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.

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.