Character Background Analysis: Shen Te

-       Prostitute. Had to turn to prostitution to provide for herself. It conflicts with the idea of being good. She’s still good to others but herself

-       Good person. She has a reputation around the town of being a good person, but still easily taken advantage of, and so when she finally has money and gets the shop people all know that they are able to leech off of her someway

-       Came from country to the city

-       Never truly felt love, so when Yang sun finally shows her affection and attention she is almost hypnotized by it. When Yang Sun tells his true intentions to Shui Ta, Shen Te is not affected.

-       Is pushed around a lot by other. Possibly due to self confidence issues and being unsure of herself

-       Has trouble being assertive and respected because of being a woman and so that is possibly one of the reasons she turned to prostitution in the first place.

-       Family from the countryside

-       The fact that she had to do something as bad as prostitution I think felt the need to makeup for it by doing a lot of good to everybody.

Shen Te, the good soul of Schezuan, at first seems like a pretty straightforward character. A girl who did nothing but good to others but unfortunately had turned to prostitution to support herself. Although this is true, as always, there are more layers to people than what’s on the surface.

She’s a well-known person in Schezuan for being such a good being and for being someone that people could ask for help from. Because of this reputation, however, (and the nature of humans to take whatever helps us survive) Shen Te is taken advantage of by a lot of people in the duration of the play. She also must’ve been taken advantage of during her times of being a poor prostitute (before she met the Gods) because of the manner in which Wang knew that he was able to just go and casually ask Shen Te to take in the Gods, whereas with the other people that he asked he was polite and had a kind of salesman attitude towards asking them to take the Gods in. It’s somewhat humorous but also extremely eye opening that the people who take advantage of Shen Te throughout the play are people who didn’t even know her too well or who didn’t want to be associated with her in the past (For example the wife and the Husband had known her when she first moved into the city and their readiness to send her off as soon a they weren’t able to make any profit off of her). There were also people that were ready to take advantage of her that she hadn’t even met before (relatives such as sister-in-law, niece, etv.) and this really reflects the attitude of the people in that society and the cultural norms in the kind of culture that Schezuan would’ve been associated with (Chinese culture). Also, as bad as it may sound for me to say this, I think this kind of behavior towards taking advantage of others is behavior that is very much prominent in Asia (or at least Korean) culture. I say this because of my past experiences with this kind of attitude and what I’ve witnessed the harm money has done for the relationships between my parents and my Korean relatives (My mother and her siblings being VERY split in half because of money issues that they all had with each other. For example, only last year my auntie who my parents very much dislike and who I hadn’t spoken to in 7 years called me up to ask my father to lend her money). I think it’s little things such as this that makes it somewhat important to set the play in a Chinese setting because of the cultural differences (although it does occur in western culture, just not as much).

Shen Te’s relationship with Wang is quite an interesting one because it seems as though they are friends and have a really good relationship, trust each other, and can talk to each other easily. They don’t even interact that much during the play but you get this kind of friendship feel from their few interactions during the play.

As Shen Te mentions when the Wife and Husband are first introduced, she came to the city of Schezuan from the countryside a few years ago. One can only assume that her family and her parents are from the countryside so they probably had an upbringing on a farm. There are many reasons that would’ve made Shen Te emigrate to the City: family problems, financial problems in the family (possibly from not making enough money on farming or on whatever trade her family specialized in), not enough resources such as food, space and water, or something referred to in geography as the “bright lights syndrome” where people are drawn to city because of it glorification and expectation of a better life but then can end up living in poorer conditions than their previous lives.

I can’t help but feel that the fact that Shen Te falls so easily for Yang Sun (who doesn’t love her back and is also trying to take advantage of her) has something to do with her younger years and her never truly feeling love from another man or even possibly just from her family. She has never really had attention been paid to her (possibly because of her constant goodness to others) so that when someone, Yang Sun, finally does pay attention to her she is hypnotized by the idea and the feeling of it and doesn’t want it to go away. This is the way with anybody when they fall in love, but what makes it different with Shen Te and what makes her unable to see that it isn’t really love could be because of the fact that she doesn’t know any better because she’s never experiences love before.

Part of her being pushed around easily by others could have to do with her not being too sure of herself as a person and having self confidence issues. This makes her struggle to be assertive and strict to others; especially in an environment of characters with huge personalities. Another possible reason that she struggles to be assertive could have something to do with her just being a woman and the difficulty of being respected by men that comes with being a woman (especially at the time that the play was written and with Brecht’s history and attitudes towards women). This, along with inability to get money from other sources, may be on the factors that pushed her into prostitution. In addition to Shen Te just being a good person, there could also be a part of her that wants to do good because of the guilt that came with her going into prostitution.

Although all these factors make Shen Te out to be a miserable person, I truly believe Shen Te’s one of those people that doesn’t let any of her problems get to her and buries her problems and conflict under good, unselfish deeds and leads to her being a generally happy person. Her family life or life of working could’ve also led to her not being able to evaluate herself as a person and who she wants to be at a younger age and so she is dealing with the consequences now by her having these little behavioral aspects that make her unable to look after herself. One interpretation of the play that I have, is that these little problems that she buries slowly surface in the duration of the play and that is the reason of her creation of Shui Ta; to be able to face these problems, and these people who take advantage of her, without ruining the goodness of Shen Te. (All this could be both consciously or unconsciously. I think the latter because of her genuine willingness to help people.)