The Threepenny Opera

by

Bertolt Brecht

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Greed, Selfishness, and Corruption Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Greed, Selfishness, and Corruption Theme Icon
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The Ravages of Capitalism  Theme Icon
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LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Threepenny Opera, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Greed, Selfishness, and Corruption Theme Icon

The Threepenny Opera is full of greedy, corrupt characters—men and women who lie, steal, cheat, and bribe their way through the world. Yet as Bertolt Brecht introduces these assorted denizens of the London underworld, he refrains from casting judgement upon their survival tactics, even when those tactics are unfair or immoral. In The Threepenny Opera, Brecht ultimately argues that a society built on greed, selfishness, and corruption essentially forces its people to become similarly greedy, selfish, and corrupt in order to get by.

Throughout the play, Brecht uses a cast of characters who are corrupt in both practices and morals to outline the different ways in which a capitalist society run by greedy, selfish individuals breeds a new crop of greedy, selfish individuals from the bottom up. In doing so, Brecht shows how living in a debased and immoral society forces people to sink to the level of the status quo in order to survive. Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum’s run-down emporium, The Beggar’s Friend, is a major example of dishonesty and greed as a means of survival. The establishment is a place where people seeking to outfit themselves as beggars—whether out of necessity or experimentation—can buy dirty clothes, cardboard signs, and even false stumps designed to give one the appearance of being an amputee, all designed to elicit pity from wealthier people. Peachum profits off of other people’s woe and misfortune as he sells licenses to beg, yet he’s gleeful about his total financial control over the beggars of London. The cold and calculated Peachum takes a percentage from every beggar he licenses and analyzes which Bible verses, when scrawled on signs, might induce the most “misery” in passersby and convince them to spare some change. Peachum is a corrupt, greedy individual through and through. He selfishly thinks of emotion and empathy only in terms of how they might financially benefit him. Yet Brecht is careful to show how Peachum is a product of his environment. With poverty and disaffectedness so rampant throughout London, it makes sense that the only way to survive is to find a way to profit off the suffering of others. Peachum knows the kind of world he lives in: in Act 3, he declares that as he’s spent many “sleepless nights working out how to extract a few pence from […] poverty,” he’s realized that the rich are “weaklings and fools.” Peachum has nothing but contempt for the rich, but also knows that they have nothing but contempt for the likes of him. Therefore, he’s come up with a way to provide for his family and profit off the status quo—even though he’s had to stoop to a new level of corruption to do so.

Macheath and his gang represent yet another example of how individuals living in a corrupt society must turn to corrupt means in order to get by: the gang members steal and kill, commit arson and larceny, and generally create mayhem. But Brecht often appears to celebrate their gains throughout the opera, showing how Macheath and his thugs have found a way to gain not only material success, but the fear and thus respect of their community. In a corrupt society obsessed with a monarchy that cares nothing for the working class, Macheath and his gang have found a way to profit off of society’s fixation on the upcoming coronation of the queen, committing crimes while the masses are distracted. Macheath and his gang know that their society is unfair and unjust—and figure that they might as well make out like bandits while they can. Macheath is a former army man who has witnessed society’s corruption from the an insider’s perspective: he’s seen how the royal army recruits good men and sends them to their deaths, how the police turn a blind eye to injustice, and how the rich ignore the plight of the poor. Thus, he knows that the only way to make something of himself is to become a major player in the London underworld, amassing a reputation built not on the bourgeoisie’s arbitrary markings of success, but instead on the hard-won respect and fear of others like him.

Another way Macheath and his gang turn to corruption within an already-corrupt society is by making bargains with the cops of London—most notably the sheriff Tiger Brown, an old army buddy of Macheath’s, and the changeable Constable Smith, always eager to accept a bribe. The thugs and the cops form a symbiotic bond: the cops agree to let Macheath’s gang get away with their crimes as long as the thugs give them a percentage of their earnings. In return, the cops tip Macheath off when a raid is coming. This relationship is a symptom of a corrupt society which moralizes without actually pursuing justice, thus creating individuals who know they can get away with nearly anything if they offer the right price.

As Brecht parades a set of characters of loose moral values and behavior before his audience, he is careful never to pass judgement upon them. Brecht shows how a society which is corrupt at every level breeds individuals who have no choice but to resort to greed, subterfuge, and crime just to survive. The Threepenny Opera is a scathing social critique of societies and governments which skate by on immorality—never stopping to consider the wider, deeper effects of institutional corruption.

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Greed, Selfishness, and Corruption ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Greed, Selfishness, and Corruption appears in each scene of The Threepenny Opera. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Greed, Selfishness, and Corruption Quotes in The Threepenny Opera

Below you will find the important quotes in The Threepenny Opera related to the theme of Greed, Selfishness, and Corruption.
Act 1, Scene 1 Quotes

PEACHUM: Something new — that’s what we must have. My business is too difficult. You see, my business is trying to arouse human pity. There are a few things that’ll move people to pity, a few, but the trouble is, when they’ve been used several times, they no longer work. Human beings have the horrid capacity of being able to make themselves heartless at will.

Related Characters: Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (speaker)
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 2 Quotes

POLLY (crying): All those poor people, just for a few bits of furniture!

MACHEATH: And what furniture! Junk! You’re right to be angry. A rosewood harpsichord — and a Renaissance sofa. That’s unforgivable. And where’s a table?

