CPL310 09/24/2004 More on An Enemy of the People: -- the doctor and his brother the mayor differ on what they mean by "for the good of the town" -- Act 3: editorial office -- Dr S thought he had the support of the newspaper publishers; initially they were, but now that Dr S is seen as an enemy of the people, they won't to offend public opinion -- Petra, the doctor's daughter, keeps coming to the truth -- the mayor is upset that the scandal will cost the people money -- people's belief in the truth is a big theme in our works this quarter; they get surprised that the truth isn't always welcomed -- hypocrisy vs truth -- is truth too dangerous for society -- Dr S misunderstand the people, thinking the majority is with him -- Dr S wants to rent a hall to tell the public his news in a meeting -- Act 4 -- no one will rent him a hall but Capt Horster will let him use his big house -- people debate about how the meeting will be run -- Dr S says that public opinion has been poisoned (also a reference to the water) -- Dr S's great discovery -- majority is worst enemy to truth & freedom (this is what Isbsen thought) -- minority is always right, new truths -- fundamental truth -- masses vs distinguished few -- Dr. S sees himself as an ?bermensch (Nietsche's term for the few) -- true evils in society are: stupidity, poverty, ugliness -- the meeting takes a vote to suppress Dr S -- Act 5 -- family deserted by landlord, Petra's employer (the school), Horster's employer, Dr's employer (the Baths) -- people throwing rocks through windows -- Morten Kiil (father-in-law) gives ultimatum -- boys are getting beat up at school -- clip from TV production of this play -- Arthur Miller's adaptation Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956 -- born in Augsberg -- died in East Berlin -- 1928 wrote The Threepenny Opera; produced in Das Theatre am Shiffbauerdamm (later the East Germans gave him that theater for the Berliner Ensemble) -- Threepenny Opera was based on John Gray's Beggar's Opera of 1728); helped by Elisabeth Hauptmann; added translations of poem from French poet Francois Viand?; it was a critique of bourgeois culture -- went around the world in exile from the Nazis -- Mother Courage and Her Children is about the Thirties Year War (1618-1648); she was a war profiteer whose three children die because of the war in various ways; she doesn't see that profiting from the play she must suffer from it too -- Kurt Weill was another of Brecht's collaborators; he wrote September Song and a popular play called Lady in the Dark -- most famous character in Threepenny Opera is Macheath (Mac the Knife); Bobby Darin did a popular Mac the Knife song (also a McDonalds commercial much later) -- early Brecht works show man as predator and prey (man devours man like the big fish the small fish); world view was world as jungle -- earlier play was In the Jungle of Cities -- he became a Marxist in the late 20s; capitalist West as jungle -- St. Joan of the Stockyards; parody on Joan of Arc; Joan Dark, a Salvation Army worker in the Chicago stockyards; she thought people could get ahead only at the expense of others --- after he became a communist, he hoped for renewal of society; he believed in science (social science), reason and Marxism -- Die Wahrheit is Konkret (Truth is Concrete) is a sign he carried with him -- later he wrote anti-Nazi pieces (for Marxism but against National Socialism) -- though he lived to 1956, his best works were ten or so years before that, during his exile (later he was occupied with his East Berlin theater); also he wrote some pro-Stalin works to curry favor with his East German bosses -- his third phase of writing -- he wanted his theater works to create a dialog with the audience (a Dialektic) -- his last works were a synthesis of his earlier thoughts; man shows some virtues -- a couple of good poems; "To Our Successors" is to future generations and says that when man finally helps man and people are kind to one another, please look back on our generation with understanding (and then he describes his times); "remember us who changed countries more often than we changed our shoes" -- he lived to a great extent on royalties as he went around the world -- he worked on Galileo in the US during WWII; after Hiroshima he said that the whole bio of Galileo changed; scientists who give up their knowledge are the same (Galileo and the nuclear bomb scientists) -- another example of synthesis; Mother Courage's children are brave, honest and loving; first get lured into the army; he's executed during a truce for committing a crime that would have been hailed as bravery during the war; the second is executed by the enemy for not giving up the money he held as paymaster; the third (the daughter) is warning a city of impending attack and gets shot while warning from a hill </plaintext><br /></body></html>