well. What raised the bar, however, is the fact that the only “good” person they can find in several towns is a prostitute and she is the one that is giving the gods hope that there are good people still in the world. The whole idea of a prostitute carrying out gods will makes for a good plot, especially when the gods know her profession.
FIRST GOD: ... You proved that good people still exist, a point that has been disputed as of late—even in heaven.

SHEN TE: Stop, illustrious ones! I’m not sure you’re right. I’d like to be good, it’s true, but there’s the rent to pay. And that’s not all: I sell myself for a living... I should love to stay with one man. But how? How is it done? Even breaking a few of you commandments, I hardly manage.

FIRST GOD (clearing his throat): These thoughts are but, um, the misgivings of an unusually good woman! (10)

It is as if the first god wishes to quickly leave before they find out that Shen Te is not a good woman after all; they’re willing to settle for “good enough” and quickly leave before they can change their minds. Then they are stopped and obligated to give her money, even though it is not allowed of gods. The first god, after throwing money in her hands, that “...there’s no law against it! It was never decreed that a god musn’t pay hotel bills!” (11).

The satire continues as we are introduced to characters who are only concerned about themselves. Shen Te does good with the money, although she is often accused of letting people walk all over her. She decides to invest in a tobacco shop (apparently people need their cigarettes when the economy’s down). When Shen Te needs someone to vouch for her reputation, a lady off the street helps her concoct a “cousin” to put all the weight of the business on. But Shui Ta, the invented cousin, turns up on the doorstep of the tobacco shop. He turns out to be very harsh compared to Shen Te and ends up kicking them all out just to have Shen Te welcome them back with open arms soon after.

This is a funny play that can go in any direction. Shen Te does appear to be good, but I wonder what will happen when she marries. She claims that she is in love, but she only just met the man. When she was under the tree with Yang Sun, he caressed her cheek and said,” You’re easily satisfied, I must say” (36). Shen Te is good in the eyes of the gods right now, but she may not be able to keep it up for long.

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

I thought God took care of us?

Growing up in a Christian household, my family always made it seem as of God was this amazingly rich higher being. They always told me that he had a palace waiting for me in heaven and that his huge kingdom had golden roads and crystal waters. As a young girl I was obviously excited and couldn’t wait to get to heaven so that I could finally be rich. But, at the beginning of Bertolt Brecht’s play, The Good Woman of Setzuan, the Gods exchange a few words that confused this long time belief.

SHIN 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.
THIRD GOD: One moment. Isn’t it true she might do better if she had more money?
SECOND GOD: Come, come! How could we ever account it Up Above? (11)

The first thing that came to mind when, on page 11, the Second God mentioned, “Up Above,” was heaven. But, the way they said it made it seem as if they didn’t have very much money to spare and that they stayed away from everyone’s finances. This was nothing like what I had been taught when I was younger. It really confused me at first because I kept asking myself, “Isn’t God SUPPOSED to take care of us?!” But, then I remembered that my AP English teacher, Susan Davis, told us that this play was a satire when she handed it out. But growing up, my parents always told me that it wasn’t right to “play” with things about God. So, why is Brecht doing it? Is it okay to say these things about God? Or am I just misinterpreting Brecht’s writing when he’s not really doing that what I’m accusing him of?

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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lexrex/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

What are they aiming at?

In the American society, we go through a hierarchy. The people at the top are doctors, lawyers, or scientists, while the people at the bottom are the homeless, the drug addicts, and women of the streets, or prostitutes. In his play, The Good Woman of Setzuan, Bertolt Brecht appears to switch this around, and makes the prostitute the person at the top of the list. Even though the play doesn't take place in America and it isn't related to American culture, this is still very strange.
Shen Te is a prostitute in Setzuan. The play revolves around her and the three gods. These three gods came to Setzuan to see who still believed in them. The gods say:

SECOND GOD: What did I tell you?
THIRD GOD: It could be pure coincidence.
SECOND GOD: The same coincidence in Shun, Kwan, and Setzuan? People just aren't religious anymore, lets face the fact. Our mission has failed. (7)

The gods feel like no one cares anymore and they are looking for a good person. When Wong, the water seller, is going from house to house asking people if they had room for the gods in their homes, everyone said no because they didn't want to, except Shen Te. Being a prostitute, she works by attending to men, and even though a man would be at her house that day, she said that she would let the gods come in. When the gods do enter her house, they declare her a good woman, and she denies their declaration. She tells them her story and why she does the things she does, and the gods feel sorry for her and try to help her pay the rent on her house.
What is strange in this play is that the gods claim that people aren't religious anymore. That they don't believe the gods exist, but they are right in front of them. If seeing is believing, what's the problem? Why aren't the people religious? It is clear that there is a problem with a dam, but even now if there's an earthquake or a hurricane, we don't stop believing in God. I will admit that there are times in my life when I ask why so many bad things happen, and even if I say well these are the consequences that we pay for our action, there are times where the people that suffered the consequences did no bad deeds. For example, the earthquake in Haiti. Those people go through hurricanes and all sorts of things every year, they are the poorest country in the west, but they still have tragedies. How could they deserve punishment year after year after year? This also happens in my personal life when I ask why did that happen? And as much as I try to figure out what I did to receive a punishment of the caliber, I can't figure it out. This is what might be happening in Setzuan, but just because I can't figure it out, I don't stop believing in God, so why have the people of Shun, Kwan, and Setzuan stopped believing in their gods?
One person, at least, still believes in the gods, and she is also a good person even though her profession indicates otherwise. When the gods reappear in Wong's dreams he tells them of all of Shen Te's good deeds, and the gods are happy. That is another strange thing in this play. As humans we tend to rely on God, those of us who believe, but the play makes it seem like the gods rely on humans.
I don't really know where this play is going. Hopefully we'll know once the second half of the play is read.

