Page 22 - The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand Vol.XIII-2021

The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XIII – 2021

Bertolt Brecht’s parable play The Good Person of Szechwan (Der gute

Mensch von Sezuan, begun 1938 and completed around May 1940), has opened
a vivacious debate in the last years among scholars in the fields of literature from
different cultural environments. The drama deals essentially with a moral question:
how could someone with his intention to be decent then go on to become wicked,

egoistical and heartless?

The story begins with the Three Gods descending from heaven after having
heard people complaining about life, looking for a good person. Shen Te, a penniless
prostitute, is chosen to be the good person of Szechuan, because she is the only

one in town who offers them a place to sleep for a night. Having been rewarded
by the Gods, Shen Te is left with the ethical imperative “to be good” in the world.
She buys a tobacco shop with the god’s money, but soon, she finds herself exploited
and almost ruined because of her generosity and desire to help poor people of
Szechuan. Shen Te’s love for Yang Sun by funding his ambition to be a pilot in

Peking, endangers further her financial security. Therefore, Shen Te, as the Good
Person of Szechwan, has transformed herself three times into the invented
character of her cousin, Shui Ta, every time for practical reasons. This shows that she

is at all times in conflict with her sense of morality. With the opposite point of view
on moral represented through Shen Te and Shui Ta, Brecht has put the European
dialectic of the requirement of morality into question.

Several times, Bertolt Brecht has taken a close look at morality in his
previous dramas: In Dreigroschenoper (1928, Berlin), Brecht has parodied the

absurdity of the unmoral deeds of the wicked robber, Mackie Messer. Die heilige
Johanna der Schlachthöfe (The Holy Johanna of the Slaughterhouse, finished
1930, Berlin) and Die Ausnahme und die Regel (The Exception and the Rule, 1930,
Berlin) are regarded as anti-capitalist drama ‘par excellence’. The drama Leben des

Galilei (The Life of Galilei, 1938-39, Scandinavian), put exciting questions on moral
responsibility of a scientist under the influence of the Catholic Church. Galilei
had obviously found his solution for his existence and at the same time for the
scientific improvement. In Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and

her Children, 1941-43, Zürich), the audience was convinced of the nonsense of
wars, whose result would go back to the thrower like a “Boomerang”. It is evident,

12 Bertolt Brecht: “The Good Person of Szechwan” – Anti-Capitalist, Anti-buddhist?