In the impoverished village of Setzuan, thievery and bribery abound. The village is ruled by money, much like the wider world beyond it. Bertolt Brecht, a playwright whose poems, plays, and operas all wrestle with the role of capitalism and greed in contemporary society, uses The Good Woman of Setzuan to suggest that money, capitalism, and corruption are significant factors as to why immorality is so pervasive. Capitalist society, Brecht argues, is an environment in which one can only advance by taking advantage of others. Bad deeds are rewarded and good ones are punished—and money and capital, Brecht suggests, is at the root of humanity’s inability to “refuse to be bad.”
Many of Brecht’s other plays examine the role of greed, capitalism, and corruption—but in The Good Woman of Setzuan, Brecht makes one of his plainest and yet most profoundly frustrated statements about the fundamental impossibility of reconciling humanity’s desire to act morally with the impossibility of being a truly good friend, neighbor, lover, or employer under the burdensome weight of capitalism. At the start of the play, Shen Te is working as a prostitute in order to survive. She knows that selling her body is immoral—but she is also aware that there is no other way for her to make ends meet. Still, the gods overlook Shen Te’s profession and they declare her an “unusually good woman.” They reward her for her decision to take them in when no one else in town would by paying her a large sum of money—a sum that will allow her to stop working as a prostitute and open up a shop of her own. Shen Te believes that if she becomes a business owner, she will be earning money in a more respectable way—but she quickly discovers that there is no ethical way of making money under capitalism, a system which requires the exploitation of the poor in order to feed the greed of the rich. As Shen Te opens up her tobacco shop, she soon finds that her relative financial privilege makes her a beacon for her needy neighbors who seek food, shelter, and favors from her. As Shen Te works to keep her neighbors afloat while simultaneously fending off financial demands from her landlady Mrs. Mi Tzu, a carpenter, and an unemployed man, Shen Te finds herself lamenting that when a lifeboat comes for one person, others “greedily / Hold onto it [even] as they drown.” Brecht uses Shen Te’s early struggles with money, greed, and corruption to show that in spite of her struggle to be good to her neighbors, kindness and generosity are always taken advantage of. Everyone around Shen Te is struggling—and in a world where the wealthy few hoard monetary resources while the working class suffers, Shen Te must choose whether to protect her own interests and betray her neighbors or be pulled back into poverty and despair.
Brecht deepens Shen Te’s struggle as Shen Te creates an alter ego—Shui Ta, a “cousin” from a faraway province—to do the ruthless deal-brokering that Shen Te herself feels incapable of doing as a woman who is supposed to be generous and blandly, blithely “good” above all else. As Shui Ta becomes a necessary presence in Shen Te’s life more and more often, Brecht charts Shen Te’s descent into greed and the pursuit of capitalistic, patriarchal power. Shui Ta himself admits that “one can only help one of [one’s] luckless brothers / By trampling down a dozen others,” yet he continues amassing capital in the forms of wealth, property, and social control over his employees and neighbors as he expands Shen Te’s humble tobacco shop into a large factory conglomerate with dozens of employees. Soon, Shen Te comes to see that her “bad cousin” represents all the social, economic, and political corruption that makes the world such a miserable place to live in for people like herself and her neighbors—toward the end of the play, there are even rumors that Shui Ta has bought a seat as a local Justice of the Peace. Shui Ta is a ruthless boss, a swindler, and a manipulator: all of the things that Shen Te knows are necessary for those who wish to succeed materially under capitalism, but all of the things that she as a “good” woman cannot herself embody. Shui Ta, then, becomes a tool through which Brecht can indict how society materially rewards the deeds of crooked bosses and landlords while ignoring the individuals who toil under terrible conditions.