Works Cited

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

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.

Possible Satire...

"Mr. Shin: I've got to have it. Strip the clothes from my back and then cut my throat, will you? I know what I'll do: I'll dump my children on your doorstep!" (13)

Not only this strange piece of (what I regard as sacarsm) writing boggles my mind a bit, but the obvious recognition of the book's characters; they are all named after their occupation: Brother, Wife, Husband, and my favorite- An Old Whore. At this point I don't know what exactly the writer had in mind when "naming" his characters. Is it all part of the satire play? Or are they just names in the simplest form created for the audience to be able to follow along easily? I as a reader found myself lost and could not picture the characters in my head...maybe the names are too generic?

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.

The Contemptuous Saint

WONG: ...There's only one left. Shen Te, the prostitute. She can't say no....
WONG: 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.
WONG: Can't you forget about for tonight?
SHEN TE: The rent has to be paid by tomorrow or I'll be out on the street.
WONG: This is no time for calculation, Shen Te.
SHEN TE: Stomachs rumble even on the Emperor's birthday, Wong.
WONG: Setzuan is one big dung hill!
SHEN TE: Oh, very well! I'll hide till my gentleman has come and gone. Then I'll take them.

Often in society, judgmental and cruel, the majority has a tenancy to look down upon those in rather questionable circumstance or indulging in questionable activity. As the “authorities” on life and morality, we often find ourselves condemning others. But, who are we to condemn another human being when it God in the end who makes the final judgment? There are people in society that have adopted the view that once a fabric is stained, it is worthless and forever the garment of contempt. In Bertolt Brecht's The Good Women of Setzuan, Shen Te, a mere prostitute, like prostitutes in general, are condemned for their contemptuous profession.
In Bertolt Brecht's The Good Women of Setzuan, when Wong goes door to door looking for someone to take in the gods, we see just how people are when it comes to doing for others and get a better overall view of the way people are in today's society. Who's to say who's a admirable person or not? Obviously, no being made of flesh and blood. It was a was ironic that as Wong went about looking for a single admirable person to take in the gods, he found himself intrusting Shen Te with the gods. It is ironic that prostitutes are viewed as immoral people, but in this case, she is the only truly admirable person Wong could find. I found it fascinating that she hid until the gentleman came and went, missing out on her money needed to sustain and maintain her living situation. In my eyes, that's a selfless act that deserves respect.

The Prostitute is The Good Woman

As Wong is looking for someone that will take the gods in, we see that no one seems to want to take them. Finally, Shen Te, a prostitute, accepts to take them in. The author writes:

WONG: 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)

The fact that the good woman that takes the Gods in is a prostitute is ironic; I find this to be satire. Even more ironic is that the gods think she’s a great woman, despite her profession and even reward her with money.

Later, she proves even more her benevolence. When Mrs. Shin asks for help to feed her children, Shen Te gives rice. When the family that took her in when she first arrived from the country and put her out when her out “her purse was empty” (8) comes asking for asylum, she says to them, “Come in, and welcome, though I’ve only one little room for you it’s behind the shop” (13). Even though they threw her out, she took them in welcoming, proving how good of a person she is. Once again she proves herself to be a fine woman when a man asks for a cigarette, and she gives it to him for free because he says it will make him new man.

Usually, we tend to think of prostitutes as bad women or at least as woman who are not the best kind of person. Yet, here we are presented with the idea that a prostitute can be the best human being. Wong says to the gods that she is “the finest human being in Setzuan!” (9).

This goes against what we would normally think. The satire here challenges and attacks very passively the idea that a prostitute can’t be a good woman. It tries to change that idea by showing that a prostitute can be a good human being.

The satire of love

On page 45 after Mr. Shu Fu hurts the man's hand he happens to gaze upon Miss. Shen Te as she passes by. He looks at her and then turns to his audience and says, “ It surprises me how beautiful Miss. Shen Te is looking today! I never gave her a passing thought before. But now I’ve been gazing upon her comely form for three minutes! I begin to suspect I am in love with her. She is overpoweringly attractive! Be off with you, rascal!” What I found funny was the fact that he has just met the women for the first time really and he already thinks that he is in love with her after 3 minutes. That kind of love is not even shown in the movies.
Right before Mr. Shu Fu is another interesting part. It starts at the bottom of page 44 and continues at the top of page 45. Here Shen Te is talking about her day and going into to town she says, “How wonderful to see Setzuan in the early morning!....Good morning, Wong, I’m quite lightheaded today. On my way over, I looked at myself in all the shop windows. I’d love to be beautiful”. This is not the first thing that we would suspect for a person to say when they say they looked in all the shop windows. You would think they would say they saw something that they wanted to buy or a cute pair or shoes something closer to that. Instead she says how she wishes that she was beautiful, and what’s even more interesting is that right after that Mr. Shu Fu says how Shen Te’s is so beautiful looking and that he has fallen in love with her in the first 3 minutes of seeing her.