Related Characters: Macheath (speaker), Polly Peachum (speaker)
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:

MACHEATH: We were boyhood friends, and though the great tides of life have swept us far apart, although our professional interests are quite different — some might even say diametrically opposed — our friend­ship has survived it all. […] Seldom have I, the simple hold-up man […] undertaken the smallest job without giving my friend Brown a share of the proceeds (a considerable share, Brown) as a token and a proof of my unswerving loyalty to him. And seldom has the all-powerful Sheriff […] organized a raid without previously giving a little tip-off to me, the friend of his youth. […] It’s all a matter of give and take.

Related Characters: Macheath (speaker), Tiger Brown
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 3 Quotes

PEACHUM: Well, what do you want? What can I do about it if people have hearts of granite. I can’t make you five stumps! In ten minutes I can make such a wreck out of any man that a dog would howl if he saw him. What can I do if people won’t howl? There, take an­other stump, if one’s not enough for you.

Related Characters: Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (speaker)
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Related Characters: Polly Peachum (speaker), Mrs. Peachum (speaker)
Page Number: POLLY AND MRS. PEACHUM: We do not mind confessingThe whole thing is depressing.The world is poor and men are bad And we have nothing more to add. 40
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 3 Quotes

BROWN: I hope my men don’t catch him! Dear God, I hope he’s beyond Highgate Moor thinking of his old friend Jacky! But he’s thoughtless, like all men. If they should bring him in now, and he were to look at me with those faithful friendly eyes, I couldn’t stand it. Thank God, there’s a moon: once he’s out in the country, he’ll find his way all right.

Related Characters: Tiger Brown (speaker), Macheath
Related Symbols: The Moon
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:

MACHEATH: In spring I ask: could there be something to it?
Could not Macheath be great and solitary?
But then the year works round to January
And I reply: My boy, you’ll live to rue it.
Poverty makes you sad as well as wise
And bravery mingles danger with the fame.
Poor, lonely, wise and brave — in heaven’s name!
Good-bye to greatness! I return the prize
With this my repartee of repartees:
None but the well-to-do can take their ease.

Related Characters: Macheath (speaker)
Page Number: 57
Explanation and Analysis:

MACHEATH: What does a man live by? By resolutely
Ill-treating, beating, cheating, eating some
other bloke!
A man can only live by absolutely
Forgetting he’s a man like other folk!

CHORUS OFF:
So, gentlemen, do not be taken in:
Men live exclusively by mortal sin.

Related Characters: Macheath (speaker)
Page Number: 67
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 1 Quotes

PEACHUM: Come on, come on! You’d all be rotting in the sewers of Wapping if I hadn’t spent sleepless nights working out how to extract a few pence from your poverty. And I did work out something: that the rich of the earth indeed create misery, but they cannot bear to see it. They are weaklings and fools just like you. As long as they have enough to eat and can grease their floors with butter so that even the crumbs that fall from their tables grow fat, they can’t look with indifference on a man collapsing from hunger — although, of course, it must be in front of their house that he collapses.

Related Characters: Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (speaker)
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

PEACHUM: The law is simply and solely made for the exploitation of those who do not understand it or of those who, for naked need, cannot obey it. And who­ ever would pick up the crumbs of this exploitation must strictly obey the law.

Related Characters: Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (speaker), Tiger Brown
Page Number: 74
Explanation and Analysis:

PEACHUM: Go make yourself a plan
And be a shining light.
Then make yourself a second plan
For neither will come right.

For the situation
Men aren’t bad enough or vile.
Human aspiration
Only makes me smile.

Go running after luck
But don’t you run too fast:
We all are running after luck
And luck is running last.

For the real conditions
Men are more demanding than is meet.
Their ideal ambitions
Are one great big cheat.

Related Characters: Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (speaker), Tiger Brown
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 3 Quotes

POLLY: Mackie, are you very nervous? Who was your father? There’s so much you haven’t told me. I don’t understand it at all: you were really always quite healthy.

MACHEATH: Polly, can’t you help me out?

POLLY: Of course.

MACHEATH: With money, I mean.

Related Characters: Macheath (speaker), Polly Peachum (speaker)
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:

MACHEATH: The outlaws, bandits, burglars, gunmen
All Christian souls that love a brawl
Abortionists and pimps and fun-men
I cry them mercy one and all.

Except the coppers — sons of bitches —
For every evening, every morning
Those lice came creeping from their niches
And frequently without a warning.

Police! My epidermis itches!
But for today I’ll let that fall
Pretend I love the sons of bitches
And cry them mercy one and all.

Related Characters: Macheath (speaker)
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:

PEACHUM: Therefore all remain standing where you are now and sing the chorale of the poorest of the poor, of whose difficult life you have shown us something today. In reality their end is generally bad. Mounted messengers from the Queen come far too seldom, and if you kick a man he kicks you back again. Therefore never be too eager to combat injustice.

Related Characters: Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (speaker)
Page Number: 96
Explanation and Analysis:

ALL: Combat injustice but in moderation:
Such things will freeze to death if left alone.
Remember: this whole vale of tribulation
Is black as pitch and cold as any stone.

Related Characters: Macheath (speaker), Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (speaker), Polly Peachum (speaker), Mrs. Peachum (speaker), Tiger Brown (speaker), Ginny Jenny (speaker), Lucy Brown (speaker), Constable Smith (speaker), Money Matthew (speaker), Hook-finger Jacob (speaker)
Page Number: 96
Explanation and Analysis: