The Caucasian Chalk Circle :: essays research papers

The whiteness Chalk CircleThe Caucasian Chalk Circle by Brecht uses heroic theatre to bring forth an idea ormeaning for the audience to consider magical spell entertaining the audience. Epic theatre involves the use of alienation techniques to distance the watcher from the story but still concentrate on the overall meaning. The soul who just views the story would likelytake it as fantasy and non reach the true depth of the play. Brecht shocks the viewer by ma great power the events and actions in the play "strange and abstract" this contrasts with dramatic plays where the audience sympathises and relates to the characters of the play. The theme end-to-end the play is natural umpire versus class umpire. The title has links to different allegorys and stories before it. The Chalk Circle, a Chinese play involved a legal action where the false phone callant was granted custody due a bribe to claim her dead husbands estate. This however was overturned by the emperor, th e security of the law, in a retrial as the emperor was the father. This particular story is a whisper to the result of Grushas trial. The emperor is portrayed as the epitome of justice and gives a true verdict. The trial scene is also adapted from the parable of King Solomon. Solomon the paragon of justice and truth oversees the trial of two mothers, cardinal child is dead the other alive, they seek custody of the alive child. The king asks the child to be cut in half, the real mother relinquishes her claim and thus gains custody of her rightful child. In these two whispers the law is shown to be equated with justice, however Brecht seeks to highlight that deep down Grusinia this is notthe case and it takes a miserly Azdak who despises the upper classes to give a justverdict.The class justice presented in the novel has close links to the Marxist view of the law, with the law component part all, but in reality it protects and secures the interests of the ruling classes. The play seeks to emphasise that within this class justice the poor can onlygain justice under exceptional circumstances. Azdak as the stress and arbiter of justice has surface to this position only through a matter of chances and mistakes. Firstly he harbours the Grand Duke from Shauva, then he confesses to the Ironshirts only to be made judge because the Duke escaped.