Empathy in Brechts The Good Person of Szechwan and Mother Courage and

Little Empathy in Brechts The Good Person of Szechwan and Mother Courage and Her ChildrenBrecht is very successful in creating a form of drama where empathy plays little part. In The Good Person of Szechwan it would seem that every action and word is an attempt to alienate us and halt every identification cardinal may chance to make. The indiscernible mathematical function of names for characters exaggerating the oriental sound of them is immediately noticeable i.e. Wang, Shin Sun, Shen Te, Shu Ta, etc. There is also the use of language and intonation in relation to others revealing personality and social position, which comes in the form of oriental bows. Many of these gestures are already to be put together in Asian theatre. Brecht calls it the social gestus. Songs also interrupt the plot, but it is not the kind of bursting into song which one finds in musicals. The music itself sounds sometimes out of tune and in that respect is an unconventional that one would find difficult to tap ones foot to so one cannot become involved or relate to the music, although songs from The Threepenny Opera became very popular. The moon around being likened to green cheese as a slur on societys belief in a child of low birth will inherit the earth and The Song of the Eighth Elephant when there are really only seven anticipates the underhand actions of Sun who represents a number of people in society who destroy others welfare for their own psyche interest. All these songs are successful in alienating the audience and have a similar message the impossibility of a society being save by an individual. Brecht strives to create a drama in which empathy plays little part by drawing ones attention away from any kind of identification one might make, particularly with... ... our own society and one wishes to challenge it. One is actually allowed to come to ones own conclusions freely and critically particularly through the eye of the overwhelmed Shen Te who has to invent a ru thless cousin for herself who can save the business by applying the cruel laws of the market. But I find myself slightly swayed by sub-themes which do hint a little at identification and emotion. Works Cited Brecht, Bertolt. Mother Courage and Her Children. Worthen 727-751. Brecht, Bertolt. Collected Plays. London Methuen, 1970.Benjamin, Walter. Conversations with Brecht. Understanding Brecht. Trans. Anna Bostock. London New left(p) Books, 1973. 105-121.Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre. Ed. and trans. John Willett. New York Hill and Wang, 1992. Worthen, W.B. ed. The Harcourt Brace Anthology of Drama. 3rd ed. Toronto Harcourt, 1993.