Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum Character Analysis

PEACHUM: Something new — that’s what we must have. My business is too difficult. You see, my business is trying to arouse human pity. There are a few things that’ll move people to pity, a few, but the trouble is, when they’ve been used several times, they no longer work. Human beings have the horrid capacity of being able to make themselves heartless at will.

MRS. PEACHUM: You’ve got a nice opinion of your daughter!

PEACHUM: The worst! The very worst! She is nothing but a mass of sensuality.

PEACHUM: Well, what do you want? What can I do about it if people have hearts of granite. I can’t make you five stumps! In ten minutes I can make such a wreck out of any man that a dog would howl if he saw him. What can I do if people won’t howl? There, take an­other stump, if one’s not enough for you.

PEACHUM: Come on, come on! You’d all be rotting in the sewers of Wapping if I hadn’t spent sleepless nights working out how to extract a few pence from your poverty. And I did work out something: that the rich of the earth indeed create misery, but they cannot bear to see it. They are weaklings and fools just like you. As long as they have enough to eat and can grease their floors with butter so that even the crumbs that fall from their tables grow fat, they can’t look with indifference on a man collapsing from hunger — although, of course, it must be in front of their house that he collapses.

PEACHUM: The law is simply and solely made for the exploitation of those who do not understand it or of those who, for naked need, cannot obey it. And who­ ever would pick up the crumbs of this exploitation must strictly obey the law.

PEACHUM: Go make yourself a plan
And be a shining light.
Then make yourself a second plan
For neither will come right.

For the situation
Men aren’t bad enough or vile.
Human aspiration
Only makes me smile.

Go running after luck
But don’t you run too fast:
We all are running after luck
And luck is running last.

For the real conditions
Men are more demanding than is meet.
Their ideal ambitions
Are one great big cheat.

PEACHUM: Therefore all remain standing where you are now and sing the chorale of the poorest of the poor, of whose difficult life you have shown us something today. In reality their end is generally bad. Mounted messengers from the Queen come far too seldom, and if you kick a man he kicks you back again. Therefore never be too eager to combat injustice.

ALL: Combat injustice but in moderation:
Such things will freeze to death if left alone.
Remember: this whole vale of tribulation
Is black as pitch and cold as any stone.

PEACHUM: Something new — that’s what we must have. My business is too difficult. You see, my business is trying to arouse human pity. There are a few things that’ll move people to pity, a few, but the trouble is, when they’ve been used several times, they no longer work. Human beings have the horrid capacity of being able to make themselves heartless at will.

MRS. PEACHUM: You’ve got a nice opinion of your daughter!

PEACHUM: The worst! The very worst! She is nothing but a mass of sensuality.

PEACHUM: Well, what do you want? What can I do about it if people have hearts of granite. I can’t make you five stumps! In ten minutes I can make such a wreck out of any man that a dog would howl if he saw him. What can I do if people won’t howl? There, take an­other stump, if one’s not enough for you.

PEACHUM: Come on, come on! You’d all be rotting in the sewers of Wapping if I hadn’t spent sleepless nights working out how to extract a few pence from your poverty. And I did work out something: that the rich of the earth indeed create misery, but they cannot bear to see it. They are weaklings and fools just like you. As long as they have enough to eat and can grease their floors with butter so that even the crumbs that fall from their tables grow fat, they can’t look with indifference on a man collapsing from hunger — although, of course, it must be in front of their house that he collapses.

PEACHUM: The law is simply and solely made for the exploitation of those who do not understand it or of those who, for naked need, cannot obey it. And who­ ever would pick up the crumbs of this exploitation must strictly obey the law.

PEACHUM: Go make yourself a plan
And be a shining light.
Then make yourself a second plan
For neither will come right.

For the situation
Men aren’t bad enough or vile.
Human aspiration
Only makes me smile.

Go running after luck
But don’t you run too fast:
We all are running after luck
And luck is running last.

For the real conditions
Men are more demanding than is meet.
Their ideal ambitions
Are one great big cheat.

PEACHUM: Therefore all remain standing where you are now and sing the chorale of the poorest of the poor, of whose difficult life you have shown us something today. In reality their end is generally bad. Mounted messengers from the Queen come far too seldom, and if you kick a man he kicks you back again. Therefore never be too eager to combat injustice.

ALL: Combat injustice but in moderation:
Such things will freeze to death if left alone.
Remember: this whole vale of tribulation
Is black as pitch and cold as any stone.