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    The Good Woman of Setzuan Summary

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    DEBLINA ACHARYYA
    The document provides background information on German playwright Bertolt Brecht and his play The Good Woman of Setzuan. It discusses that Brecht began writing the play in 1938 while in exile from Nazi Germany, and it premiered in 1943 with music by Früh. Brecht's career rose during the Weimar Republic but he fled Germany in 1933 under Nazi rule. The Good Woman of Setzuan examines whether it is possible to survive as a good person in a capitalist society through the story of a Chinese prostitute who shelters gods and struggles with people taking advantage of her kindness. Brecht aimed to encourage social action through his epic theatre style of engaging audiences in thinking critically rather than becoming immersed in the story.

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    The Good Woman of Setzuan Summary

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    DEBLINA ACHARYYA
    239 views8 pages
    The document provides background information on German playwright Bertolt Brecht and his play The Good Woman of Setzuan. It discusses that Brecht began writing the play in 1938 while in exile from Nazi Germany, and it premiered in 1943 with music by Früh. Brecht's career rose during the Weimar Republic but he fled Germany in 1933 under Nazi rule. The Good Woman of Setzuan examines whether it is possible to survive as a good person in a capitalist society through the story of a Chinese prostitute who shelters gods and struggles with people taking advantage of her kindness. Brecht aimed to encourage social action through his epic theatre style of engaging audiences in thinking critically rather than becoming immersed in the story.

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    The document provides background information on German playwright Bertolt Brecht and his play The Good Woman of Setzuan. It discusses that Brecht began writing the play in 1938 while in exile from Nazi Germany, and it premiered in 1943 with music by Früh. Brecht's career rose during the Weimar Republic but he fled Germany in 1933 under Nazi rule. The Good Woman of Setzuan examines whether it is possible to survive as a good person in a capitalist society through the story of a Chinese prostitute who shelters gods and struggles with people taking advantage of her kindness. Brecht aimed to encourage social action through his epic theatre style of engaging audiences in thinking critically rather than becoming immersed in the story.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    239 views8 pages

    The Good Woman of Setzuan Summary

    Uploaded by

    DEBLINA ACHARYYA
    The document provides background information on German playwright Bertolt Brecht and his play The Good Woman of Setzuan. It discusses that Brecht began writing the play in 1938 while in exile from Nazi Germany, and it premiered in 1943 with music by Früh. Brecht's career rose during the Weimar Republic but he fled Germany in 1933 under Nazi rule. The Good Woman of Setzuan examines whether it is possible to survive as a good person in a capitalist society through the story of a Chinese prostitute who shelters gods and struggles with people taking advantage of her kindness. Brecht aimed to encourage social action through his epic theatre style of engaging audiences in thinking critically rather than becoming immersed in the story.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    At a glance
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    The play examines whether it is possible to survive as a good person in a capitalist society and discusses Brecht's style of epic or dialectical theatre.

    The play is about a young prostitute named Shen Te in the Chinese city of Setzuan who shows kindness to three visiting gods and uses the money they give her to open a tobacco shop, but struggles as people take advantage of her generosity.

    Verfremdungseffekt refers to Brecht's concept of 'alienation effect' or 'estrangement effect' which was meant to discourage viewers from becoming immersed in the story and encourage them to think critically.

    The Good Woman Of Setzuan Summary & Study

    GuidePlot Summary

    German playwright Bertolt Brecht


    began writing The Good Woman of
    Setzuan in 1938 but did not finish
    the play until 1941, when he was
    living in exile in the United States
    due to Nazi rule and World War II.
    The play first opened in Switzerland
    in 1943 with a score by Huldreich
    Georg Früh, but the most
    commonly produced and studied
    iteration of the play featured music
    by German composer Paul Dessau.
    Brecht’s career came to
    prominence during the Weimar
    Republic, a brief period (1918-1933)
    in Germany following World War I
    in which there was a flourishing of
    art, science, and democracy. When
    Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich
    seized power in 1933, the Weimar
    Republic was replaced with
    dictatorship and much of its art and
    artists were marked as anti-
    German. Like many German artists,
    Brecht fled Germany in 1933 to
    avoid persecution.
    Like most of Brecht’s plays, his
    Marxist ideals heavily
    influenced  The Good Woman of
    Setzuan. The play is about a young
    prostitute named Shen Te in the
    Chinese city of Setzuan. When a trio
    of gods appear in the city, they are
    on a journey to find a good person
    to demonstrate that humanity is
    worth saving. Shen Te shows that
    she is good by being the only
    person willing to take them in for
    the night. In return, the gods pay
    her for the room. She uses the
    money to buy a tobacco shop.
    Immediately, the poor and
    unemployed begin to take
    advantage of Shen Te’s kindness
    and charity. About to lose her store,
    Shen Te disguises herself as a
    shrewd and ruthless cousin named
    Shui Ta. Shui Ta makes all the
    unpopular decisions so Shen Te can
    remain good. The Good Woman of
    Setzuan questions whether it is
    possible to survive as a good
    person in a capitalist society.
    Brecht called his work epic or
    dialectical theatre, which does not
    refer to the size or scale of the
    productions, but to his style of
    engaging with the audience. Rather
    than encouraging audiences to
    suspend disbelief or become
    immersed in the story, Brecht’s
    plays push audiences to think and
    comprehend. He endeavored to
    show the world as it is to spur
    audiences to take social action. To
    this end, Brecht popularized the
    concept of Verfremdungseffekt,
    which translates as “alienation
    effect” or “estrangement effect.”
    This means that to discourage
    viewers who might otherwise lose
    themselves in the story, he
    incorporated conventions that
    would constantly remind them that
    they are at the theatre. These
    conventions include speaking
    directly to the audience, showing
    the mechanisms behind the design
    and effects, and using music to
    make the production feel less
    realistic. Additionally, actors were
    required to play characters without
    “becoming” them, and the design
    elements were minimalist to avoid
    a realist aesthetic.

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