In Shen Te’s climactic, soulful lament to the gods, she decries the fact that pity and empathy became a “thorn in [her] side” when it came time to choose between the good deeds for which she was punished with poverty and the bad deeds for which she was rewarded with wealth and power. By charting Shen Te’s struggle to be “good”—and her ultimate failure to do so—Brecht suggests that even those who work hard to rebel against the impulse to be greedy, materialistic, and self-serving often end up failing to remain moral in the face of capitalism’s intense pressures. Brecht’s sympathy (and indeed empathy) for Shen Te is undeniable—he, too, seeks answers to how humanity can possibly “help the lost [without becoming] lost ourselves.” In the end, Brecht characters aren’t given a suitable answer—yet Brecht does not end the play without reminding his audience that “moral rearmament” in the face of capitalism, greed, corruption, and materialism is perhaps the only way “to help good men arrive at happy ends.”
Related Themes from Other Texts
Greed, Capitalism, and Corruption ThemeTracker
Greed, Capitalism, and Corruption Quotes in The Good Woman of Setzuan
WONG: I sell water here in the city of Setzuan. It isn’t easy. When water is scarce, I have long distances to go in search of it, and when it is plentiful, I have no income. But in our part of the world there is nothing unusual about poverty. My people think only the gods can save the situation.
THIRD GOD: Good-bye, Shen Te! Give our regards to the water seller!
SECOND GOD: And above all: be good! Farewell!
FIRST GOD: Farewell!
THIRD GOD: Farewell!
SHEN 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: One moment. Isn’t it true she might do better if she had more money?
SHEN TE: The little lifeboat is swiftly sent down.
Too many men too greedily
Hold on to it as they drown.
FIRST GOD: Do us a favor, water seller. Go back to Setzuan. Find Shen Te, and give us a report on her. We hear that she’s come into a little money. Show interest in her goodness—for no one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand. Meanwhile we shall continue the search, and find other good people. After which, the idle chatter about the impossibility of goodness will stop!
SHUI TA: Miss Shen Te has been delayed. She wishes me to tell you there will be nothing she can do—now I am here.
WIFE (bowled over): l thought she was good!
NEPHEW: Do you have to believe him?
HUSBAND: I don’t.
NEPHEW: Then do something.
HUSBAND: Certainly! I’ll send out a search party at once.
[…]
SHUI TA: You won't find Miss Shen Te. She has suspended her hospitable activity for an unlimited period. There are too many of you. She asked me to say: this is a tobacco shop, not a gold mine.
SHEN TE: I want your water, Wong
The water that has tired you so
The water that you carried all this way
The water that is hard to sell because it's been raining.
I need it for the young man over there—he's a flyer!
A flyer is a bold man:
Braving the storms
In company with the clouds
He crosses the heavens
And brings to friends in faraway lands
The friendly mail!
THIRD GOD: Forgive us for taking this tone with you, Wong, we haven't been getting enough sleep. The rich recommend us to the poor, and the poor tell us they haven’t enough room.
SHEN TE: Your brother is assaulted, and you shut your eyes?
He is hit, cries out in pain, and you are silent?
The beast prowls, chooses and seizes his victim, and you say:
"Because we showed no displeasure, he has spared us."
If no one present will be witness, I will. I'll say I saw it.
SHEN TE: In our country
A useful man needs luck
Only if he finds strong backers
Can he prove himself useful.
The good can’t defend themselves and
Even the gods are defenseless.
Oh, why don’t the gods have their own ammunition
And launch against badness their own expedition
Enthroning the good and preventing sedition
And bringing the world to a peaceful condition?
[…]
She puts on SHUI TA’S mask and sings in his voice.
You can only help one of your luckless brothers
By trampling down a dozen others.
Why is it the gods do not feel indignation
And come down in fury to end exploitation
Defeat all defeat and forbid desperation
Refusing to tolerate such toleration?
YANG SUN: On a certain day, as is generally known,
One and all will be shouting: Hooray, hooray!
For the beggar maid's son has a solid-gold throne
And the day is St. Nevercome’s Day
On St. Nevercome’s, Nevercome’s, Nevercome’s Day
He'll sit on his solid-gold throne
Oh, hooray, hooray! That day goodness will pay!
That day badness will cost you your head!
