Greed, Selfishness, and Corruption Theme Analysis

The Threepenny Opera is full of greedy, corrupt characters—men and women who lie, steal, cheat, and bribe their way through the world. Yet as Bertolt Brecht introduces these assorted denizens of the London underworld, he refrains from casting judgement upon their survival tactics, even when those tactics are unfair or immoral. In The Threepenny Opera, Brecht ultimately argues that a society built on greed, selfishness, and corruption essentially forces its people to become similarly greedy, selfish, and corrupt in order to get by.

Throughout the play, Brecht uses a cast of characters who are corrupt in both practices and morals to outline the different ways in which a capitalist society run by greedy, selfish individuals breeds a new crop of greedy, selfish individuals from the bottom up. In doing so, Brecht shows how living in a debased and immoral society forces people to sink to the level of the status quo in order to survive. Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum’s run-down emporium, The Beggar’s Friend, is a major example of dishonesty and greed as a means of survival. The establishment is a place where people seeking to outfit themselves as beggars—whether out of necessity or experimentation—can buy dirty clothes, cardboard signs, and even false stumps designed to give one the appearance of being an amputee, all designed to elicit pity from wealthier people. Peachum profits off of other people’s woe and misfortune as he sells licenses to beg, yet he’s gleeful about his total financial control over the beggars of London. The cold and calculated Peachum takes a percentage from every beggar he licenses and analyzes which Bible verses, when scrawled on signs, might induce the most “misery” in passersby and convince them to spare some change. Peachum is a corrupt, greedy individual through and through. He selfishly thinks of emotion and empathy only in terms of how they might financially benefit him. Yet Brecht is careful to show how Peachum is a product of his environment. With poverty and disaffectedness so rampant throughout London, it makes sense that the only way to survive is to find a way to profit off the suffering of others. Peachum knows the kind of world he lives in: in Act 3, he declares that as he’s spent many “sleepless nights working out how to extract a few pence from […] poverty,” he’s realized that the rich are “weaklings and fools.” Peachum has nothing but contempt for the rich, but also knows that they have nothing but contempt for the likes of him. Therefore, he’s come up with a way to provide for his family and profit off the status quo—even though he’s had to stoop to a new level of corruption to do so.

Macheath and his gang represent yet another example of how individuals living in a corrupt society must turn to corrupt means in order to get by: the gang members steal and kill, commit arson and larceny, and generally create mayhem. But Brecht often appears to celebrate their gains throughout the opera, showing how Macheath and his thugs have found a way to gain not only material success, but the fear and thus respect of their community. In a corrupt society obsessed with a monarchy that cares nothing for the working class, Macheath and his gang have found a way to profit off of society’s fixation on the upcoming coronation of the queen, committing crimes while the masses are distracted. Macheath and his gang know that their society is unfair and unjust—and figure that they might as well make out like bandits while they can. Macheath is a former army man who has witnessed society’s corruption from the an insider’s perspective: he’s seen how the royal army recruits good men and sends them to their deaths, how the police turn a blind eye to injustice, and how the rich ignore the plight of the poor. Thus, he knows that the only way to make something of himself is to become a major player in the London underworld, amassing a reputation built not on the bourgeoisie’s arbitrary markings of success, but instead on the hard-won respect and fear of others like him.

Another way Macheath and his gang turn to corruption within an already-corrupt society is by making bargains with the cops of London—most notably the sheriff Tiger Brown, an old army buddy of Macheath’s, and the changeable Constable Smith, always eager to accept a bribe. The thugs and the cops form a symbiotic bond: the cops agree to let Macheath’s gang get away with their crimes as long as the thugs give them a percentage of their earnings. In return, the cops tip Macheath off when a raid is coming. This relationship is a symptom of a corrupt society which moralizes without actually pursuing justice, thus creating individuals who know they can get away with nearly anything if they offer the right price.

As Brecht parades a set of characters of loose moral values and behavior before his audience, he is careful never to pass judgement upon them. Brecht shows how a society which is corrupt at every level breeds individuals who have no choice but to resort to greed, subterfuge, and crime just to survive. The Threepenny Opera is a scathing social critique of societies and governments which skate by on immorality—never stopping to consider the wider, deeper effects of institutional corruption.