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Summary
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
On market day in the London neighborhood of Soho, a ballad singer entertains the bustling square with a moritat, or murder ballad, about a recent spate of killings. Though everyone knows a gangster called Macheath, or “Mackie the Knife,” is responsible, the man is so slick and accomplished that he can never be tied to his crimes. Whereas sharks’ teeth are on display and their fins are spattered with blood after they kill, Macheath keeps his knife concealed, wears fine white gloves, and “slips round […] corner[s]” with ease after he’s killed his victims. Mackie kills the rich and the poor alike, murdering children and raping women with impunity. As the crowd delights in the ballad, a man slips from the crowd and walks away. A prostitute named Ginny Jenny exclaims that Macheath himself has just walked past, escaping once again.
The prologue introduces not just the character of Macheath and his exploits, but the kind of environment in which such a person thrives. Macheath seems to have no qualms about committing violent crimes as long as he gets away with them. Brecht is creating a character who does what he needs to do to survive in a corrupt world—and, for better or worse, that means living a corrupt existence.
Themes