And merit and money will smile and be funny
While exchanging salt and bread
On St. Nevercome's, Nevercome's, Nevercome's Day
While exchanging salt and bread
FIRST GOD: Our faith in Shen Te is unshaken!
THIRD GOD: We certainly haven’t found any other good people. You can see where we spend our nights from the straw on our clothes.
WONG: You might help her find her way by—
FIRST GOD: The good man finds his own way here below!
SECOND GOD: The good woman too.
FIRST GOD: The heavier the burden, the greater her strength!
THIRD GOD: We're only onlookers, you know.
WONG: It’s about the carpenter, Shen Te. He's lost his shop, and he's been drinking. His children are on the streets. This is one. Can you help?
YANG SUN: And the seven elephants hadn’t any tusks
The one that had the tusks was Little Brother
Seven are no match for one, if the one has a gun!
How old Chang did laugh at Little Brother!
Keep on digging!
Mr. Chang has a forest park
Which must be cleared before tonight
And already it's growing dark!
Smoking a cigar, SHUI TA strolls by.
WONG: Illustrious ones, at last you're here. Shen Te’s been gone for months and today her cousin's been arrested. They think he murdered her to get the shop. But I had a dream and in this dream Shen Te said her cousin was keeping her prisoner. You must find her for us, illustrious ones!
THIRD GOD: The place is absolutely unlivable! Good intentions bring people to the brink of the abyss, and good deeds push them over the edge. I'm afraid our book of rules is destined for the scrap heap—
SECOND GOD: It's people! They're a worthless lot!
THIRD GOD: The world is too cold!
SECOND GOD: It's people! They're too weak!
FIRST GOD: Dignity, dear colleagues, dignity! Never despair! As for this world, didn't we agree that we only have to find one human being who can stand the place? Well, we found her. True, we lost her again. We must find her again, that's all! And at once!
POLICEMAN: The evidence, in short, my lord, proves that Mr. Shui Ta was incapable of the crime of which he stands accused!
FIRST GOD: I see. And are there others who could testify along, shall we say, the same lines?
SHU FU rises
POLICEMAN (whispering to GODS): Mr. Shu Fu—a very important person.
FIRST GOD (inviting him to speak): Mr. Shu Fu!
SU FU: Mr. Shui Ta is a businessman, my lord. Need I say more?
SHUI TA: I only came on the scene when Shen Te was in danger of losing what I had understood was a gift from the gods. Because I did the filthy jobs which someone had to do, they hate me. My activities were restricted to the minimum, my lord.
SHUI TA: Shen Te… had to go.
WONG: Where? Where to?
SHUI TA: I cannot tell you! I cannot tell you!
ALL: Why? Why did she have to go away? […]
SHUI TA (shouting): Because you’d all have torn her to shreds, that’s why!
SHEN TE: 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?
SHEN TE: It was when I was unjust that I ate good meat
And hobnobbed with the mighty
Why?
Why are bad deeds rewarded?
Good ones punished?
I enjoyed giving
I truly wished to be the Angel of the Slums
But washed by a foster-mother in the water of the gutter
I developed a sharp eye
The time came when pity was a thorn in my side
And, later, when kind words turned to ashes in my mouth
And anger took over
I became a wolf
SHEN TE: What about the old couple? They’ve lost their shop! What about the water seller and his hand? And I’ve got to defend myself against the barber, because I don’t love him! And against Sun, because I do love him! How? How?
[…]
FIRST GOD (from on high): We have faith in you, Shen Te!
SHEN TE: There’ll be a child. And he’ll have to be fed. I can’t stay here. Where shall I go?
FIRST GOD: Continue to be good, good woman of Setzuan!
SHEN TE: But I need my bad cousin!
“How could a better ending be arranged?
Could one change people? Can the world be changed?
Would new gods do the trick? Will atheism?
Moral rearmament? Materialism?
It is for you to find a way, my friends,
To help good men arrive at happy ends.
You write the happy ending to the play!
There must, there must, there's got to be a way!”
