Brecht 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 any identification one may chance to make. The indiscernible use 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 found 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 there is an offbeat that one would find difficult to tap one’s foot to so one cannot become involved or relate to the music, although songs from The Threepenny Opera became very popular. The moon being likened to ‘green cheese’ as a slur on society’s 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 individual interest. All these songs are successful in alienating the audience and have a similar message; the impossibility of a society being saved by an individual. Brecht strives to create a drama in which empathy plays little part by drawing one’s attention away from any kind of identification one might make, particularly with…
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… our own society and one wishes to challenge it. One is actually allowed to come to one’s own conclusions freely and critically particularly through the eyes of the overwhelmed Shen Te who has to invent a ruthless 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 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.
The Use Of Vulgarity in the Works of Allen Ginsberg
The Use Of Vulgarity in the Works of Allen Ginsberg
The beat poets were the voice of a generation. Unadulterated honesty and truth is a primary objective of the beat poets, and to them this honesty and truth is best achieved with a raw, oftentimes vulgar language that can make some readers uncomfortable. In this excerpt from his book, Allen Ginsberg, Thomas Merrill comments on the truth exhibited by the poet:
…such a commitment to internal truth not only permits but demands the uninhibited confessions that tend to make conventional readers squirm. Many beat writers, especially Ginsberg, flaunt their most intimate acts and feelings…in an aggressive street language (2).
In Ginsberg’s collection of poems, Reality Sandwiches, 1953-1960 , “The reader gets a good taste of Ginsberg’s mouth… which, as usual is uninhibitedly and often flamboyantly honest (Merrill 88). The unabashed honesty in this collection often concerns sex and drugs, those subjects being important for this generation of rebellion. In “The Green Automobile,” a poem about a fantasy road-trip enjoyed by Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, his one time lover, Ginsberg presents images of a sexual nature. Two of the images follow:
I’d honk my horn at his manly gate,
inside his wife and three
children sprawl naked
on the living room floor.
(Ginsberg, Reality Sandwiches 11)
Neal, we’ll be real heroes now
in a war between our cocks and time:
(15)
Even if some readers pay little attention to the allusions to homosexuality, one of the images, the one concerning Cassady’s children, could make some readers uncomfortable. The imagery here is strong, it is this strength of imagery that …
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…s “Howl” and “On Neal’s Ashes” the vulgarities are used not merely for effect, but to truly convey the feeling he wishes to express. Although some are made to feel uncomfortable, the true nature of the poet is to convey feeling, and this is done in an extremely proficient manner.
Works Cited
Ginsberg, Allen. Reality Sandwiches 1953-1960. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1963.
– – – . “Howl”. Contemporary American Poetry-5th Edition. Ed. A.Poulin Jr.. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. 175-182.
– – – . “America”. Contemporary American Poetry-5th Edition. Ed. A.Poulin Jr.. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. 182-184.
– – – . “On Neal’s Ashes”. Contemporary American Poetry-5th Edition. Ed. A.Poulin Jr.. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. 188.
Merrill, Thomas. Allen Ginsberg. Boston: Twayne, 1988.