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Prologue
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Threepenny Opera, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Greed, Selfishness, and Corruption
Love and Sex
The Ravages of Capitalism
Theater, Archetypes, and Artifice
Summary
Analysis
Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum has created an establishment called The Beggar’s Friend—it is a shop where the poor can by clothes and accessories to give them an “appearance that will touch the stoniest of hearts.” As Peachum opens up shop for the day, he addresses the audience and tells them that his business is a hard one. The business of “trying to arouse human pity” is difficult because of humanity’s capacity to “make themselves heartless at will” when exposed so constantly to their fellow man’s hardships.
To hammer home Peachum’s point, a large piece of cardboard is lowered down onto the stage. Upon it is written the phrase “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Peachum laments that it’s harder and harder for beggars to think up “stirring sayings” to paint on their signs when there are only “four or five” Biblical phrases that can really touch the heart. Beggars always have to be coming up with something new to get through to people.
Peachum’s comic monologue continues as he laments that there is nothing real that can get through to people anymore—his speech is a commentary on the degree of isolation and artifice that characterizes both his own society and Brecht’s as well.
Themes
Someone knocks on the door. Peachum opens it, and a young man called Filch enters. He delivers a sob story about having been neglected by his drunkard mother and gambler father in childhood, forced to fend for himself all his life. As his speech goes on, Peachum starts finishing the man’s sentences for him. Peachum asks if Filch ever gives this speech in public. Filch says that just yesterday, on Highland Street, he had a “nasty little incident” while reciting it. Peachum chastises Filch for begging in such a spot. He warns Filch that if he’s is seen there again, he’ll “have to use the saw” on him. Without a license—which is only granted to “professionals”—Filch will have to watch where he begs.
This passage makes it clear that Peachum is just as bad as the rich snobs he excoriates. He has no empathy for anyone—but in a world like this one, where anyone might be spinning a story to make a quick buck, it’s hard to blame him for his cynicism or the ways in which he’s attempted to profit off the corruption all around him.
Themes
Peachum points to a large map of London in the corner of the shop and explains that the city is divvied up into 14 districts—without a license from Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum and Company, no one can work the “begging-trade” in any of them. Filch offers Peachum two shillings in exchange for a license, but Peachum demands one pound. When Filch protests, Peachum points to another cardboard sign bearing the trite phrase “Give and it shall be given unto you.”
This passage shows how Peachum uses his own rhetoric, constructed to wheedle money out of the rich, for the converse purpose as well: to extort money from the poor and desperate.
Themes
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Filch offers Peachum ten shillings. Peachum demands that plus a percentage of Filch’s weekly earnings. Finch agrees. Peachum calls for his wife, then urges Filch to get started right away, before the Queen’s coronation. He pulls back a curtain revealing several shabby outfits designed to induce the “unnatural state of mind in which a man is actually willing to give money away.” Peachum describes the outfits one by one, then assigns Filch Outfit C: “Victim of the Industrial Boom. The Pitiable Blind.” When Filch himself displays empathy for the blind, however, Peachum changes his mind and assigns Filch Outfit D. He hands the clothes over to Filch, who balks at putting them on as they’re “rather dirty.”
This passage shows how empathy is a liability in this world. Filch himself is not as badly off as he could be—he still has his sight. When he refuses to exploit the plight of the blind for his own purposes, Peachum grows frustrated with him—Peachum doesn’t understand how anyone could possibly put real empathy over their own self-interest.
Themes
As Filch gives in and changes behind a screen, Peachum works to add stains to another outfit in the lineup. He asks his wife, who has come downstairs, where their daughter Polly is—and whether she’s with the suitor who only comes by when Peachum is out. Mrs. Peachum defends the gentleman, whom she refers to as “the Captain,” and his interest in Polly. Peachum rails against the idea of Polly—who is “nothing but a mass of sensuality”—marrying. Peachum sees marriage as a “disgusting business.”
Peachum’s disdain for his daughter’s budding identity as a woman reflects the play’s own contempt for the forces of love and sex—distractions, in Peachum’s eyes and perhaps in Brecht’s, from the real work of keeping oneself alive.
Themes
Mrs. Peachum insists that the Captain is a perfect gentlemen who always wears immaculate white gloves. Peachum asks if the man carries a stick with an ivory handle, wears spats, and has a scar. Mrs. Peachum asks how her husband knows all this, but before he can answer, Filch comes out from behind the screen, thanking Peachum for the clothes. Peachum tells him to get out on the streets and start begging—the days before the coronation are lucrative and not to be wasted. As soon as Filch is out the door, Peachum tells his wife that the man she’s describing is none other than Macheath.
This passage shows how Macheath has developed the perfect artifice to disguise who he truly is. As Peachum and his wife realize that their daughter is entangled with none other than Macheath, Brecht sets up the play’s central moral quandary (if it can be called that, given all the characters’ lack of morals.) Peachum is a corrupt individual, but still sees himself above the likes of the dangerous Macheath—the tension between the two men and their claims of ownership to Polly will form the central drama of the opera.
Themes
Peachum runs upstairs to look in on Polly’s bedroom. He comes back down and reports that her bed is undisturbed. Mrs. Peachum says she hopes that Polly is having dinner with another suitor. Peachum says he hopes so, too—for all their sakes. Peachum and his wife together sing “The I-For-One Song,” describing their fears about their daughter’s penchant for going out and having “fun”—they worry the moon is to blame for her restless spirit.
This passage introduces the play’s only symbol—the moon—and ties it to the theme of love and sex. Peachum and his wife hope they can save their daughter from corruption before it’s too late—an ironic point of view, given the morally devoid household in which she’s come of age.
Themes
